The Discovery of Things (eBook)

Aristotle's Categories and Their Context

Wolfgang-Rainer Mann (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020
224 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-22159-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Aristotle's Categories can easily seem to be a statement of a naive, pre-philosophical ontology, centered around ordinary items. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann argues that the treatise, in fact, presents a revolutionary metaphysical picture, one Aristotle arrives at by (implicitly) criticizing Plato and Plato's strange counterparts, the "e;Late-Learners"e; of the Sophist. As Mann shows, the Categories reflects Aristotle's discovery that ordinary items are things (objects with properties). Put most starkly, Mann contends that there were no things before Aristotle. The author's argument consists of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories--an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement. Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.11.2020
• Zusatzinfo: 1 table, 6 line illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Logik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Metaphysik / Ontologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie Altertum / Antike
• Schlagworte: Abstract Nouns • Academy, The • ad hominem • Adjective • After Virtue • Alexander of Aphrodisias • Anaxagoras • Apeiron (cosmology) • aporia • Aristotle • Aspect, verbal • asymmetry • Asyndeton • Becoming • Begging the Question • Beings • Bibliography • Bibliotheca Teubneriana • Cave Analogy • clusters • Common sense • Concept • Count Terms • Criticism • De interpretatione • Democritus • Dialectic • dichotomy • divisibility • Dream Theory, the so-called • Edition (book) • Elements • Empedocles • entities • Entity • Eponym • essentialism • Essentialism: mereological • Existence • Explanation • Expressions • features • First principle • Genera • grammar • Greek Philosophy • Heteronymy: generic notion of • Hippias • Hippias Major • Homonym • Homonymy: Aristotle’s notion of • Identity (through time) • incompleteness • inference • Ingredients: Anaxagoras’s conception of • Inquiry • Intelligibility (philosophy) • J. L. Ackrill • J. L. Austin • johns hopkins • Late-Learners, the • Lecture • Linnaean Trees • Literature • loeb classical library • Martin Heidegger • Mass-Terms • Mereological essentialism • Metaphysics (Aristotle) • Michael Frede • Mixtures • Multiformity: Anaxagorean version of • names • Natural kind • Natural kinds • natures • Non-Count Terms • Nonsubstance Categories • noun • objects • One-Over-Many Principle • Ontology • ordinary language • Ousia • Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy • Parmenides • paronymy • participant • Participation • Phaedo • phenomenon • Philebus • Philosopher • philosophical progress • philosophical studies • philosophical theory • Philosophy • Phronesis • Plato • Platonic Forms • Platonism • Plato's Dream • Plotinus • Potentiality and actuality • Predicate Nouns • premise • Pre-Socratic Philosophy • prima facie • Princeton University Press • Protagoras • Qualified Things • qualities • Quantity • Quotation mark • Rational animal • Rationality • Reality • reason • Receptacle, The • Reductio ad absurdum • Relativism • Replacement, versus Change • Republic (Plato) • S. (Dorst novel) • Self-Predication (SP) • Semantics • Seminar • Sophist • Sortal Terms • Speusippus • Stuffs and Quasi-Stuffs • Suggestion • Synonym • Terminology • Tests, Linguistic • Textus Receptus • Theaetetus (dialogue) • theory • Theory of Forms • things • Thought • Timaeus (dialogue) • Timaeus (historian) • transcendental arguments • treatise • Uniformity: Anaxagorean version of • Unity: genuine • Usage • Verb • Whole(s) • Writing
• ISBN-10: 0-691-22159-6 / 0691221596
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-22159-5 / 9780691221595