Aristotle on the Unity of Consciousness

This project offers an innovative explanation of Aristotle’s resolutions – offered at De Anima III.2 and De Sensu 7 – to the especially thorny problem of simultaneous perception, and the impact that these resolutions have on his understanding of how our consciousness is unified.

This paper is in its early stages but I would be very happy to discuss it in more depth.

Aristotle on the Role of Emotion in Memory

While both Aristotle’s theory of emotion and his theory of memory have received much scholarly attention individually, the manner in which he believes that these two cognitive faculties interrelate has been relatively neglected. It is the purpose of this paper to elucidate Aristotle’s position on their relation by carefully examining (i) the role that emotion plays in regard to memory formation, (ii) the role that one’s current emotional state plays in one’s ability to remember something from the past, and (iii) the manner in which an emotional state is induced in a person upon their remembering something. 

The Stoics on Visual Perception

According to the Stoics, it is sense perception that, if conditions are right (LS 40L), provides the basis for cognitive impressions and, ultimately, ἐπιστήμη, being given to us by nature as ‘the standard of scientific knowledge and as the natural foundation for the subsequent impression of conceptions of things upon the mind’ (LS 41B). Gaining clarity on how sense-perception occurs is therefore integral to understanding not only Stoic psychology but, crucially, their epistemology as well. This task is particularly difficult, however, because, as Long & Sedley (1987) point out,  there is ‘meagre evidence on the mechanics of sensing’ for the Stoics, a fact which leads them to suggest that ‘the Stoics were largely content to take over Peripatetic doctrines, adapting these to suit their dynamic materialism’ (321). In this paper I shall focus on visual perception – which is the sense modality that is best attested to in the extant evidence – and contend that contra Long & Sedley, the Stoics do have an independent theory that is innovative and significantly different from the theories put forward by both Aristotle and Plato. 

An Eduction-Based Theory of Aristotelian Elemental Transformation

Aristotle’s theory of elemental transformation has excited much controversy in modern scholarship. In this paper, I approach the issue through the light of two Presocratic worries concerning generation, corruption, and transformation, which Aristotle raises in the chapters surrounding the traditional sources for the development of his own theory. I begin by presenting the two worries Aristotle must avoid: namely, (1) the Parmenidean concern about generation from, and corruption into, nothing simpliciter, and (2) the dual-pronged worry of reducing generation and corruption to alteration either by positing (a) a single substratum or (b) indestructible elements. I also enumerate several of Aristotle’s strategies for overcoming these worries. Next, I demonstrate how, by focusing on the first worry, we can seriously question the viability of several leading theories of Aristotelian elemental transformation. I use Lewis’s second-level functional property view, which does take the first worry seriously, as a starting-point for criticizing these competing positions. I then explain how Lewis’s version of prime matter, despite avoiding the first worry, is vulnerable to the second Presocratic worry and that it also significantly misconstrues Aristotle’s hylomorphism. As a result of the failure of competing theories, I then present a new theory of elemental transformation where elemental transformation occurs via the processual realization of ‘eduction conditions’ and is traced by a ‘hylomorphic-history property.’ Finally, I defend this theory’s ability to overcome both Presocratic worries.

Aquinas on Artifacts and Substances

Recent scholarship on Aquinas has displayed a heightened interest in his position on the metaphysical distinction between substances and artifacts. In this paper, I first examine and motivate the standard interpretation – that Aquinas believed no substances are artifacts – and delineate three unsuccessful attempts by this interpretation to provide a metaphysical grounding for this claim. Next, I introduce several passages where Aquinas affirms the substancehood of a sub-class of artifacts, suggesting that Aquinas held a more-nuanced position than indicated by the standard interpretation. I then show that Brown’s (2007a) attempt to salvage the standard interpretation, despite these passages, is unsuccessful. Further, I contend that neither of the two alternative interpretations – i.e., Rota’s (2004) position that all artifacts are substances which are created in accordance with natural powers, or Marmodoro & Page’s (2016) argument that artifacts possessing descending forms are ‘deficient’ substances – offer a satisfactory metaphysical grounding either. In light of these difficulties, I present a new criterion by contending that Aquinas believes that anything is a substance which is self-generating and self-organizing. I demonstrate how this criterion is able to successfully classify natural substances, artifact-substances, and non-substantial artifacts, by permitting only those artifacts which undergo chemical changes to be considered substances.