Program

Research Programs: Summer Stipends

Period of Performance

6/1/2007 - 9/30/2007

Funding Totals

$5,000.00 (approved)
$5,000.00 (awarded)


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.





Associated Products

Aristotle on Identity and Persistence (Article)
Title: Aristotle on Identity and Persistence
Author: John Bowin
Abstract: In antiquity, the problem of persistence through time is usually associated with certin puzzles or paradoxes, such as the Ship of Theseus and Epicharmus' Growing Argument, which call into question the assumption that an enduring entity can gain and shed properties while still remaining numerically the same.
Year: 2008
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Apeiron
Publisher: Apeiron