Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha Symposium Aristotelicum Symposia Aristotelica Series

The volumes of the 'Symposium Aristotelicum' have become the obligatory reference works for all studies on Aristotle. In this eighteenth volume a distinguished group of scholars offers a chapter-by-chapter study of the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Aristotle presents here his philosophical project as a search for wisdom, which is found in the knowledge of the first principles allowing us to explain whatever exists. As he shows, the earlier philosophers had been seeking such a wisdom, though they had divergent views on what these first principles were. Before Aristotle sets out his own views, he offers a critical examination of his predecessors' views, ending up with a lengthy discussion of Plato's doctrine of the Forms. Book Alpha is not just a fundamental text for reconstructing the early history of Greek philosophy; it sets the agenda for Aristotle's own project of wisdom after what he had learned from his predecessors. The volume comprises eleven chapters, each dealing with a different section of the text, and a new edition of the Greek text of Metaphysics Alpha by Oliver Primavesi, based on an exhaustive examination of the complex manuscript and indirect tradition. The introduction to the edition offers new insights into the question which has haunted editors of the Metaphysics since Bekker, namely the relation between the two divergent traditions of the text.

List Of Participants. ESSAYS. 1. The Desire to Know (Metaphysics A 1). 2. A Science of First Principles (Metaphysics A 2). 3. History and Dialectic (Metaphysics A 3, 983a24-4b8). 4. 'The Next Principle' (Metaphysics A 3-4, 984b8-985b22). 5. Pythagoreanism: emerging from the Presocratic fog (Metaphysics A 5). 6. Plato as seen by Aristotle (Metaphysics A 6). 7. Critique of Earlier Philosophers on the Good and the Causes (Metaphysics A 7-A 8 989a18). 8. Second thoughts on some Presocratics (Metaphysics A 8, 989a18-990a32). 9. The Doctrine of Forms under Critique (Metaphysics A 9, 990a33-991b9). 10. The Doctrine of Forms under Critique (Metaphysics A 9, 991b9 - 993a10). 11. Conclusion - and Retrospect (Metaphysics A 10). Bibliography. EDITION. A Revised Text of Metaphysics. Text of Metaphysics. INDEXES. Index locorum. Index of Modern Names. Subject Index.

Carlos Steel is emeritus Professor for ancient and medieval philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Leuven and director of the international project 'Aristoteles Latinus'. Steel has devoted most of his research to the study of the Platonic tradition from late antiquity to Ficino with a particular emphasis on the philosophy of Proclus. He is the editor of Proclus' commentary on the Parmendes in Oxford Classical Studies and different volumes in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series