I show how Aristotle’s theory of the priority of actuality and his theory of non-correlative actuality help prepare the way for his own positive account of the separate, non-sensible substances. Aristotle argues that actuality is prior to potentiality in Metaphysics [Theta]8, and in particular that actuality is prior in substance and in a more authoritative kind of way. I show how both of these arguments are to be understood, and how the more authoritative kind of priority (which is not substantial priority, as usually thought) is again appealed to in Metaphysics [Lamda]6 in order to draw important inferences about the primary principles. I also show how the theory of non-correlative actuality used in [Theta]8 is, just like the more authoritative kind of priority, again applied in [Lamda]6 in parallel kinds of ways. It turns out that the traditional interpretation which ascribes the notion of “pure actuality” to Aristotle is mistaken, and this comes to light once Aristotle’s theory of non-correlative actuality is properly understood and the texts are properly interpreted. / text

Thesis advisor: John Sallis / This project sets out to answer the following question: according to Aristotle, what does movement contribute to or change about being? The first part works through the argument for the existence of movement in the Physics. This argument includes distinctive innovations in the structure of being, notably the simultaneous unity and manyness of being: while material and form are one thing, they are two in being. This makes it possible for Aristotle to argue that movement is not intrinsically related to what is not: what comes to be does not emerge from non-being, it comes from something that is in a different sense. The second part turns to the Metaphysics to show that and how the lineage of potency and activity the inquiry into movement. A central problem is that activity or actuality, energeia, does not at first seem to be intrinsically related to a completeness or end, telos. With the unity of different senses of being at stake, Aristotle establishes that it is by showing that activity or actuality is movement most of all, and that movement has and is a complete end. Thus, it is movement that leads Aristotle to conclude that substance and form are energeia, and that unity of being is possible. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

No description available.

Le titre de ma thèse est “Matter and Explanation. On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Η”. Le but de cette recherche est de montrer la profonde unité argumentative du livre H (livre VIII), considéré habituellement comme un ensemble d'appendices au livre livre Z, qui le précède. Dans mon travail, conformément à la tendance dominante dans la littérature spécialisée des dernières années, je pars de l'indication donnée par M. Burnyeat dans “A Map of Metaphysics Ζ” (2001). D’après Burnyeat, H achèverait l'analyse de Z en développant le nouveau point de départ dans l'étude sur la substance établi dans le chapitre Z17. Dans ce texte, on considère la substance comme « principe et cause » et, par conséquent, on recherche « la cause pour laquelle la matière est quelque chose ». Cette indication a été utilisée jusqu'à présent pour voir en H l'endroit où ce principe serait appliqué. H aurait ainsi un rôle didactique, explicitant le principe méthodologique établi en Z17. Dans mon travail, je vise à montrer que l’attitude d’Aristote à propos de la notion de substance ne se borne pas, dans le livre H, à une simple synthèse exposant des résultats préalablement acquis. J’estime, au contraire, qu’il procède à une révision profonde du statut de substantialité qui est celui de la matière, c'est-à-dire du sujet ontologique, dont il s’agit alors d’expliquer l'organisation. Cette révision concerne les critères de référence, utilisés dans Z, qui avaient différemment contribué à imposer une lecture déflationniste de la notion de ὕλη. Dans H, au contraire, la matière est abordée en tant que sujet physique sous-jacent aux changements et à travers son rôle dispositionnel à l'intérieur des composées biologiques. Cette perspective de recherche s'accomplit en H6, où Aristote montre la supériorité explicative de son hylémorphisme par rapport à la doctrine platonicienne des Idées. / The main aim of my work – “Matter and Explanation. On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Η” – is to show the argumentative unity of Book Η (VIII), which has been usually regarded as a mere collection of appendices to the previous Book Ζ. In my thesis I take on the main suggestion provided by M. Burnyeat in “A Map of Metaphysics Ζ” (2001). According to Burnyeat, Η accomplishes the enquiry of Ζ by developing Ζ17's fresh start into the analysis of sensible substances. Starting from Ζ17, Aristotle regards the notion of substance in its explanatory role as “principle and cause” and, as a consequence, he searches for “the cause by reason of which a certain matter is some definite thing”. Burnyeat's suggestion has been so far followed in order to look at Η as at that place where this search is accomplished. Thus, Η would play a didactical-expository role. In my work I aim at showing how in Book Η Aristotle does not confine himself to a mere exposition of the previous outcomes. By contrast, he provides a deep revision of the status of matter's substancehood. Namely of that ontological subject whose organization must be explained. Such a revision concerns those criteria, which in Book Ζ have provided a deflationary reading of the notion of ὕλη. On the contrary, in Η matter is read as subject of physical changes and in its dispositional role within the biological wholes. Such a framework is accomplished in Η6, where Aristotle shows the explanatory primacy of his own hylomorphism over the Platonic Doctrine of Forms.

