Philosophy begins in wonder, or astonishment. We start out by wondering about problems that are ‘there,’ ready at hand for us as human beings (ta procheira). The natural response is flight from ignorance. Ignorance is simply the privation of knowledge, or understanding, and we have knowledge most of all when we understand first causes and principles. Hence it is part of our nature as human beings to desire to know the causes and principles of things.

The first causes and principles are the most knowable, and the other (knowable) things are known through these causes. Our knowledge is systematic, and we are systematic understanders. Some things we understand through themselves. The rest we understand by systematically relating it to what is known through itself. Since by nature we desire to know, and since we do succeed in knowing, it follows that we are by nature systematic understanders.

In this paper I shall examine Aristotle's treatment of a certain puzzle concerning change. In section I, I shall show that within a certain standard framework for the semantics of subject-predicate sentences a number of things that Aristotle wants to maintain do not make sense. Then, I shall outline a somewhat non-standard account of the semantics for such sentences — arguably Aristotle's — and show how the proposals concerning change fit quite naturally into this framework. The results of this exercise will enable us to say something quite precise about applications of some obscure but characteristically Aristotelian doctrines: that ‘is’ is ‘said in many ways,’ that his predecessors got the Law of Opposites wrong. They also shed some light upon Aristotle's ontology of predicables.

One of the roles of matter in Aristotle's philosophy, according to well-established historical tradition, is to provide a principle of individuation. This tradition has been challenged from time to time. Some historians, noting that it is form rather than matter that wears the metaphysical trousers for Aristotle, have tried to give form the role of providing a principle of individuation. Others have suggested that there is no such principle at all to be found in Aristotle's works. This ongoing dispute has been frequently flawed by a failure to be sufficiently clear precisely what problem a principle of individuation is supposed to provide an answer to.

In this paper I am interested in Aristotelian essentialism only as it relates to Aristotle's notion of an ordinary object. In particular, I shall concentrate on two main kinds of interpretation that are to be distinguished here. First, there is what I call the standard version. So named because it formulates the preferred view among commentators, the standard version holds that essences are necessary (at least) for the existence of objects. Against this is a recently proposed line of interpretation which I shall call the non-standard version of Aristotelian essentialism. It holds that possessing a given essential property is only sufficient, not necessary, for the existence of a given object and so denies the standard version. While I focus mainly on arguments and evidence that bear on decision between the two versions, I also reflect some on whether Aristotle is best construed a de re or a de dicto essentialist. Part I of the paper spells out the versions in question. Part II contains considerations which show Aristotle's openness to de re essentialism.

In this paper, I attempt to set out some of the main views about essence which Aristotle puts forward in Book Z of the Metaphysics. A central feature of Aristotle's account, as we shall see, is his distinction between primary and secondary cases of essence, and a similiar distinction in connection with the related notions of substance and definition. This division between primary and secondary cases means that Aristotle may well have two very different sorts of remark to make about essence, or definition, or substance, according to which of the two kinds of case he has in mind. There is no reason to suppose the same logical properties apply to both the primary and the secondary cases. And when we come to define the various notions, we shall see that if our definitions are right, the logical properties in the two kinds of case are in fact quite different.

In this paper I shall attempt to locate and articulate Aristotle's answer to a foundational question in the theory of action - viz., ‘what is the proximate (efficient) cause of action?’ This task is certainly of historical importance, since one cannot hope to understand Aristotle's interesting and influential theory of action without understanding his views on the proximate efficient cause of action. But the present project is not, I should think, of historical interest alone; for it has recently been argued by a leading figure in the study of action, Myles Brand, that What [proximately] initiates action?’ is the fundamental question in action theory, and we shall see that Aristotle has the makings of a very plausible answer.

There is what might be called a ‘majority position’ in the history of Western philosophy according to which causes are sufficient for or ‘necessitate’ their effects. However, there is also a singificant ‘minority position’ according to which causes are necessary relative to their effects. The second/third century A.D. Peripatetic Alexander of Aphrodisias is an ancient representative of the minority position. He attributes his own view — with some justification, I shall suggest – to Aristotle. This paper has two, somewhat loosely connected purposes. The first is to explore the origin of the conception of ‘causes’ (aitia) as necessary conditions in Aristotle, particularly in On Generation and Corruption 2.11 and Posterior Analytics 2.12, and the development and use of the conception in Alexander's De fato. The second purpose of the paper is to explore and criticize a sophisticated contemporary version of the conception of causes as ‘necessary in the circumstances,’ that of J.L. Mackie.