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Philippa Foot’s account of natural normativity relies on functions. For Foot, having a function is what distinguishes those traits that can serve as the basis for the evaluation of an organism from those traits that cannot. For example, Foot asserts that a blue-headed tit that lacks the blue spot on its head is merely unusual but a peacock that lacks a brightly colored tail is defective because while the blue spot does not have a function, the brightly colored tail does. Problematically, it is not immediately clear just how Foot understands functions. I argue that Foot’s account of functions requires a distinction between functions and accidents. In Foot’s schema, functions appear similar to contributions to the achievement of ends: in the case of non-human organisms, functional traits contribute to survival and reproduction, while human beings are sui generis in that our ends are not exhausted by survival and reproduction. However, a trait’s contributing to these ends is not sufficient grounds for that trait to have a function. Only those traits that contribute in the right way count as having a functional role and can consequently serve as the basis for evaluations of the organism. Borrowing Reid Blackman’s example, a deer that evades predators through camouflage rather than swiftness is uncharacteristic and not naturally good in Foot’s schema. In such cases, the trait in question makes only an accidental contribution to an end. Furthermore, I argue that in order to maintain a function/accident distinction, Foot must understand functions in terms of kinds. These kinds entail three things for any organism that instantiates the kind: some work or end achieved by the organism, a characteristic story of how that work is achieved, and some sort of purposiveness to the characteristic achievement of that work. In the case of the deer above, its work is survival and reproduction, the story of how it achieves those ends includes eating leaves and avoiding predators through swiftness, and the achievement of survival and reproduction in this way is purposive because it answers to the capacity of living things to be a beneficiary. On one hand, my account of Foot’s natural goodness solves numerous problems in the interpretation of her work. It explains why natural goodness is unique to living things as opposed to entities that admit of similarly structured evaluations by looking at the purposiveness involved in these evaluations. Additionally, my interpretation counters the objection that Foot’s treatment of nature appears ignorant of pertinent empirical scientific evidence. In evaluating organisms as members of kinds, presumably an organism might belong to multiple kinds. Consequently, we can understand and evaluate an organism both as a member of a biological kind whose work is genetic promulgation and as a member of its neo-Aristotelian species whose work, at least in the case of non-human organisms, is survival and reproduction. Seen in this way, the relevant concern is not “how can Foot’s account of organisms avoid the charge of being scientifically uninformed?” but “why should the natural goodness of an organism be evaluated with respect to one kind instead of another?” Some neo-Aristotelians have endeavored to address this difficulty through the following commitments: that the neo-Aristotelian understanding of an organism is special because it is a self-interpretation, that these interpretations do not compete with one another, or that the natural sciences must presuppose a neo-Aristotelian understanding of species in order to have a notion of life. Rather than adopting any of these approaches, I contend that by understanding Foot through this three-part model we can understand the evaluation of an organism as a member of the neo-Aristotelian species as primary in a way that the biological account is not. On the other hand, my interpretation entails epistemological problems for Foot. We seem unable to distinguish accidental contributions to the work of an organism from functional contributions in a well-informed way, and the sui generis nature of human work makes it difficult to establish what counts as a contribution to its achievement. In light of these difficulties, the prospect of our having knowledge of the kinds on which her account depends seems dim. / Philosophy

Thesis advisor: Robert C. Bartlett / This study examines Dante Alighieri's presentation of the relation between Church and State and of their foundations in either the Christian faith or philosophic reason. It seeks to demonstrate how Dante's unmodern acceptance of a teleological understanding of the world and man’s place in it allows him to distinguish the two while also showing how both work together even as they understand differently the role that reason should play in human life. It is because of this distinction that Dante's Monarchia shares in the political principle of “separation” that underlies the secular regimes of the West, thereby making his work immediately accessible to modern-day readers. It is because of the way reason and faith also work together in his political treatise, however, that Dante does not endorse, as readers today would, the further separation of his State from Society. This is because for Dante the very ideas of Church and State not only presuppose the existence of the highest goods of man -namely, that terrestrial good that pertains to man insofar as he is a natural being, and that spiritual good that pertains to man insofar as he is a creature capable of being transfigured by the divine grace of God. They also are intended to embody and publicly promote these two goods. Thus for Dante the Church is meant to help man attain his immortal end, which consists in the supernatural act of seeing God "face to face," while the State is meant to help man attain his mortal end, which consists in grasping philosophic truths. And so it is for these teleological and illiberal reasons that Dante's work remains as inaccessible as it does familiar to readers today. Yet it is by virtue of his refusal to forge our distinctively modern course, and so because of his acceptance of an "outdated" Aristotelian principle of teleology, that Dante's philosophic politics establishes a clearer demarcation between Church and State or reason and faith than modern political philosophies do. His Monarchia is therefore an invaluable guide for all those who wish to acquire a better understanding of the nature and limit of each. This latter claim can prove to be true, however, only if the end of his treatise is understood in light of what many scholars have either ignored or denied in their reading of the Monarchia, and that is Dante’s "Latin Averroism." / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

