Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 4, HT21)

This paper tries to address four questions.  (1) What does Aristotle take as given or obvious in the first part of the chapter (192b8-193a9), and what does he feel the need to argue for?  (2) What is Aristotle trying to do when he says ‘nature is a sort of principle and cause of change and rest in that to which it belongs primarily of itself and not incidentally’ (192b20-3, 192b13-15, etc.), and does he regard this characterisation of nature as controversial? (3) What (if any) are Aristotle’s own distinctive conclusions in the first part of the chapter? (4) How (if at all) do Aristotle’s conclusions about form and matter in the second part of the chapter (193a9-b21) relate to his conclusions in the first part?

The Seminar will take place via Microsoft Teams. By clicking this link you will be redirected to a page in which you will be prompted to sign in with your Oxford SSO.

_{Workshop in Ancient Philosophy Convenors: Ursula Coope, Simon Shogry and Luca Castagnoli}