Logos in Aristotle

289 Pages·2016·2.4 MB·English

by  Ömer Aygün

the middle included
series editor
John Russon
REREADING ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
THE MIDDLE
INCLUDED
Logos in Aristotle
Ömer Aygün
northwestern university press • evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2017 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2017. All rights reserved.
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Canım annemle babam Güzin ve Birol Aygün’e

contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Preface xiii
Introduction: The Question and the Method 3
Chapter 1: Being (Logos in the Categories) 23
1. Homonymy 23
2. Synonymy 30
3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 40
Chapter 2: Potentiality (Logos in On Interpretation) 43
1. The Inherence of Logos 43
2. Potentiality 51
3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 61
Chapter 3: Natural Motion (Logos in the Physics) 63
1. The Natural 63
2. The Organic 75
3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 86
Chapter 4: Animal Motion (Logos in On the Soul) 89
1. Sensation 90
2. Locomotion 101
3. Recapitulation and Reorientation 110
Chapter 5: Action (Logos in the Nicomachean Ethics) 113
1. Habit 114
2. Positive State 123
3. Character 130
4. Recapitulation and Reorientation 142
Chapter 6: Speech (Logos in the Politics) 145
1. Animal Communication 146
2. Human Speech: From “Letters” to “Words” 155
3. Human Speech: From “Words” to “Sentences” 168
4. Logoi: Definition, Account, and Law 178
Conclusion 189
1. Overview 189
2. The Human Condition: The Cycloptic and the Oedipal 194
3. Nous 208
Notes 211
Bibliography 249
General Index 261
Index Locorum 267
acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State
University, which provided me an educational and therefore philosophi-
cal environment between 2001 and 2005, the Fulbright Foundation which
granted me optimum work conditions for research in 2005– 6, and the Proj-
ects of Scientific Research at Galatasaray University which enabled me to
turn my dissertation into this book.
I am deeply grateful to Robert D. Metcalf and Eli Diamond for their
detailed notes and fair criticisms concerning the text in its manuscript form;
to the members of the committee of my dissertation on which this book
is based, Daniel Conway, Veronique Fóti, Christopher P. Long, and Mark
Munn, for their suggestions and encouragement after reading the earliest
version of this book; and also to Rémi Brague, Pierre Pellegrin, Jean- Louis
Labarrière, and Annick Jaulin for their insightful remarks during my presen-
tations of parts of it. I am also very much indebted to my friends, Katherine
Loewy, Eric Sanday, Hakan Yücefer, Sean D. Kirkland, David Bronstein,
Gregory Recco, William Harwood, Refik Güremen, Ali Çakır, and Michael
Schleeter, for their companionship and challenges.
I cannot express enough my indebtedness to John Russon who directed
my dissertation with immense philosophical motivation and genuine friend-
ship, and honored my work by including it in its present form in the series
“Rereading Ancient Philosophy” at Northwestern University Press. I am also
grateful to Maggie Grossman, Henry Lowell Carrigan, Anne E. Gendler,
and Nathan MacBrien at the Northwestern University Press for their help
during the editorial preparation of the book in its published form.
Finally, I am most indebted to my wife, Ayşenur Nuhoğlu, for the con-
stant support and diligent criticism she brought to these pages. Indeed, none
of the above is to be held responsible for any shortcomings in the following,
but the rest of it could not be written without them.
ix