Master of Arts (MA)

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-15T15:32:45Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese-Suzana-Sampaio-FINAL.pdf: 6605275 bytes, checksum: e0bcf21443cd69e66bc00f3eca56e242 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T15:32:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Tese-Suzana-Sampaio-FINAL.pdf: 6605275 bytes, checksum: e0bcf21443cd69e66bc00f3eca56e242 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-11 / Nowadays studies confirm that changes continue to occur in project management in both the practitioner and research fields. Organizations increasingly use projects and project management discipline to achieve business objectives but results often fall short of goals. Although project management has become a core business process for many organizations at strategic and operational level, there is still much to understand about project actuality in software development organizations. Besides, much is written about how to manage projects, but too little on what really happens in Project Actuality. Project Actuality debut in the Rethinking Project Management (RPM) agenda in 2006 aiming at understanding what really happens at project context. This research intends to understand, explain and explore this phenomenon. In order to understand the challenges faced by software project nowadays, we have to go beyond the triple constant (effort, cost and scope), its processes and technology. In pursuance of project management we must understand team’s context, routine, problems, organizational culture, the entire project actuality phenomenon. Traditional theories used to understand and explain the world of management make different assumptions about actuality, scientific knowledge, ethics, values and context. This research’s main objective is to create an approach to investigate, observe and analyze software project actuality and to support team reflection and project rethinking, and by using the approach, unveil the findings of six small software development organizations. The finding will give visibility on project actuality in six organizations, its projects and teams. Even though the findings are context dependent, some causes, effects, disturbance factors can help the understanding of this sector and assist researches and practitioners to see new ways of thinking project management. In order to achieve that goal, an Exploratory Review (ER) and a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) were conducted on project actuality. Based on the knowledge acquired on the ER and SLR, an approach was defined and refined enabling us to observe, analyze and understand project actuality and its contexts. Six case studies using the approach were conducted in order to refine the approach and to explain the critical issues surrounding the actuality in software projects management in micro and small organizations. Action research helped the team to engage on reflection and action, in order to evolve as project and organization based on the project actuality observed. / Atualmente estudos confirmam que mudanças continuam a ocorrer na gestão de projetos tanto no ambiente acadêmico quando no profissional. Cada vez mais, as organizações usam projetos para atingir seus objetivos de negócios. Mesmo assim, os resultados muitas vezes ficam aquém dos objetivos esperados. Apesar da gestão de projetos ter se tornado um processo de negócio tanto no nível estratégico quanto no operacional, ainda há muito o que entender sobre a realidade dos projetos em organizações de desenvolvimento de software. A "Realidade de Projetos" debutou na rede de pesquisa Project Management Rethinking (RPM) em 2006, que buscava repensar a gestão de projetos. Para compreender os desafios enfrentados por projetos de desenvolvimento de software nos dias de hoje, precisamos ir além da restrição tripla (custo, prazo e escopo) e o seu processo ou tecnologia envolvida. Para gerenciar projetos precisamos entender como os membros da equipe do projeto reagem à rotina diária, aos problemas, contexto, cultura organizacional, todo o fenômeno da realidade dos projetos. Teorias tradicionais usadas para compreender e explicar o mundo da gestão de projetos fazem diferentes suposições sobre a realidade dos projetos, o conhecimento científico, a ética, os valores e o contexto onde ocorre a gestão do projeto. O objetivo principal deste trabalho é criar uma abordagem para investigar, observar e analisar a realidade de projetos de software e para apoiar a reflexão da equipe do projeto. E ainda, através do uso da abordagem, dar visibilidade ao fenômeno da realidade de projetos em seis pequenas organizações de desenvolvimento de software. Mesmo que os resultados dependam do contexto, algumas causas, efeitos, fatores de perturbação percebidos e analisados podem ajudar na compreensão deste setor, além de apoiar pesquisadores e profissionais no repensar da gestão de projetos. Para atingir esse objetivo, uma pesquisa exploratória (ER) e uma revisão sistemática da literatura (SLR) foram realizadas sobre a realidade de projetos e como observá-la. Com base no conhecimento adquirido com a ER e a SLR, foi definida e refinada uma abordagem que nos permite observar, analisar e compreender a realidade dos projetos e seus contextos. Seis estudos de caso utilizando a abordagem foram conduzidos a fim de refinar a abordagem e explicar as questões críticas em torno da realidade na gestão de projetos de software em Micro e Pequenas Empresas (MPEs). A abordagem prevê também uma etapa de reflexão e intervenção, executada com apoio de pesquisa-ação, onde as equipes se engajam em reflexão e ações, a fim de evoluírem como projeto e organização, com base na realidade observada.

