1st Edition

Cause and Explanation in Ancient Philosophy

Edited By Alberto Ross, Daniel Vázquez Copyright 2024
272 Pages
by Routledge

272 Pages
by Routledge

This volume offers an updated analysis of the use, meaning, and scope of the classical notion of aitia . It clarifies philosophical and philological questions about aitia and offers bold and innovative interpretations of this key concept of ancient philosophy. The numerous meanings and nuances of aitia remain difficult to grasp. Ancient philosophers use aitia to explain the existence and... Read more

Introduction Alberto Ross

1. Note on the original meaning of Greek aitios David Lévystone

2. What good is the Form of the Good? Mary Margaret McCabe

3. That’s What Makes the World Go Round: Causation in the Myth in the Statesman Saloni de Souza and Daniel Vázquez

4. Chance, Necessity, and Demiurgic Causation in the Timaeus Viktor Ilievski

5. Causality and Explanation in Aristotle: logoseidos and tropos Alberto Ross

6. Aristotle with prime matter Cristina Viano

7. Aristotle on the efficiency of accidental causes José María Llovet Abascal

8. The Relevance of Environmental Conditions as Causes for Animal Generation in Aristotle María-Elena García-Peláez

9. Aristotle’s causes and the problem of the necessity of our actions Carlo Natali

10. Theories of Causation in Early Stoicism Daniel Vázquez

11. The scientific epistemology of al-Naẓẓām Michael Chase

12. Recovering Causality? Ibn Taymiyya on the Creation of the World Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

Biography

Alberto Ross is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Universidad Panamericana, Mexico. His works include The Causality of the Prime Mover in Metaphysics Λ (2016); Causality, Nature and Fate in Alexander of Aphrodisias (2016); The Causality of the Prime Mover in Simplicius (2020); and he coedited the volume Time and Cosmology in Plato and the Platonic Tradition (2022).

Daniel Vázquez is Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. He is also a member of the Trinity Plato Centre. He has published in various areas of ancient philosophy, especially on Plato, the Stoics, and the skepticism of Sextus Empiricus. He is coeditor of Time and Cosmology in Plato and the Platonic Tradition (2022) and Plato on Time and the World (2023).

“The chronological, thematic, and methodological variety of the contributions makes this collection very stimulating and wide-ranging. In all, the chapters are of high quality, offering rich, clear, and well-argued insights into how ancient philosophers understood the notions of cause, explanation, and responsibility … The volume makes a highly valuable contribution to the field and will benefit readers interested in ancient philosophy and its legacy.”

Bryn Mawr Classical Review