Form, Matter, and Mixture in Aristotle

This volume brings together papers by participants in the fourth annual USC/Rutgers conference in Aristotle, held at USC in December of 1992 on Aristotle′s theory of matter. Five papers take up different applications of Aristotle′s fundamental hylomorphic hypothesis: the account of human soul as form to the human body as matter; the unity of the substantial form and proximate matter in the individual substance; and the account of mixture at a lower level of matter. A final paper attempts to bring Aristotle′s account of compound material substances in Metaphysics Zeta under the rubric of Aristotelian science.

The distinguished contributors are James Bogen, Robert Bolton, Alan Code, Kit Fine, Frank Lewis, and Michael Wedin.

1. Keeping the Matter in Mind: Aristotle on the Passions and the Soul: Michael Wedin (University of California, Davis).

2. Aristotle on the Unity of Substance: Frank A. Lewis (University of Southern California).

3. The Problem of Mixture: Kit Fine (UCLA).

4. Fire in the Belly: Aristotelian Elements, Organisms and Chemical Compounds: James Bogen (Pitzer College).

5. Potentiality in Aristotle′s Science and Metaphysics: Alan Code (Ohio State University.).

6. Science and the Science of Substance in Aristotle′s ′Metaphysics′: Robert Bolton (Rutgers University).

Frank Lewis is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He has also taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, at Stanford University, and at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Substance and Predication in Aristotle (1991), and of numerous articles in ancient philosophy, especially the philosophy of Aristotle.

Robert Bolton is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has also taught at MIT, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Virginia, and the University of Maryland. He is the author of Science, Dialectique, et Ethique chez Aristotle (1996) and of many papers in ancient philosophy.