One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics: Books Alpha to Delta

"One and Many" in Aristotle's Metaphysics: Books, "Alpha to Delta" is sequentially the first volume of a three volume set, the second of which was first published by Ohio State University Press in 1989 and was reprinted with revisions by Parmenides Publishing in 2005. The final volume, "Lota to Nu", is scheduled for release in 2009. Most treatments of the opening books of Aristotle's Metaphysics aim to elucidate Aristotle's doctrines of being and substance or to discover, within his accounts of his philosophical predecessors, their doctrines of being. In this first volume of "One and Many", Halper argues that books "Alpha to Delta" should be read as a coherent treatment, within the larger whole of the Metaphysics, that addresses the problem of how there can be a science of metaphysics. At issue is whether the topics that should be treated by metaphysics can fall under a single science, and this question turns on whether these topics constitute the sort of unity that can be the subject matter of an Aristotelian science. Aristotle shows that metaphysics exists by showing that these topics do indeed constitute the appropriate unity. Halper argues that Aristotle poses and pursues the problem of the existence of metaphysics as a version of the problem of the one and the many. However, Aristotle resolves this problem by introducing doctrines of being and substance, and it is these latter that he continues to explore in the next portion of the Metaphysics, treated in the second volume, "The Central Books". Hence, the opening books of the Metaphysics show, Halper argues, Aristotle's transformation of metaphysics from a treatment of the problem of the one and the many to a treatment of being and substance. Understanding the one/many problem that these doctrines resolve is the key to understanding Aristotle's arguments in the opening books of the Metaphysics and, consequently, the doctrines they support. Many of the details in these well worked books of the Metaphysics are, of course, well known. What Halper does here is fit them together into a coherent treatment of the problem of the one and many. In doing so, he locates the Metaphysics firmly in the tradition of Presocratic and Platonic metaphysical speculation. Aristotle undermines this tradition, but understanding how he does so is essential for understanding his argument in the Metaphysics. |||This book is sold in the US by Sony Electronics Inc. |||This book is sold in Canada by Sony Electronics Inc.

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• Published by

  Parmenides Publishing

• Publish Date

  January 27, 2009 

• Print ISBN

  1930972210

• eBook ISBN

  9781930972582

• Imprint

  Parmenides Publishing

• Filesize

  3.81 MB

• Number of Print Pages*

  400

* Number of eBook pages may differ. Click here for more information.