This dissertation explores the interaction between modality and aspect in Makkan Arabic (MA). There is some consensus in the semantic literature regarding the treatment of modal expressions that may obtain various flavours, such as epistemic, deontic, bouletic, ability, necessity or teleological. These various modal flavours can be captured by a unified lexical entry, and are identified by contextual factors Kratzer (1977, 1981, 1991, 2012). There is some debate regarding the structural location of modal elements, some of which have been argued to be high (the case of epistemic modals) and others low (the case of root modals) (e.g. Cinque (1999)). The relative scope of modals has been subject of much recent work on modality, in particular in relation to their interaction with temporal categories such as aspect. This thesis investigates this topic on the basis of novel data from MA. I observe that the flavour of modality can change depending on how it is inflected with different types of aspect in MA. This observation is in line of Hacquard; Hacquard; Hacquard’s (2006; 2009; 2014) proposal for French and Italian. In MA, when the root modal \gdr\ “can” is inflected with the perfective, the combination yields entailments that have come to be known in the literature as ‘actuality entailments’ (AEs) (see Bhatt (1999, 2006)). In this case, the speaker gives rise to the inference that the proposition expressed by the complement holds in the actual world (instead of merely in some possible but not actual world). My thesis integrates the case of \gdr\ to current cross-linguistic debates on this topic. Building on Hacquard’s work, I argue that AEs are generated when perfective aspect scopes over root modals. Perfective aspect links events to the actual world. Imperfective aspect scoping over the modal fails to generate AEs. My thesis ex- ii tends the investigation of AEs to non-perfective cases. I argue that in addition to the contrast between perfective and imperfective, MA also distinguishes perfect aspect (e.g. an auxiliary plus a modal participle like gaadir). I suggest that the perfect in MA has several shapes, including the choice between two auxiliaries: kaan and saar. I link the different shapes of the perfect to the different types of interpretation identified by Portner (2000, 2003) for the English perfect. I suggest that in MA, different forms of the perfect are linked to distinct interpretations (which in English are grouped together under one form). In addition I show that, contrary to what has been argued by Hacquard for French, the perfect in MA can give rise to AEs in the case of the saar auxiliary. I develop an analysis of the saar perfect that is inspired by Hacquard’s proposal for perfective: in the case of saar, contrary to kaan, the perfect links the eventuality to the actual world. While the discussion of AEs in relation to the modal \gdr\ are linked to the proposal that aspect scopes over the modal, I also examine the case of a modal expression that scopes over aspect: qad “might”. I show that in spite of the fact that aspect scopes below the modal, the contrast between perfective and imperfective in the embedded clause can still give rise to differences in the generation of AEs. This case is interesting because much previous literature on AEs has focused on languages in which aspect scopes over the modal. MA qad provides an example where the modal scopes over aspect, and it is still the case that AEs appear to be generated. In spite of the structural differences with \gdr\, my analysis of qad builds on Hacquard’s proposal for AEs with the perfective, appealing to her proposal for the ‘preservation of event description’ to account for the fact that properties of eventualities can remain stable across worlds. The structure of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the empirical domain, situating aspect and modality in the description of MA; in addition it iii provides an introduction to key theoretical concepts to be used in later chapters. Chapter 2 discusses AEs in the case of the root modal \gdr\, comparing perfective and imperfective. Chapter 3 extends the discussion of the modal to examples with the perfect, distinguishing between the kaan- and saar- perfects. Chapter 4 investigates the behaviour of qad and its interaction with perfective and imperfective complements. Chapter 5 offers a brief summary and concluding remarks.

