Aristotle's Two Systems

Each of the two major approaches to Aristotle--the unitarian, which understands his work as forming a single, unified system, and the developmentalist, which seeks a sequence of developing ideas--has inherent limitations. This book proposes a synthetic view of Aristotle that sees development as a change between systematic theories. Setting theories of the so-called logical works beside theories of the physical and metaphysical treatises, Graham shows that Aristotle's doctrines fall into two distinct systems of philosophies that are genetically related. This study--the first major alternative to the unitarian approach since Jaeger pioneered the developmentalist method in 1923--provides a sweeping reappraisal of Aristotle's science and metaphysics and a new approach to the problem of substance presented in the Metaphysics .

This book reconstructs in detail the older Stoic theory of the psychology of action, discussing it in relation to Aristotelian, Epicurean, Platonic, and some of the more influential modern theories. Important Greek terms are transliterated and explained; no knowledge of Greek is required.

This study addresses major problems in interpreting Aristotle, such as whether the reader should reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of the corpus by assuming an underlying unity of doctrine (unitarianism), or by positing a sequence of developing ideas (developmentalism). This book presents a detailed reconstruction of the older Stoic theory of the psychology of action, which is discussed in relation to Aristotelian, Epicurean, Platonic, and some of the more influential modern theories. There are two dominant approaches to Aristotle: the unitarian and the developmentalist. The author recommends a synthetic view which sees development as a change between systematic theories. Daniel W. Graham. Includes Indexes. Bibliography: P. [333]-346.