Subject Area: Aristotle
Allard-Nelson, Susan K.2004 0-7734-6306-2 211 pages
The project of this work is to combine an interpretative study of Aristotle’s thinking about the foundational elements of ethical theory with the formulation of a theory of ethical normativity that is based on those same elements, but that is independently formulated and analyzed. In particular, the book argues that virtue ethics, of an Aristotelian type, can provide a coherent and satisfying theory of normativity, although this has sometimes been denied in modern scholarship. Normativity is sometimes thought to require a theory of a deductive type, in which ethical norms are derived from the principle of universalization (Kant’s view) or from a universal principle, such as, in Utilitarianism, the maximization of human happiness. The claim here is that normativity can also, and more plausibly, be established inductively through an examination of human nature—as understood through a variety of means, including the ethical agent’s own sense of what human nature consists in and scientific psychology—and the interrelated Aristotelian ideas of virtue, happiness, and particular relationships. The suggestion is that, if norms are grounded in this way, we can establish a normative framework that corresponds to the reality of human shared and individual experience and that is, therefore, more cogent than one that depends (deductively) on abstract, universal principles. This Aristotelian, inductive, theory is offered as embodying a cogent account of ethical normativity, which represents a contribution to current philosophical debate on the nature and basis of ethical norms.
Iorio, Dominick A.
1991 0-7734-9697-1 340 pages
Aristotelian currents in Italian Renaissance philosophy are complex, distinctive, and significantly relevant to a complete history of philosophy for the period from the 14th to 17th centuries. Provides detailed expositions of some of the central philosophic portions of the most significant Aristotelian authors.
Berry, Paul
2016 1-4955-0508-1 148 pages
This monograph is the closing work in a series of ten titles by Dr. Paul Berry. The collection began with an initial study, The Christian Inscription at Pompeii. This work traced the line of cultural, philosophical and theological inheritance that extends from the philosophy or Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) to the theology of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274 A.D.)
Newman, Sara
2005 0-7734-6194-9 308 pages
This book examines what Aristotle has to say about style, metaphor, the figures of speech, and other less recognized stylistic elements within his corpus. Proceeding from the texts themselves, this study argues that Aristotle's discussion of style in the Rhetoric is conceptually consistent with his treatment of invention in that text. By applying Aristotle's theory to his own intellectual practices in the Nicomachean Ethics, this study also illuminates the way that Aristotle's thinks through his intellectual and rhetorical practices. As such, Aristotle offers to contemporary readers a relatively coherent understanding of what style is and how it contributes to successful and appropriate persuasion in more than the traditional decorative sense. He also demonstrates the range of his own theoretical statements. In these ways, Aristotle provides us with a fresh perspective on ancient and contemporary concerns with language.
Berry, Paul
2009 0-7734-4899-3 92 pages
This work argues for the restoration of Aristotelianism to the college curriculum to countervail the prevailing focus on modernism and to counteract the twenty-first century proliferation of atheist tracts.
Tejera, Victorino
1996 0-7734-8884-7 216 pages
This volume brings together Aristotle's interrelated views of poetry, speech-making, and inference, so that they create the equipment needed by students of the arts and sciences for the pursuit of their inquiries in the disciplines and the study of the histories of these disciplines and their landmark texts. Aristotle's poetics emerge from the book's analytic summaries as responsive to the expressiveness of Greek tragedy, while his rhetoric is brought into a closer relation with the logic of inference, made necessary by the persistence of sophistic reasoning in philosophy, literary criticism, and the discourse of our public sphere.
Geddes, LaDonna
1991 0-7734-9914-8 124 pages
Studies the development of rhetorical theory within the framework of the definitive questions: what is rhetoric; what constitutes a good speaker; how should truth be defined; what is knowledge; and what is involved in audience analysis. Examines the how these questions are treated by Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, St. Augustine, Peter Ramus, and John Locke. Begins with the preface that man's desire to understand himself and the world in which he lives is founded in a study of history; that it is through an understanding of an era's social organizations and behaviors (which are revealed by its rhetoric and rhetorical theories) that insight can be gained into the manner in which the leaders of that time perceived two concepts: the nature of man, and the interrelationships of man and his world. Contemporary exercises and projects invite the reader to apply the concepts explored to modern issues.
McDonnell, John J.
1992 0-7734-9649-1 144 pages
This is an investigation into the ages long discussion about whether primary indivisible bodies exist, from Democritus in the fifth century BC, to John Dalton in 1802. Investigates Aristotle's opposition to the first and whether the Democritean atom is the same as the Daltonian atom.
Kort, Eva
2015 1-4955-0287-2 116 pages
This book opens a new dialogue for philosophical treatments of humor and comedy. It traces their history from the Dionysian Performance Tradition and brings a fresh perspective to the issue as it recasts standard interpretations of the Aristotelian theory in broader terms that offer new grounds for distinguishing ‘humor’, ‘comedy’ and ‘mirth’.
Sadri, Farshad
2010 0-7734-3716-9 236 pages
The author demonstrates how Falsafah(which linguistically refers to a group of commentaries by Muslim scholars associated with their readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum) in Iran has been always closely linked with religion. It also shows that after the introduction of Islamic falsafah (and the onset of the Corpus Aristotelicum in Baghdad in 899 AD), the blending of the new natural theology and the vibrant Iranian culture gave birth to a new making of intellectual sway which soon made Iran the center of falsafah (and sciences) in the Medieval world.
Smith, Michael A.
1995 0-7734-2279-X 220 pages
A comparison of the writings of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, and Charlis De Koninck on the dignity of the individual and the common good, topics fundamental to Catholic social teaching.
Beck, Martha C.
2008 0-7734-5185-4 184 pages
This book applies many of the categories in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics and Rhetoric to the three main characters in Sophocles’ play, Philoctetes: Neoptolemus, Odysseus and Philoctetes. All three characters act at extremes in relation to the virtues of courage, anger, truthfulness and shame. Their relationships to each other are also flawed in various ways, and each character commits injustices as they abuse the power they have over each other. They all have good reasons for their actions but still make the wrong decisions. Their happiness is determined by their actions and choices not by their opinions. Aristotle’s list of the prominent character-traits in young people, middle-aged people and the old in the Rhetoric are applied in this book to Neoptolemus, the youth, Odysseus, the middle-aged ruler, and Philoctetes, an old man. Aristotle’s criteria for tragedy in the Poetics are applied to Sophocles’ play as a whole. Both Aristotle and Sophocles believe there exists universal standards for a well-lived life and universal patterns in the ways people fail to live well. Both Aristotle and Sophocles believe that the purpose of tragedy is to educate audience members, with the ultimate goal of this kind of education being practical wisdom (phronesis).