132f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-16T19:29:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Tatiana Rovarisseg.pdf: 1481018 bytes, checksum: 1f2f50b309b2257dabc4f62595cea8bf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-05-23T18:56:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Tatiana Rovarisseg.pdf: 1481018 bytes, checksum: 1f2f50b309b2257dabc4f62595cea8bf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-23T18:56:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Tatiana Rovarisseg.pdf: 1481018 bytes, checksum: 1f2f50b309b2257dabc4f62595cea8bf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Este trabalho pretende expor o antiaristotelismo e o projeto epicurista de Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) presente em dois livros,; o Exercícios contra os aristotélicos, de 1624, e o Syntagma philosophicum, de 1658. Neles, Gassendi compreende um projeto que visa à completa destituição e substituição da filosofia de Aristóteles pelo epicurismo. Uma das principais críticas do filósofo ao aristotelismo é a dificuldade em lidar com questões que dizem respeito à investigação da natureza, já que suas afirmações e sua dialética apresentam, segundo ele, conceitos obscuros e inúteis como a substância, a forma e as categorias. Com base nessa crítica, Gassendi apresenta a filosofia de Epicuro como adequada para auxiliar a nova ciência do século XVII. O epicurismo, como o aristotelismo, também é uma filosofia antiga e poderia ser alterado para adequar-se ao cristianismo. Como a filosofia de Gassendi se pauta pela crítica ao aristotelismo, é esse que guia Gassendi na elaboração dos conceitos de espaço e tempo, por exemplo. O atomismo epicurista, que afirma que tudo que existe é composto de átomos, i.e., partícula material indivisível, e vazio, permite, segundo Gassendi, que se façam observações empíricas para entender o mecanismo da natureza e conduzido pela canônica, que é um conjunto de regras que guiam o pensamento e a observação empírica, juntamente com algumas correções, como o estabelecimento de sua criação por Deus no início do mundo, fazem com que, para Gassendi, o atomismo seja o substituto apropriado para o aristotelismo. / Salvador

This thesis takes as a focal point an important Archbishop of the Greek community in Venice, Meletios Typaldos, who lived in the turbulent era of the late seventeenthearly eighteenth century (1651-1713). An enquiry into the course of his life was deemed worthy of scholarly research: first, because he had not been till now adequately investigated; second, because he is a multi-faceted personage who is highly representative of the ambiguities of that historical period but also clearly and sophisticatedly involved in them. In addition, a study of his life and work reveals a great deal about the religious and cultural beliefs and bias of the flourishing Greek Diaspora of Venice during this historical period. The dissertation investigates initially the political background within which Venice played a crucial role. Moreover, it brings to the fore the religious conflicts of the era as well as the renewal of the theological and philosophical ideas related to scholastic Aristotelism, derived from the teachings at Padua University which spread to the territory of the city-state of Venice. The emphasis in the dissertation is to focus on the impact that these ideas had on the beliefs and views of Typaldos. Principally, the thesis disambiguates the initiatives of Meletios Typaldos who, as head of the Orthodox Church in Venice, planned to convert the Orthodox Greeks to Catholicism without taking into consideration the church body, i.e., the Greek Orthodox clergy and congregation. In contrast to the prevailing view that his ambition to become a cardinal drove him to the acceptance of the Catholic doctrine, this dissertation argues that Typaldos’ activities were inspired by his desire to play a crucial role in a Uniate Church under the Pope’s auspices, with the ultimate ambition to convert all Greeks to it. Finally, specific attention has been given to the resistance of the Greeks of Venice to Typaldos’ plans. After examining the evidence, the thesis concludes that the will of the Greek Confraternity to maintain its social independence -that was guaranteed by the Venetian state - and its passionate desire to maintain unchanged the Confraternity’s Greek ethnic and religious identity are the main causes that determined its reactions against Typaldos. The conflict between the Archbishop and leadership of the Greek community ended in Typaldos’ excommunication by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and, with the loss of his leadership, the decline of the Greek Community of Venice.

