Corpus evidence — top 10 passages

Most-relevant passages from the entire indexed corpus (67,286 paragraph chunks across YouTube transcripts, PubMed, arXiv, archive.org, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, OpenAlex, and more) ranked by semantic similarity (bge-small-en-v1.5).

1. 01 · blog0.757

   (For a parallel discussion, see Posterior Analytics I 22.) On such an account, Aristotle is showing the opponent that if she wants to reject PNC she must pick out the same object and say that contradictory predicates apply, but if she does not mean anything definite by “human being”, for example, then she will be unable to pick out a subject of predication, for example, a human being, and say that contradictory predicates apply. Saying that an individual human being is a human being and not a human being, where the first means “two-footed animal” and the latter means something different is not…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

2. 02 · blog0.756

   One controversy surrounds the precise content of their conclusions and what exactly is presupposed. Should one conclude that the world must be a certain way or merely that we have to think that it is a certain way, in order to have the experience and thoughts at issue? The modern debate finds its counterpart in debate among scholars about what Aristotle is aiming to do in his elenctic discussion. There are two main possibilities. Aristotle may be aiming to show that the ontological version of the principle of non-contradiction is true, or he may be aiming to show merely that it cannot be disbe…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

3. 03 · blog0.756

   And Ackrill, it would seem, is being polite. Montgomery Furth has said: ‘I shall largely dispense with questions like…the rationale (if there be one) for comprehending into a single category the monstrous motley horde yclept Quality…’ (Furth 1988). It must be admitted, that Aristotle’s list of the species in quality is at first blush a bit odd. For instance, why should we consider any of the species listed as falling directly under quality? Indeed, when Aristotle lists the species, he does not follow his usual procedure and provide the differentiae that distinguish them. If there are such diff…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

4. 04 · blog0.751

   When a human being ceases to be a human being, she dies. By contrast, when her hair is dyed a different color, she survives. In an earlier work, Aristotle distinguishes essence, for example the necessary property of being rational for a human being, from accident, for example, being asleep, and from distinctive properties, those necessary properties that are explained by rationality but are not part of the human essence, for example, the capacity to learn a language ( Topics I 5). It is a puzzling feature of the argument of Metaphysics IV 4 that distinctive properties are not explicitly mentio…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

5. 05 · blog0.749

   It may seem odd to quote Aquinas at such length in an essay devoted to Aristotle’s categories, but I have done so for two reasons. First, as Ackrill’s and Furth’s comments illustrate, Aristotle’s scheme has been severely criticized by scholars and philosophers alike. Aquinas’s comments about quality, however, show that in the hands of a truly talented interpreter — and there certainly has been no interpreter of Aristotle greater than Aquinas — many of the criticisms can be met. Second, and more importantly, the attention that Aquinas gives to the category of quality is indicative of one of the…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

6. 06 · blog0.747

   They see contraries coming into existence out of the same thing, and infer that the same thing must have had contrary properties. Aristotle introduces his distinction between the potential and the actual to dispel their confusion. An object can be potentially F and potentially not F , but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time. Other philosophers are led by the argument from conflicting appearances to accept conclusions that violate PNC or lead to general scepticism. Aristotle presents the argument as follows: There are three sorts of cases of conflicting appearances: Thin…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

7. 07 · blog0.747

   Where does matter fit, if at all, in the categorial scheme? When did Aristotle write the Categories ? Did Aristotle write the Categories ? Is the list of kinds in the Categories Aristotle’s considered list, or does he modify his views elsewhere? Is Aristotle’s view of substance in the Categories consistent with his view of substance in the Metaphysics ? Is there some method that Aristotle used in order to generate his list of categories? Is Aristotle’s categorialism philosophically defensible in whole or in part? If only in part, which part of categorialism is philosophically defensible? Given…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

8. 08 · blog0.747

   So, for instance, human is prior in substance than body. Whether this is to be interpreted in terms of the greater reality of the kind human is an open question. Nonetheless, Aristotle’s equating an increase in generality with a decrease in substantiality is at least in spirit strongly anti-Platonic. There is one other interesting general feature of this scheme that is worth pointing out before looking at its details. Aristotle’s rejection of the view that being is a genus and his subsequent acceptance of ten distinct highest kinds leads to a doctrine concerning being itself that is at the cen…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

9. 09 · blog0.746

   The universal whiteness is said-of many primary substances but is only accidental to them. 1.5 A Recent Debate The way in which I have characterized the concepts of said-of and present-in is, as I have said, natural and relatively straightforward. Moreover, it was by far the orthodox interpretation amongst Aristotle’s Medieval interpreters. I would be remiss, however, were I not to mention the recent debate started by G.E.L. Owen about the said-of/present-in distinction (Owen, 1965a). According to Owen, Aristotle did not accept the existence of non-substantial particulars. Instead, Owen argues…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

10. 10 · blog0.746

    Consistent and Inconsistent Change If a changing thing has different and incompatible properties then a contradiction is threatened. The obvious move to make when confronted with the fact that things change, is to say with Kant (1781) that they change in relation to time, which avoids the inconsistency. But then another problem emerges. In what sense can one thing persist through change? Identity across time and space is the mark of universals, but we also account particulars such as billiard balls and persons as having self-identity across time. Aristotle’s views on the persistence of things …

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/change-and-inconsistency.md