Ebook
Aristotle sets the horizons of our inquiry: What is it when we say we know something? And is the object of knowledge a universal or particular [tode ti] object? Aristotle's critique of Plato's theory of form/Forms in light of his notion of actuality has generated a variety of topics that frame our inquiry: "Understanding Eidos as Form in the Works of Aristotle as Plato's Critical Student"; "Aristotle on Plato's Forms as Causes"; "Notes on the Relationship between Plato's Parmenides and Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha"; "'Separate' and 'Inactive'? Aristotle's Most Challenging Critique of Plato's 'Forms'"; "Too Much Unity in a City Is Destructive of the City: Aristotle against Plato's Unification Project of the Polis"; "Aristotle on the Soul as Actuality"; "Delphic Piety in the De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias"; "Aristotle and Plotinus: Act and Potency and the Two Acts"; and "Al-Fārābīon Habit and Imagination." Here, the Peripatetic readings of form and actuality are parsed from the precipice of historical, analytic, and continental approaches to the mind/language/object problem, with advocacy of the importance of Aristotle's contribution to this inquiry for the present age.
“Few concepts have been so central in our philosophical tradition, since its Greek origins, as that of eidos—‘form.’ This useful collection of papers is a set of soundings into that tradition. It ranges over a timespan of more than a millennium, from Plato to al-Farabi, and over a wide spectrum of subjects: metaphysics and theology, but also ethics, politics, physics, biology, and psychology: an odyssey indeed!”
—John Thorp, professor emeritus of philosophy, Western University
“The Odyssey of Eidos explores the rich and multifaceted relationship between the Aristotelian eidos and the Platonic forms. Editor Mark Nyvlt has brought together distinguished scholars in the field and has invited them to address this fascinating and challenging issue. It is a valuable collection of articles, each of which, in its own way, sheds new light on the Aristotelian eidos. This most welcome addition to Aristotelian scholarship has certainly met the challenge.”
—Catherine Collobert, professor of philosophy, University of Ottawa