Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Thesis--München. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 5-6).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, June 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thèse--Faculte des lettres de Paris. / Caption title. Theorie des premiers principes, selon Aristote.

Thése--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

Thesis (Ph. L.)--Catholic University of America, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-75).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2008. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed Feb. 26, 2009). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

From introduction: A popular misconception regarding Aristotle's views on modality is that Aristotle adhered to the doctrine of no unrealized possibilities. According to this doctrine, all possibilities are realized in time; in other words, if it is possible that something could happen, then at some time it is the case that that happens. For example, if it is possible for Socrates to escape from prison, then there will be a time at which Socrates will actually escape from prison. On this view, the possible and the actual co-incide; whereas there is abundant evidence that Aristotle was careful to maintain a distinction between the possible and the actual.

ModaI logic is concerned with the logic of necessity and possibility. The central problem of modal ontology is summed up in the following question, "What are the ontological commitments of the user of modal terminology? " This thesis is primarily about the ontological commitments that Aristotle made when he employed modal terms. Aristotle’s modal ontology is h e r e analysed in conjunction with four modal problems. My primary objective, is to clarify some of the discussions of Aristotle's modal ontology that have been advanced by certain twentieth century philosophers. The first problem to be considered is the famous ' sea battle’ argument of De Interpretatione 9 . Here is a summary of the problem: If it is currently true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then in some sense it is inevitable that there will in fact be a sea battle; if predictions are true, is not a form of determinism being supported? One analysis in particular is studied at length, namely that of Jaakko Hintikka. Hintikka holds that the sea battle argument is best Interpreted if the metaphysical principle of plenitude is attributed to Aristotle. The principle of plenitude effectively merges modality with temporality; what is necessarily the case is always true, and vice versa. Hintikka also interprets Aristotle's stand on the ‘Master Argument’ of Diodorus in light of the attribution of the principle of plenitude to Aristotle. Diodorus' argument is the second of the four problems that this essay considers,. Unlike Aristotle, Diodorus appears to have favored a strong version of determinism. According to Hintikka, Diodorus actually strove to prove the principle of plenitude (as opposed to assuming it, as Aristotle presumably did). I am very sceptical regarding Hintikka's interpretations of these two problems. The sea battle argument is not adequately answered by the solution which Hintikka sees Aristotle adopting. Alternative answers are relatively easy to come by. The evidence cited by Hintikka for ascribing the principle of plenitude is, it is shown, somewhat inconclusive. As for the Master Argument, there is a great deal of paucity in regards to textual evidence. Hinikka himself virtually concedes this point. (Thus, whereas I feel it to be incumbent to offer an alternative interpretation of the sea battle argument, I do not share this attitude towards the Master Argument.) The third and fourth problems play a key role in twentieth century analytic philosophy. Both were first formulated by W.V. Quine in the forties. These problems are somewhat subtle and will not be explained further. Suffice it to say that an analysis of Aristotle's works by Alan Code reveals that the Stagirite had an answer to Quine's criticisms of modal logic. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

In this thesis I seek to explain a simple and yet quite difficult point about the nature of time: time is not motion, despite the fact that time and motion seem to be intertwined and interdependent. Aristotle calls time “something of motion (ti tēs kinēseōs).” His most concentrated account of time is presented within his treatise on physics, which is devoted to the study of motion and its principles and causes. The challenge of interpreting Aristotle’s account of time is to understand how it is fitting both that 1) a discussion about the nature of time emerges within the Physics, and that 2) a full and adequate account of time must exceed the scope of physics. Such a challenge obliges our attention not only as readers of Aristotle, but is furthermore relevant to anyone who seeks to give a coherent account of time, as one must in any case confront the ways in which time differs from motion while being an indispensable condition of it. Near the end of his account of time in the Physics, Aristotle presents us with an aporia that speaks directly to this challenge when he asks whether or not there can be time without soul. I suggest that a negative answer to this question – if time cannot exist without soul – means that the nature of time properly extends beyond physics. Aristotle has left it up to us to explore this possibility, since he does not pursue it explicitly himself. He merely formulates it in the Physics as a question. However, I argue that the absence of a definitive answer to this question there is not a sign that the nature of time is somehow beyond the capacity of Aristotle’s thought. After examining Aristotle’s account of time in the Physics, I look at his corpus more broadly, paying close attention to the way that Aristotle distinguishes the soul from the rest of nature at the beginning of the De Anima. The distinction between the living and the non-living is not made in the Physics, because it is not required for that study. In the Physics Aristotle studies what is shared by living things and the elements that sustain life within the ordered cosmos. As such, the focus of the Physics is on the causes of motion and change as what connects and distinguishes embodied individuals within this whole. But what it would mean to say that time depends on soul, and not simply on motion, cannot be addressed adequately in the Physics, since what distinguishes the activities of living from the incomplete activity of moving does not pertain to the main concerns of this treatise. By paying respectful attention to the structure of distinctions that organize Aristotle’s works as such, I make the case for time’s dependence on soul. I examine Aristotle’s accounts of animal and human awareness of time in the De Anima and Parva Naturalia and find that certain activities of the soul – sensation, memory, and deliberative reasoning - provide resources that can help us come to understand the most perplexing features of his account of time in the Physics, precisely those features that the analogies between time and motion or magnitude fail to explain: the simultaneity of diverse motion, the sameness and difference of the now, the differentiation of time into parts, and the way that time contains and exceeds (“numbers”) all possible motions. Thus I conclude that there cannot be time without soul, because the soul’s active nature must come into view in order to explain the features of time that distinguish it from motion.