Aristotle, the collected papers of Joseph Owens

537 Pages·1981·1.9 MB·English

by  Joseph Owens

Aristotle, the Collected Papers of Joseph
title:
Owens
author: Owens, Joseph.; Catan, John R.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 087395534X
print isbn13: 9780873955348
ebook isbn13: 9780585056449
language: English
subject Aristotle--Addresses, essays, lectures.
publication date: 1981
lcc: B485.O82eb
ddc: 185
subject: Aristotle--Addresses, essays, lectures.
Page iii
Aristotle
The Collected Papers of Joseph Owens
edited by
John R. Catan
State University of New York Press
Albany
Page iv
For my son, Paul
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1981 State University of New York
All Rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York Press, State
University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Owens, Joseph.
Aristotle, the collected papers of Joseph Owens.
Companion vol. to the author's St. Thomas Aquinas on the existence
of God.
"Complete bibliography of Joseph Owens, C.Ss.R.":
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: Aristotle, teacher of those who know
Aristotle on categoriesThe Aristotelian conception of the
sciences[etc.]
1. AristotleAddresses, essays, lectures.
I. Catan, John R. II. Title.
B485.082 185 81-7602
ISBN 0-87395-534-X AACR2
ISBN 0-87395-535-8 (pbk.)
Page v
Contents
Foreword by Joseph Owens C.Ss.R vi
Editor's Preface viii
1. Aristotle Teacher of Those Who Know 1
2. Aristotle on Categories 14
3. The Aristotelian Conception of the Sciences 23
4. Matter and Predication in Aristotle 35
5. The Grounds of Universality in Aristotle 48
6. The Universality of the Sensible in the Aristotelian 59
Noetic
7. AristotleCognition a Way of Being 74
8. Aristotelian Soul as Cognitive of Sensibles, Intelligibles 81
and Self
9. A Note on Aristotle, De Anima 3.4.429b9 99
10. Aristotle's Definition of Soul 109
11. The Aristotelian Argument for the Material Principle 122
of Bodies
12. The Teleology of Nature in Aristotle 136
13. The Grounds of Ethical Universality in Aristotle 148
14. Nature and Ethical Norm in Aristotle 165
15. Aristotelian Ethics, Medicine, and the Changing 169
Nature of Man
Notes to the Text 181
Complete Bibliography of Joseph Owens C.Ss.R 229
Short Biography of Joseph Owens C.Ss.R. 241
Index of Persons 243
Index of Texts Cited 246
Page vi
Foreword
Interest in Aristotle seems to maintain a steady pulse. True, the
reasons for the persistent attention to his writings may vary widely.
Great philosophers as well as great artists have the gift of inspiring
profoundly different conceptions and meaning in the individuals who
contemplate their work. The Greek commentators, the Islamic
intellectuals, the medieval Scholastics, the Renaissance humanists, the
nineteenth-century philologists, the twentieth-century analysts, and
numerous other scholarly movements, have all shown an absorbing
fascination in Aristotle in spite of the differences in their respective
viewpoints. This history would in itself be ample testimony to the
breadth of the Aristotelian achievement. It would augur intellectual
profit for any type of reader who approaches the Stagirite, and would
make manifest the propriety of Dante's characterization of him as the
teacher of those who know.
The breadth of universal interest and the openness to the various fields
of scholarly engagement may have their explanation, partly at least, in
Aristotle's own conception of human intellectual endeavor. For him all
human knowledge is solidly grounded in the things experienced in the
course of everyday life. These things are obvious and accessible to all
inquirers. They are what a person becomes and is cognitionally in
ordinary sensation and understanding. In that way they form the
common basis for all subsequent reasoning by individuals or groups.
Their qualitative and quantitative aspects give rise to the far-reaching
penetration of the natural and life sciences. Of the mathematicized
sciences Aristotle knew only astronomy, optics, harmonics and
mechanics, and only in the stage of development they had reached in
his day. But his philosophical views about them are still enlightening.
His understanding of the world of nature, moreover, went beyond the
domain of the qualitative and the quantitative. It gave a further
explanation of sensible things in terms of their substantial principles,
matter and form. This is a different but in no way rival account of
visible things through the philosophy of nature, and it answers its own
set of questions about the universe.
Still further, for Aristotle the investigation of those same tangible
things from the viewpoint of their being opens on the world of
supersensible things, in the discipline that later came to be known as
metaphysics. But in spite of the necessitating causation that prevails
throughout the
Page vii
visible universe and in its links with the immaterial substances,
Aristotle's ethics shows the way to proceed in practical science from a
radically new starting point, free choice, while at the same time
keeping human life and human conduct within the same real world
studied by the other sciences. Causation and liberty walk side by side,
neither excluding the other. Correspondingly his conception of the arts
and crafts, as working into external things some forms already
existent in the mind, brings out strongly the humanizing aspect of
those activities.
In all these domains Aristotle still broadens our intellectual outlook.
Even after the terrific tensions and the undermining erosions of
twenty-three centuries his thought has much to offer. The following
papers of mine aimed to investigate some aspects of it that have been
notably influential. The project of publishing these papers collectively,
the selection of them and their arrangement in the volume, are all due
to the enterprise and industry of Professor John Catan. May I express
my trust that his confidence and that of Mr. William Eastman of
SUNY Press in the ongoing demand for discussions about Aristotle
will prove justified. Other writers from Plato to Heidegger may be
much more brilliant, and quicker to stir enthusiasm. The adrenalin
they pour into western thinking has its important function. But for
basic solidity, breadth of vision, reassuring balance and quiet
penetration of thought, there is good reason to believe that Aristotle
will continue to play a role all his own.
J. Owens
January 22, 1981
Page viii
Editor's Preface
This book is a companion to the recently published St. Thomas
Aquinas on The Existence of God: The Collected Papers of Joseph
Owens (Albany: SUNY Press, 1980) whose main emphasis is Saint
Thomas Aquinas. A cursory reading of that book also reveals the
presence throughout of references to and lengthy explanations of
Aristotle's teachings. The present book, then, brings together articles
by Father Owens which have been influential in changing current
scholarly opinion on Aristotle. The main emphasis in this book is on
the theory of knowledge, embracing the logical works as well as the
Physics, the de Anima, and associated cognitive problems in moral
philosophy. Father Owens has written, of course, on the Metaphysics
of Aristotle in his well-known Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian
Metaphysics (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaevel Studies,
1978), 3rd edition revised. I have therefore not included any articles
concerned with the Metaphysics that essentially reproduce material in
The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, I leave to the
reader the pleasure of consulting Father Owens' most recent survey of
scholarly opinion on the Metaphysics to be found in his Introduction
to The Doctrine of Being etc. I have also presented a complete
bibliography in chronological order up through the beginning of 1981
as well as a short biography of Father Owens.
It is my pleasure once again to thank Father Owens for his
cooperation in my editing, although I am responsible for the final
arrangement and choices. I would also like to thank the following
publishers, journals, and their editors for permission to reprint: Editio
Bellarmin (Montreal, Canada); The Review of Metaphysics; Notre
Dame University Press; International Philosophical Quarterly; Studia
Moralia (Rome); The American Philosophical Quarterly; Herder