The Philosophical Uses of the Concept of Potentiality in Aristotle and his Commentators
FAIN: FT-54872-07
John Francis Bowin
Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)
I propose to revise and substantially expand my doctoral dissertation into a book, entitled "The Philosophical Uses of the Concept of Potentiality in Aristotle and his Commentators." I am now working on three papers for publication, based on the material in my dissertation. They consist of (1) A paper arguing that Aristotle's concept of potentiality can form a non-circular basis for the arrow of time; (2) a paper which brings out certain neglected features of Aristotle’s view of potential infinity; (3) a paper on persistence through change, which develops a neglected puzzle about motion in Aristotle's Physics. The book will take up a common theme in these papers and analyze its development in the hands of Aristotle’s later commentators.