The CEU Department of Philosophy and the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS)

cordially invite you to a talk

(as part of the Philosophy Departmental Colloquium series and

the 7th Colloquium Series of the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies)

by

Alan Code (Stanford University)

on

`Aristotle on Defining the Forms of Material Objects`

Tuesday, 8 November, 2011, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Aristotle`s account of the scientific definitions of material objects, and the way in which these definitions are responsive to their material constitution.  For Aristotle, natural substances, such as plants and animals, are composites of matter and form.  In Physics II.1 and Metaphysics VI.1 he advocates a view according to which the definitions of such composites must somehow contain a reference to perceptible matter.  However, in Metaphysics VII.10-11 he argues that the definition of a sensible substance is an account of just its form, and its material parts are not parts of this form.  Nonetheless, reference to material parts of some sort is required even for the specification of the form.