Aristotles Ontology of Artefacts Marilu Papandreou Full Chapter PDF
Aristotles Ontology of Artefacts Marilu Papandreou Full Chapter PDF
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A R IST OT LE ’S ONT OL O G Y OF AR TEF AC TS
MARILÙ PAPANDREOU
University of Bergen Humboldt University of Berlin
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009340502
doi: 10.1017/9781009340557
© Marilù Papandreou 2024
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First published 2024
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Introduction 1
0.1 Artefacts in the Contemporary Debate 2
0.2 Artefacts in Aristotle: Some Preliminary Observations 8
0.3 Aristotelian Scholarship: The Status Quaestionis 15
0.4 A Piecemeal Approach 20
0.5 Aristotle’s Ontology of Artefacts 27
vii
Conclusions 276
Bibliography 281
Index Locorum 294
Subject Index 297
4.1 Difference between a matter that is potentially the object page 133
and a matter that is part of the object
xiv
3
For a discussion on the ways in which well and badly designed artefacts affect our lives, see, for
instance, Norman 2001; and for a consideration of artefacts as ‘collaborative actions’, see Preston
2012.
4
It is still difficult to understand what the discipline of philosophy of technology consists of and
whether it is a self-contained discipline in the first place. For an overview, see Franssen 2009; Reydon
2012.
5
I shall set aside the treatment of artefacts in semantic, mereology and formal ontology.
6
In the modern discussion, the class of ‘manifest things’ includes macroscopic beings such as artefacts
and living beings.
7
The puzzle of Theseus’ Ship has acquired special notoriety. It is presented by Hobbes in his De
Corpore (1655) and reconsidered by Simons (1987) and Wiggins (2001).
8
See Rea 1997.
9
By proposing a theory of composition, Van Inwagen claims that only living beings and their simples
exist.
10
The class of ordinary things is broader than the class of artefacts. Ordinary things also include living
beings. Some philosophers do not merely exclude artefacts from ontology, but they do so by
excluding ordinary things as a whole from their discussion.
11
For an overview of the positions concerning the ontological status of artworks, see Livingston 2011.
12
Soavi (2009), for instance, examines and rejects three arguments against the reality of artefacts:
Wiggins’ argument that artefact kinds are not sortals (Wiggins 2001), Van Inwagen’s composition
argument (Van Inwagen 1990, 90, 98) and Merricks’ argument from causal overdetermination
(Merricks 2001, 56–8). She argues (29–30) that the three accounts suffer from the same fundamental
flaw: none of them establishes a clear-cut distinction between artefacts and natural beings. More
recently, Koslicki (2018), while addressing author-based accounts, points out their difficulties in
dealing with objects that are clearly classifiable neither as natural beings nor as artefacts.
13
Works defending the metaphysical seriousness of artefacts include Rea 1995, 1998; Thomasson 1999,
2007; Elder 2004, 2007.
14
Koslicki 2008, 2018.
15
I leave aside conventionalist accounts. For an overview, see Koslicki 2018, 237–9.
16
See Soavi 2009, 29–30.
17
For a discussion on how Aristotle would face the challenges highlighted by Koslicki (2018), see
Papandreou 2018.
18
See, e.g. Isnardi Parente (1966) and Löbl (1997, 2003, 2008). The most recent contribution to the
topic is Johansen (2021), which covers the notion of productive knowledge in ancient philosophy up
to Late Antiquity, with a chapter on Plotinus and one on Proclus.
19
I am referring to contributions concerned with artefacts as such. Certainly, there is a vast literature
on the art analogy and teleology. I will return to these aspects in Chapter 3.1.
20
For example, Fine (1993) and Broadie (2007). 21 D’Hoine (2006a, 2006b).
22
This is not the case for Aristotle’s commentators. Already with Alexander of Aphrodisias, ta phusika
(natural beings) are opposed to ta technêta (artefacts). See, for instance, Mantissa 121.17–18.
23
Phys. 2.1, 192b27–193a1.
24
Aristotle appeals to kata technên for instance in NE 1099b22–3; Met. 1070a17 but also in Protrepticus
fr. 12 line 8.
25
GA 730b21, 734b36, 767a17 and 775a21; PA 639b15–16; Phys. 193a32, 194b7, 199a17–19, 199a33, 199b1,
200b1.
26
Phys. 2.1, 193a31–3.
27
Cael. 277b31, GC 335b28, Met. 1032a27–8, 1032a32, 1032b22–3, 1032b24–5, 1034a12, 1034a34, PA
640a29, 640a32, Phys. 2.1, 192b18 and Protrepticus fragment 12 line 2.
28
In Met. 1043b22 and Phys. 192b13, 254b31. 29 Met. 1050a31, 1064a12.
30
Phys. 2.1, 192b27–32. 31 Meteor. 353b25–6, 381a30. 32 Met. A 1, 981a30–b2.
33
GA 724a34, 743b23, 762a16, 767a19. See also NE 1094b14.
34
Mostly but not always, since, for instance, in Met. Δ 12 on the meanings of capacity (dunamis),
Aristotle uses it to refer to tools.
