Aristotle's Legacy: Three Perspectives

The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology is honored to announce three lectures to be held in the context of its search for a professor of philosophy with expertise in the history, reception, and current reflection upon ancient Greek philosophy.

Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 7:30 p.m.
THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPOSED - DATE TO BE DETERMINED
Kevin Timpe
An Aristotelian Account of Events and Their Individuation

One aspect of the metaphysics of events is ontological reflection on events to include accounts of their individuation and identity. There are two dominant families of views regarding the identity and individuation of events: property-exemplification accounts and causal history accounts. My concern in the present paper is solely with the first of these families. I begin by raising a number of problems faced by extant property-exemplification accounts of events and their individuation. Then, building upon an Aristotelian ontology, I develop a property-exemplification theory of events and their individuation that avoids the problems facing its rival accounts.

Wednesday, 6 February 2008, 10:30 a.m.
Joseph Magee
Aristotle and Contemporary Theories of Mind

In recent years, some scholars have sought to portray Aristotle’s doctrine of soul, sense and mind, as an ancient version of contemporary theories in the philosophy of mind. Specifically, some have argued that in the De Anima he espouses a sort of functionalism about the physical realization of mental states and capacities, or the supervenience of mental states on physical processes. A more accurate understanding of his philosophy, however, reveals that his insights into what is distinctive about cognition as an activity are not easy to correlate with contemporary presuppositions about mental states or physical processes.

Friday, 8 February 2008, 7:30 p.m.
Margarita Vega
Metaphor in the Light of On Interpretation, 16a 3-8

The theory and use of metaphora by Aristotle is a problem that scholars have addressed without a satisfactory answer. Instead of simply tracing the varied uses of metaphora in the various treatises, I propose that the semantics of metaphora needs to be explained. Aristotle’s views about the relation between language, thought and reality as depicted in On Interpretation 16a 3-8 in conjunction with the references to metaphora throughout the Corpus provide a framework to understand metaphora as a complex phenomenon of epiphora, metapherein and metaphorikon einai. Aristotle’s theory of metaphora helps us to understand the relationship between language and thought in Aristotle’s philosophy.

All lectures will be held at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
2301 Vine Street (at Arch and Vine), Berkeley, CA 94708
The lectures are free and open to the public.