Herewith the seminar topics and primary texts. I will be adding recommendations for secondary readings as the seminar progresses. I will also add readings requested by seminar members in connection with seminar presentations.
- Week One: A Science of Being
- Week Two: Metaphysical Aporiae
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics B 1, 2, and 6
- Secondary Reading:
- Madigan: introduction and relevant sections of the commentary
- Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles, Chs. 6-7
- Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, Ch. 6
- Reeve, ‘Aristotle’s Philosophical Method,’ in C. Shields ed., The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle
- Week Three: The First Task of Metaphysics
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Γ 1-4
- Secondary Reading:
- Kirwan, relevant sections of the commentary
- Shields, ‘Being qua Being,’ in C. Shields ed., The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle
- Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles, Chs. 8-9
- Loux, 'Aristotle on the Transcendentals'
- Week Four: Substance and a Sophistic Puzzle
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Γ 5-8
- Secondary Reading:
- Cohen, Aristotle: Metaphysics, SEP
- Studtmann, Aristotle: Categories, SEP
- Matthews, ‘Accidental Unities,’ in M. Schofield and M. Nussbaum edd., Language and Logos
- Cohen, ‘Kooky Objects Revisited'
- Week Five: Metaphysics among the Sciences: its Object and Method
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Δ 7, Ε 1-4
- Secondary Reading:
- Kirwan, relevant sections of the commentary
- Shields, Aristotle (Routledge), Ch. 1 § 5 (background)
- Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics §§1144-1244
- Week Six: Substance and Essence
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Ζ 1-3
- Secondary Reading:
- Bostock, relevant sections of the commentary
- Wedin, Aristotle’s Theory of Substance
- Gill, 'Aristotle's Metaphysics Reconsidered,' Journal of the History of Philosophy (2005)
- Loux, Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Ζ and Η
- Week Seven: Substance and Being
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Ζ 4-16
- Secondary Reading:
- Bostock, relevant sections of the commentary
- Lewis, How Aristotle Gets By in Metaphysics Zeta
- Week Eight: Substance and Unity
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Z 17, Η 1-6
- Secondary Reading:
- Bostock, relevant sections of the commentary
- Lewis, 'Aristotle on the Unity of Substance,' Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (1995)
- Loux, 'Composition and Unity: An Examination of Metaphysics Η.6,” on M. Sim ed., The Crossroads of Norm and Nature
- Week Nine: Mid-semester Break
- Week Ten: Being’s Modes—Potentiality
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Θ 1-4
- Secondary Reading:
- Makin, introduction and relevant sections of the commentary
- Beere, Doing and Being, Chs. 1-7
- Week Eleven: Being’s Modes—Actuality
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Θ 6-10
- Secondary Reading:
- Makin, relevant sections of the commentary
- Beere, Doing and Being, Chs. 8-14
- Shields, ‘An Approach to Aristotelian Actuality’
- Week Twelve: Individuality and Universality of Principles
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Μ 9-10
- Secondary Reading:
- Annas, introduction and relevant sections of the commentary
- Shields, 'Plato and Aristotle in the Academy: an Aristotelian Criticism of Platonic Forms’
- Week Thirteen: Separate Being
- Primary Reading: Metaphysics Λ
- Secondary Reading:
- Owen, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics, Chs. 18-19
- Menn, ‘Aristotle and Plato on God as Nous and as the Good'
- Week Fourteen-Sixteen: Open