1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456544603321

Autore

Wilson Malcolm <1961->

Titolo

Aristotle's theory of the unity of science / / Malcolm Wilson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2000

©2000

ISBN

1-4426-7099-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (286 p.)

Collana

Phoenix Supplementary Volumes ; ; 38

Disciplina

185

Soggetti

Science - Philosophy

Science - Methodology

Science, Ancient

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Genus, Abstraction, and Commensurability -- 2. Analogy in Aristotle's Biology -- 3. Analogy and Demonstration -- 4. The Structure of Focality -- 5. Metaphysical Focality -- 6. Mixed Uses of Analogy and Focality -- 7. Cumulation -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- General Index -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Aristotle was the first philosopher to provide a theory of autonomous scientific disciplines and the systematic connections between those disciplines. This book presents the first comprehensive treatment of these systematic connections: analogy, focality, and cumulation.Wilson appeals to these systematic connections in order to reconcile Aristotle's narrow theory of the subject-genus (described in the Posterior Analytics in terms of essential definitional connections among terms) with the more expansive conception found in Aristotle's scientific practice. These connections, all variations on the notion of abstraction, allow for the more expansive subject-genus, and in turn are based on concepts fundamental to the Posterior Analytics. Wilson thus treats the connections in their relation to Aristotle's theory of science and shows how they arise from his doctrine of abstraction. The effect of the



argument is to place the connections, which are traditionally viewed as marginal, at the centre of Aristotle's theory of science.The scholarly work of the last decade has argued that the Posterior Analytics is essential for an understanding of Aristotle's scientific practice. Wilson's book, while grounded in this research, extends its discoveries to the problems of the conditions for the unity of scientific disciplines.