Hasdai Crescas (1340 -1411), foi filosofo, rabino e homem público, que viveu em um período muito turbulento para as comunidade judaicas ibéricas e provençais, do final da Idade Média. Crescas fez uma crítica veemente ao paradigma aristotélico recebido da falsifa, que foi usado por Maimônides para embasar e provar a existência, unidade e incorporeidade de Deus, conceituado no Guia dos Perplexos como o ser necessário absolutamente transcendente em relação aos seres contingentes. Crescas elabora, em Or Hashem ( Luz do Nome Divino), um conceito alternativo de ser necessário, no qual as duas noções antitéticas de imanência e transcendência divinas se relacionam à distinção, no seio do ser necessário entre sua essência simples e os seus infinitos atributos. A essência simples e inefável do ser necessário se expressa em infinitos atributos no ato eterno e constante de doar na univocidade do ser, seu bem, sua atualidade, aos infinitos entes contingentes. Crescas, advoga que universo apesar de ontologicamente contingente é infinito em sua atualidade. Deus é assim concebido como causa primeira eterna e constante, a enteléquia e Lugar do Mundo. / Hasdai Crescas (1340-1411) was a philosopher, rabbi and public man, who lived in a very turbulent period for the Iberian and Provençal Jewish communities of the late Middle Ages. Crescas made a vehement criticism of the Aristotelian paradigm received from falsifa, which was used by Maimonides to ground and prove the existence, unity, and incorporeality of God, which was conceptualized in the Guide of the Perplexed as the absolutely necessary transcendent being in relation to contingent beings. Crescas elaborates, in Or Hashem (Light of the Divine Name), an alternative concept of being necessary, in which the two antithetical notions of divine immanence and transcendence relate to the distinction, within the necessary being between its simple essence and its infinite attributes . The simple and ineffable essence of the necessary being is expressed in infinite attributes in the eternal and constant act of giving in the univocity of being, its good, its actuality, to the infinite contingent entities. Crescas, advocates that universe although ontologically contingent is infinite in its actuality. God is thus conceived as the eternal and constant first cause, the entelechy and Place of the World.

A SURVEY OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ETHICS AND POLITICS WITH AN ARISTOTELIAN APPRAISAL &Ccedil / elik, Sinan Kadir Ph.D., Department of Philosophy Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ahmet &amp / #272 / nam March 2010, 189 pages In the history of philosophy, ethics and politics have either been considered as two unrelated, irreducible realms or as identical to each other. In the thesis the historical transformation of the problematic relation between ethics and politics is critically evaluated. It is argued that from the emergence of the conflict in Ancient Greece following the &ldquo / Socratic ideal&rdquo / to the modern attempt for its resolution by the &ldquo / Machiavellian revolution,&rdquo / the prominent theories developed for dealing with the problem have defined politics as an amoral practice, as a science, a technique or an art. An alternative Aristotelian approach is tried to be developed so as to elucidate the nature of the distinction between ethics and politics. According to this view, ethics and politics can neither be strictly separated from each other nor be reduced into one another. The Aristotelian conception of politike as &ldquo / philosophy of human affairs&rdquo / has ethical, practical and technical dimensions. The thesis tries to clarify at which point ethics and politics should be conceived as two different practices and at which point they cannot be treated as independent from each other. Hence, the present study aims to determine the peculiarities and the strong sides of Aristotelian practical philosophy in order to offer an alternative to resolve the problem under consideration.

Ce travail de thèse porte sur la notion de prudence dans la pensée castillane médiévale et moderne, depuis le début du règne d'Alphonse X de Castille, dit « le roi Sage », en 1252, jusqu'à la mort de Philippe II, dit « le Prudent », en 1598. Le choix d'une période longue a permis d'analyser dans toute sa complexité le processus de réception et d'adaptation des doctrines classiques sur la prudence par les traducteurs, commentateurs et penseurs politiques castillans. La thèse montre comment ce concept défini dans les textes de l'Antiquité grecque et latine a nourri leur réflexion sur la double nature, rationnelle et politique, de l'homme : la prudence est en effet la vertu intellectuelle qui définit l'homme comme animal politique, et plus particulièrement, chez Aristote, le gouvernant et le législateur. La transmission, fidèle ou non, de la doctrine aristotélicienne des vertus intellectuelles en général, et de la prudence en particulier, se révèle le lieu d'un affrontement entre deux paradigmes royaux dans la Castille d'alors : face au modèle d'un roi sage (sapiens, sabio) disposant d'un pouvoir absolu, que les monarques successifs s'attachent à maintenir tout au long de la période, la haute noblesse et les maîtres ès arts salmantins posent l'image d'un roi simplement prudent au sens où l'entend Aristote, c'est-à-dire faillible, pour mieux l'inviter à gouverner en s'appuyant sur les élites de son royaume. / This PhD thesis deals with the notion of prudence in medieval and modern Castilian thought, from the beginning of the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, known as “the Wise King”, in 1252, until the death of Philip II, called “the Prudent King”, in 1598. The choice of a long period enabled to analyze in all its complexity the process of reception and adaptation of classical doctrines of Prudence by Castilian translators, commentators and political thinkers. The thesis shows how this concept defined in Greek and Latin Antiquity texts nourished their thougt on the dual nature of man (rational and political): Prudence is indeed the intellectual virtue that defines Man as a Political animal ; in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, this virtue defines more particularly the ruler and the legislator. This study shows how the transmission, faithful or not, of the Aristotelian doctrine of intellectual virtues in general, and of Prudence in particular, was in Castile the place of a confrontation between two royal paradigms: opposite the model of a Wise king (sapiens, sabio) possessing absolute power, which the successive monarchs strove to maintain throughout the period, the high nobility and the Salmantine Masters of Arts proposed the image of a merely prudent ruler. This latest model, defined by Aristotle as being fallible, allowed them to claim their participation in the governance of the Kingdom.