En enchâssant notre étude dans la conceptualité aristotélicienne de l’accomplissement processuel de l’être, nous voulons ouvrir une voie qui permette de renouveler le dialogue manqué entre Hegel et Heidegger. En effet, nous voulons démontrer que les divergences fondamentales entre les deux philosophes allemands quant au mouvement, à la modalité et au temps se laissent comprendre à partir de leurs interprétations, adaptations et transformations des notions de puissance et d’acte. Dans un premier temps, nous mettons en contraste les deux modèles – celui des actes immanents et celui des mouvements transitifs – de la puissance et de l’acte chez Aristote, qui nous serviront ensuite à éclairer la divergence entre les interprétations de Hegel et de Heidegger. Dans un second temps, nous examinons les interprétations de ces termes dans les nombreux cours donnés par les deux philosophes sur le Stagirite. Nous nous tournons ensuite vers les pensées propres des philosophes afin de démontrer leur dépendance envers la conceptualité cinétique d’Aristote, aussi bien que les limitations qu’ils y trouvent et qui les amènent à la trahir. Il s’avère que Hegel, porté vers l’antériorité et l’immanence de l’acte compris comme le mouvement circulaire et intemporel de la dialectique, aboutit à une modalité qui ressemble à celle des Mégariques. Heidegger, de son côté, comprend le discours aristotélicien de la production comme une proto-phénoménologie, mais le trouve cependant insuffisant pour conceptualiser le mouvement essentiel du Dasein, à cause de son orientation téléologique. Néanmoins, Heidegger demeure aristotélicien dans son insistance sur le lien entre le mouvement (de l’ouverture) et le temps. / This study constructs a dialogue between Hegel and Heidegger, within the framework of the Aristotelian conceptuality of the processual fulfilment of being. The fundamental divergences between the two German philosophers concerning movement, modality and time are analyzed in terms of their interpretations, adaptations, and transformations of the notions of potentiality and actuality. I begin by developing two contrasting conceptions of potentiality and actuality – immanent acts and transitive movements – that serve to mark out the different trajectories of interpretations made by Hegel and Heidegger. I then turn to an analysis of the numerous lecture courses both philosophers gave on Aristotle. Finally, I show how certain of their fundamental philosophical breakthroughs rely on the kinetic conceptuality of the Stagirite, even if the limitations of those Aristotelian paradigms ultimately force Hegel and Heidegger to transgress them. It turns out that Hegel, taking his point of depart from the priority and immanence of energeia, understood as the circular and atemporal movement of the dialectic, ends up with a theory of modality bearing close resemblance to that of the Megarians. Heidegger, on the other hand, understands the Aristotelian production discourse as a proto-phenomenology, which he nevertheless finds insufficient for conceptualizing the essential movement of Dasein, due to its overriding teleological orientation. Nevertheless, Heidegger remains Aristotelian in his insistence on the intrinsic relation between the movement of phenomenological appearing and time.

The main objective of this study is to shed light on some difficulties involved in the formulation of the problem of contingency in Leibniz&rsquo / s philosophical system. Leibniz&rsquo / s mature philosophy is characterized by the solutions he proposes for this problem, and the ontological ideas underlying or assisting them. &lsquo / The problem of contingency&rsquo / refers to the tension between his conceptual containment theory of truth and his claim that true existential propositions &ndash / that is, propositions which concern actual individuals &ndash / are all contingent. Though Leibniz does not seem to have one definite theory of contingency, two general lines of thought can nevertheless be discerned from his fragments on propositions and propositional truth. The first one is the infinite analysis theory, which is regarded in general as Leibniz&rsquo / s real theory of contingency, and the other is a theory of necessity, providing a division between absolute and hypothetical modalities. This thesis is not a study on the question whether Leibniz did really manage to solve the problem, but rather an attempt to trace the problem to its logical and ontological origins, and redefine it under a relatively simple form. It is first shown that Leibniz&rsquo / s theory of propositions relies heavily on his ontological conception of modalities, which covers the idea of a division between pure possibility and actuality / and then this idea is shown to be reflected on the logical level as a division between essential and existential truths. Finally it is argued that the two lines of thought and some peculiar characteristics of Leibniz&rsquo / s conception of modalities bring us to the conclusion that his real problem is the (deliberate) inability of his propositional calculus to express the difference between truths of reason (essential truths) and truths of fact (existential truths) as a logical structural one.

The main aim of my work - "Matter and Explanation. On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Η" - is to show the argumentative unity of Book Η (VIII), which has been usually regarded as a mere collection of appendices to the previous Book Ζ. In my thesis I take on the main suggestion provided by M. Burnyeat in "A Map of Metaphysics Ζ" (2001). According to Burnyeat, Η accomplishes the enquiry of Ζ by developing Ζ17's fresh start into the analysis of sensible substances. Starting from Ζ17, Aristotle regards the notion of substance in its explanatory role as "principle and cause" and, as a consequence, he searches for "the cause by reason of which a certain matter is some definite thing". Burnyeat's suggestion has been so far followed in order to look at Η as at that place where this search is accomplished. Thus, Η would play a didactical-expository role. In my work I aim at showing how in Book Η Aristotle does not confine himself to a mere exposition of the previous outcomes. By contrast, he provides a deep revision of the status of matter's substancehood. Namely of that ontological subject whose organization must be explained. Such a revision concerns those criteria, which in Book Ζ have provided a deflationary reading of the notion of ὕλη. On the contrary, in Η matter is read as subject of physical changes and in its dispositional role within the biological wholes. Such a framework is accomplished in Η6, where Aristotle shows the explanatory primacy of his own hylomorphism over the Platonic Doctrine of Forms.