Two Metaphysical Naturalisms: Aristotle and Justus Buchler

by Victorino Tejera, Atila Bayat (Editor)

Overview

Two Metaphysical Naturalisms: Aristotle and Justus Buchler provides an American naturalist reading of Aristotle's "Metaphysics" with extensive literary-philological considerations of the original Greek text. Victorino Tejera defines and evaluates the underpinnings of the systematic metaphysics of Justus Buchler through the American tradition of reading Aristotle. The book expands on classical Greek thought and develops a matured stance on Aristotle's modes of knowing and Justus Buchler's systematic metaphysics.

Tejera extracts from the Aristotelian-Peripatetic metaphysics the core of Aristotle's discussion of existence as existence by keeping track of the Peripatetic and Platonist interpolations of the editors who brought the text into being. The book also summarizes Buchler's Metaphysics of Natural Complexes in less technical terms to make it more accessible. With the help of Justus Buchler, Tejera reintroduces the concept of metaphysics as coordinative analysis.

Finally bridging the classical with the modern, Tejera reveals a cohesive revitalization of metaphysical naturalism for contemporary scholars and students of both ancient and modern philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739194461
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/12/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	947 KB

About the Author

Victorino Tejera is emeritus professor of philosophy and humanities at Stony Brook University.

Table of Contents

Part I: Metaphysics from the Perspective of Classic American Philosophy
Chapter 1: Metaphysics as Coordinative Analysis or Speculative Rhetoric
Part II: The Aristotelian-Peripatetic Metaphysics: a Naturalist Reading and Critique
Chapter 2: Books Alpha and Alpha the Less
Chapter 3: Book Beta: Some Problems in the Search for Knowledge
Chapter 4: Book Gamma: First Philosophy as the Study of Primary Being and the Most Basic Categories
Chapter 5: Book Delta: Terms and Concepts
Chapter 6: Books Epsilon and Zeta: On Primal Existence
Chapter 7: Book Eta: On the Unity of Matter and Form: Potentiality
Chapter 8: Book Theta: Potentiality is Power, Energeia is Function
Chapter 9: Book Iota: Unity and Derivative Concepts
Chapter 10: Book Kappa: Knowledge, Principles and First Philosophy
Chapter 11: Book Lambda: Does Aristotle's Naturalism Leave Room for the Supernatural?
Chapter 12: Books Mu and Nu: Mathematical Being, the Ideas, and First ‘Archai’
Part III: The Metaphysics of Ordinal Naturalism
Chapter 13: Buchler's Modes of Judgment and Aristotle's Kinds of Knowing
Chapter 14: Buchler's Metaphysics of Natural Complexes
Chapter 15: Ordinality, Relation, Possibility and Actuality
Chapter 16: The World as Infinite Complexes, and Nature as Ordinality
Part IV: Applying Buchler's Metaphysics
Chapter 17: Peirce, Parmenides, and Buchler on Continuity and Relatedness
Chapter 18: Buchler, Peirce and Interpretation Theory
Chapter 19: Buchler's Philosophy and Plato's Method
Chapter 20: Did Plato Give a Lecture or a Recital?

Editorial Reviews

Two Metaphysical Naturalisms: Aristotle and Justus Buchler is an important scholarly contribution to both Aristotle studies and an often-neglected strain of American philosophy, “Columbia naturalism”. Tejera convincingly demonstrates important philosophical connections between these fields of scholarship and his detailed treatment of Aristotle’s texts, especially those that have come down to us as the Metaphysics, is an exemplar of careful textual analysis, sensitive to both the Greek language of its time and the philosophical debates that swirled around the master in the decades following his death. We are privileged to find in this volume a fine treatment of Justus Buchler, as well, and Tejera’s work will be an important addition to the literature.

Armen T. Marsoobian

A work of loving students for their teachers: a tale of the mission by dedicated mid-twentieth century professors at Columbia University to rescue Aristotle for modern readers, with insights on human nature, human knowledge, and the literary transmission of philosophy.

James A. Arieti

This book is an indispensable resource for understanding both Aristotle and American naturalism as developed by Justus Buchler. Victorino Tejera and his editor have given us a much needed and illuminating commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics that frees it from overly transcendental and theological interpretations by drawing on Buchler's radically pluralistic concepts of natural complexes and ontological parity

Gary Shapiro