Features of Substantiality in Aristotle

Features of Substantiality in Aristotle

Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon, 3rd- 5th of July

2024

We are delighted to announce our upcoming conference on Features of Substantiality in Aristotle, taking place on the 3rd - 5th of July 2024 at the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon (CFUL). The event will take place in person. Attendance will be free of charge and open to the public. The conference venue will be accessible for people with physical disabilities.

Confirmed Speakers:

David Charles (Yale)

Klaus Corcilius (Eberhard Karls University Tübingen)

Silvia Fazzo (University of Eastern Piedmont 'Amedeo Avogadro')

Mary Louise Gill (Brown)

António Pedro Mesquita (University of Lisbon)

Pierre-Marie Morel (University Paris 1 Pantheón-Sorbonne)

Wolfgang Sattler (University of Lisbon)

Raphael Zillig (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul

Topic: It is a central question in Aristotle's ontology what it is for something to be a substance. Aristotle characterises substances as such in different ways, including as being: separate, or separable (choriston); a this-something (tode ti) and what something is (ti esti); what it is in its own right (kath'hauto); something definite (horismenon); and a subject or substrate (hypokeimenon). However, among these 'features' of substantiality, some are notoriously hard to grasp and have sparked considerable debates in the literature. It is also not fully clear how all these features relate to each other. For example, there is a long-lasting controversy about what it means for a substance to be separate, whether this should be understood in terms of existential independence, or in terms of essential independence, or in some other way. And it is disputed whether substantial forms are separate or not. Another controversy concerns the question of what it means to be a this-something (tode ti), whether it just means to be a particular (falling under a substance kind), or to be something definite and determinate, or to be such that no element of the account of the thing is predicated of another, or something else. And it is disputed whether it is the individual sensible substance, or the form, that is a this-something in the primary sense.

The aim of the conference is to discuss the different features of substantiality as they figure both in Aristotle's ontological works and also in his other (biological, ethical etc.) works, in order to gain a better understanding of them, and their relation to each other.

Organisers: Wolfgang Sattler, António Pedro Mesquita.

For further details or enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Acknowledgements: This conference has been made possible through the generous support of the European Union and the European Research Executive Agency through the project “On the Substantiality of Aristotelian Substances” (project number 101090320, HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships), the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through the project “Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary” (PTDC/FER-FIL/0305/2021), and the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon (CFUL).

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.