35
Between animate and inanimate there is no intermediate state. See On Plants 1.1, 816a5–10.
36
On products of art that do not qualify as material objects, see Chapter 3 (Section 3.3).
37 38
Cat. 4b13–9. I shall briefly address them again in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3.1).
39
One might say that the so-called ‘chemical treatise’ (i.e. Meteor. 4) concerns artefacts at a chemical
level. However, the focus is on chemical processes, irrespective of whether they are brought about
naturally or artificially. Moreover, as I will argue in Chapter 3 (Section 3.4.2), the homoiomerous
bodies are natural beings, even the ones produced by art.
40
For a brief discussion of the products of arts such as rhetoric, poetics and politics, see Chapter 3
(Section 3.3.1).
41
For a conjecture on the possible content of such works, see Bolton 2021.
42 43
I discuss the implications of the art analogy in Chapter 3 (Section 3.1). Sedley 2010.
44
For a more detailed discussion, see Vattimo 1961; Cardullo 2005. 45 Quarantotto 2005.
46
Waterlow 1982. 47 This topic will be addressed in detail in Chapter 6.
50
Outside the Metaphysics, one possible relevant passage is – according to Shields (2008) – Phys. 2.1,
192b32–4. However, as I will explain in the Section 0.4, the Physics does not engage in metaphysical
questions.
51
Outside the Metaphysics, in DA 2.1, Aristotle states that bodies seem most of all to be substances,
particularly natural ones, since they are principles of the others (412a11–13).
52
Exceptions include Gerson (1984), Koslicki (1997), Morel (2017) and Corkum (2023).
53
Morel (2017, 193): ‘Forms of artefacts are thus neither matter itself, nor substantial forms in the
fullest sense. My hypothesis is that they correspond rather to an intermediary formal modality,
between the properties of proximate matter and the form that is genuinely substantial.’ (my
translation).
54
Artefacts are substances because they can ground nonsubstances as their qualities, but they are
merely fundamental because they are themselves partly grounded in natural substances. Corkum
(2023) aligns with a binary view of substantiality in that he understands the distinction between
most-of-all substances and substances that are not most-of-all substances as ‘the distinction between
absolute and relative fundamental entities’ (5).
55
Certain notions are presented in the Physics, but they can be proven to be accepted by Aristotle also
in the Metaphysics.
56
I lay out the ways in which Aristotle’s account of artefacts is in debt to Plato in Chapter 1.
57
In this sense, I do not use the expression ‘art analogy’ as Sedley (2010) and Witt (2015a) use the
expression ‘craft analogy’. They refer it to both the heuristic analogy and the examples taken from
the artificial realm.
58 59
See Chapter 3 (Section 3.1). I argue for this in Chapter 4 (Section 4.1).
60
The final chapter will reassess the relationship between the Physics and the Metaphysics in light of the
results achieved.
61
As we shall see in the final chapter, this is the case not only because the presence of intrinsic ends in
artefacts is readily assumed, but also because the Metaphysics as such does not primarily concern itself
with a functional analysis.
66
The theological reading is, for instance, defended by the Neoplatonic School of Alexandria. In
Ammonius’ view not only the Met. but the whole of the Aristotelian corpus is theologically oriented.
For a discussion of the theological reading and its relation to ontology, see Menn (n.d., Iα1).
67
For example, Kirwan 1993.
68
Besides the developmental reading famously promoted by Jaeger (1912, 1923), there are interpret-
ations that are in different ways both ontological and theological like those of Ackrill (1981), Natorp
(1888), Owens (1951) and Merlan (1957). Owen (1960) proposes the focal meaning interpretation,
which Frede applies to the Metaphysics: the being of the divine substance is the focal meaning ‘in
terms of which all other ways of being have to be explained’ (Frede 1987, 87). The attention to Book
Z also initiated so-called ‘zetology’, according to which the theory of substance as presented in Book
Z is the theoretical centre of the Metaphysics. For an overview of the zetological approach, see
Galluzzo (2006). The Metaphysics can also be viewed as a unitary enquiry into principles. Aristotle
repeats that the enquiry is concerned with principles in the opening chapters of several different
books (Γ 1, 1003a21–32, E 1, 1025b3–4, H 1, 1042a4–6). The archaeological reading might also apply
to the central books on substance theory. The question of what a substance is can be reduced to the
question of what the primary cause of ‘its being the case that it is a substance’ is (Code 1997, 359).
69
Politis 2004, 260. His ontological reading incorporates the theological section of Λ 6–10 as
ontological. More recently, Buddensiek (2018, 138) has argued that the objects of the ‘science
being sought for’ are first causes and principles. However, he considers an ontological reading to
be compatible with his archaeological interpretation: ‘a science of being – as it may seem to be
indicated in some aporiae – should not be a rival to a science depending on archai, but should be
integrated within such a science’ (139). This latter reading too seems able to explain why the
Metaphysics shows an interest in artefacts.
70
For example, Politis 2003.
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