Workshop: First Philosophy in Metaphysics ZH (April 22-23, 2022)

Join Christian Pfeiffer and Samuel Meister for this online workshop on first philosophy in ZH. To register, please email Christian Pfeiffer.

In this workshop, we want ask to what extent ZH is a metaphysical treatise. On the one hand, metaphysics studies fundamental beings, substance, and the task of ZH is defining substance and seeking its principles and causes. On the other hand, ZH deals with perceptible substances, that is, substances composed of form and matter. Not only is the study of form-matter composites the topic of the Physics, which raises the question of whether the account of the Physics differs from that of the Metaphysics, but also Aristotle himself indicates in ZH that this study belongs to second philosophy (Z.11) and that he undertakes an analysis of perceptible substances to get clear about non-perceptible substances (Z.17). In this workshop, we want to explore this tension and solutions to it.

Schedule

Friday, April 22

9-10.30: Lindsay Judson (Oxford): What Is Aristotle’s Metaphysics About?

11-12.30: Mary Louise Gill (Brown): Being, Essence, and Definition in Metaphysics Z.4.

BREAK

1.30-3.00 pm: Lloyd Gerson (Toronto): Substance and First Philosophy: The Failed Hypothesis

Saturday, April 23

9-10.30: Michail Peramatzis (Oxford): Priority and Unity as Unifiers of Aristotle’s “Natural” and “Supranatural” Metaphysics

11-12.30: Christof Rapp (Munich): Sensible Substance and the Envisaged Outcome of Aristotle’s Metaphysical Project