This thesis focuses on the ancient reception of the Categories of Aristotle, a work which served continuously, from late antiquity into the early modern period (Frede 1987), as the student’s introduction to philosophy.  There had previously been no comprehensive study of the reception of the Categories during the age of the first philosophical commentaries (c. 80 BC to AD 220). In this study, I have collected, assigned, and analyzed the relevant fragments of commentary belonging to this period, including some that were previously undocumented or inexplicit in the source texts, and sought to establish and characterize the influence of the early commentators’ activity on the subsequent Peripatetic tradition. In particular, I trace the early evolution of criticism and defense of the text through competing accounts of its aim (skopos), which would ultimately lead Stoic and Platonic philosophers to a partial acceptance of the Categories and frame its role in the later Neo-Platonic curriculum.

La présente thèse de doctorat s'est fixée pour objectif de retracer l'histoire du concept de conscience mentale à travers les langages de spécialité (la philosophie et la psychologie principalement), et ce au cours de la période qui va de l'Antiquité (avec l’aristotélisme) jusqu'à notre époque (avec la philosophie de l’esprit). Ce travail nous a, tout d'abord, amené à redéfinir la conscience sous un jour nouveau, aussi bien en tant que concept pur et dur (dimension déjà présente chez Aristote et chez les penseurs pré-modernes) qu'en tant qu'outil de diverses philosophies chargées de fonder la connaissance et les sciences (dimension opérante à partir de Descartes), puis en tant que philosophie (nous pensons principalement à la philosophie de l'esprit). Une telle entreprise nous a ainsi permis de proposer une définition inédite de la conscience mentale, qui se nourrit des différents paradigmes étudiés tout au long de son histoire. Plus spécifiquement, le "méta-paradigme conscientiel" ainsi généré (aussi nommé "paradigme de type 1") propose une définition en intension, une définition en extension (à savoir une typologie), ainsi qu'un cadre onto-épistémologique servant de toile de fond. Dans le même temps, nous avons été amené à élaborer une épistémologie générale capable d'analyser les différents "paradigmes de type 0" que nous avons rencontrés - et qui se présentent sous diverses formes (des doctrines et des théories philosophiques, des théories scientifiques, des dogmatismes). Cette épistémologie - sous-tendue par quatre critères qui permettent de distinguer les paradigmes entre eux, et dont rend compte notre méta-paradigme - s'avère en outre pensée dans la perfectibilité et dans la complexité, étant ouverte aux futurs paliers d'une échelle de la conscience qui n'a pas fini de s'écrire. De cette manière, nous évitons, avec Donald Davidson, l'écueil qui consiste à voir le "conscientiel" (la conscience comme les productions de l'esprit) comme le simple prolongement du matériel – ce qui nous interdirait, par exemple, de nous interroger sur la "possibilité d'une conscience" au-delà même du vivant./The aim of this thesis was to trace the history of consciousness through philosophy and psychology, from Antiquity (Aristotelianism) to our time (Philosophy of Mind). In a first time, this work led us to define consciousness in a new light, as well as concept (which already appears in Aristotle and in medieval thinkers) and as a tool for various philosophies that try to found knowledge and sciences (this dimension will be born from Descartes), then as a philosophy (we think about the philosophy of mind). This also allowed us to propose a new definition of consciousness, which is inspired by different paradigms studied throughout its history. More specifically, our “metaparadigm” (or "type 1 paradigm") contains a definition and a typology of consciousness, and is underpinned by an onto-epistemological framework. At the same time, we tried to develop a general epistemology able to analyze “type 0 paradigms” we met (these paradigms can be philosophical doctrines, philosophical theories, scientific theories or dogmas). Open to future levels of consciousness’scale that is not finished, this epistemology - underlied by four criteria that distinguish them paradigms, and which are constitutive of our “metaparadigm” - is also favorable to the perfectibility and the complexity. In this way, we especially avoid, with Donald Davidson, the mistake of considering consciousness and all products of mind, thought or cultur just as an extension of material reality - which would prevent us, for example, to wonder about the possibility that consciousness might exist in “non-living beings”. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished