This study aims at providing a global explanation of the good life or happiness according to Aristotle. By applying the method used in ethics by Aristotle, the specific content of happiness is determined, of which meditation is the essence, together with the practice of moral virtues. The article rests on a relatively new perspective, neither ‘exclusive’ nor ‘inclusive’, considering the results of each type of traditional interpretation, and shedding light upon the richness of all happiness’ dimensions.

The aim of this paper is to study some aspects of the Medieval Latin reception of Aristotle’s theory of pleasure (Eth. Nic. X). First, I introduce Aristotle’s position, with special attention to the problem of the ontological status of pleasure and the relationship between pleasure and the different genera of causes (viz. formal and final causality), as well as the somehow ambiguous exegesis of Michael of Ephesus. Second, I take into account the interpretation given by Albert the Great in his first commentary on the Ethics. Finally, I present some theological issues raised by Albert’s interpretation, in the discussions about beatific vision. The authors taken in account are James of Viterbo, Radulphus Brito, Peter Auriol and William of Ockham.

According to some testimonies, the Aristotelian ethics have been torn between a hedonist reading, as much as an anti‑hedonist one, throughout Antiquity. From Critolaos to Verginius Rufus and Sosicrates, pleasure is considered both as “an evil [that] gives birth to many other evils” and as the first appropriate thing and the supreme good. This noteworthy disagreement stems from a famous difficulty within the Aristotelian corpus, raised by Aspasius, i.e. the alleged coexistence of two ‘definitions’ of pleasure in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics VII and X. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Alexander’s treatment of this difficulty, based on some passages from Alexander’s Ethical Problems and the Mantissa. I try to show that Alexander does not dismiss the so‑called “definition A” of pleasure (the unimpeded activity of one’s natural state) as being spurious, although he obviously values more the definition B (according to which pleasure perfects the activity as a kind of supervenient end). Even if he never openly brands the definition A as “dialectic” (like Aspasius), Alexander takes it as a reputable endoxon, which however needs to be emended in that it blurs the distinction between pleasure and activity. Pleasure only supervenes on the activity to which it is appropriate, and this supervenience is precisely what accounts for the inaccuracy of the definition A. As much as the child conflates the apparent good and the good, so the hedonist takes pleasure to be identical with the activity and the telos of human life. On the contrary, for Alexander, pleasure is actually only a sign of happiness and the shadow of the activity.

The book by Magali Année, Tyrtee et Kallinos (Paris, 2017), claims to establish new and ambitious grounds on which to found an interpretation of Tyrtaeus’ and Kallinos’ works. By analysing the underlining networks of phonic‑syllabic repetitions in the available fragments, she studies how those two poets have elaborated a paroenetic‑incantatory diction to make the audience accept the content of the exhortation as an already‑lived experience. For instance, she argues that any item in the phonic sequence ‑μεν/μην/μον/μν‑, even as a palindrome, refers to the action denoted by the verb μένειν, “to resist”. Année elaborates the conditions for the plausibility of her original interpretation through a re‑evaluation of the frameworks through which archaic poems are usually interpreted, and she proposes a new edition of the testimonies and fragments on the ground of radical textual conservatism. After summarising the author’s arguments in detail, I conclude that, in spite of their merits, they fail to meet the author’s objectives completely. I discuss in turn : how the author arranges the new edition of the testimonies and fragments ; how she argues for her central view about phonic‑syllabic repetitions and the elaboration of the secondary layer of meaning ; and how she analyses meter, which she presents as one of the bases for phonic‑pragmatic constructs ; and how she conceives of her hermeneutical approach. On this last point, I specifically address the author’s view on the relationship between testimonies and fragments, the type of meaning she focuses on, the deconstruction of pre‑interpretations, and textual conservatism. I argue that the Année’s proposed underlying network of meaning comes at the expense of “meaning” in the more usual sense ; we could however have expected her to elaborate on how her proposed layer of meaning enriches or enhances our understanding of the more usual layer. Tyrtee et Kallinos therefore represents an alternative to traditional interpretative approaches, with limits of its own, rather than a re‑founding.

The Theatetus and the Sophist present in succession two “battles” regarding ousia. In so doing, ousia is placed at the heart of what is essential to both dialogues : in fact, ousia interconnects with the conditions of possibility, both physical and metaphysical, of logos and epistèmè.However, each dialogue brings differing conceptions of discourse and science into play, and both articulate a different train of thought regarding being. Ousia appears differently in the two dialogues and it is not the same thing as the notion of ousia, usually considered to be truly Platonic, presented in the central books of the Republic, which neither the Socrates of the Theatetus nor the Stranger of the Sophist put forward.Both present ways out of the battles, each has its own middle course. Against the thesis of the non‑immutability of ousia, the Theatetus establishes that there is not only motion. And, unlike the doctrine that reduces ousia to Forms excluding all motion, the Sophist shows that while there is not only motion, there is not only rest either. Such different orientations in the treatment of ousia, just below and just above doctrinal Platonism as it were, adjust to distinctions in the epistemological stakes : even if the Theatetus emphasizes that science proceeds from an activity of the soul bringing together “commons”, it is not yet a question, as it will be the following day, of systematically getting epistèmè to intellectually grasp a set of eidetic relationships, nor of making logos itself the elaboration of relationships. One needs to have left the field where those in favour of motion are challenged on their own ground, and in an albeit transformed field marked out by the partisans of eide which is not the field hierarchical metaphysics either, it will become possible to analyse the discourse itself as a relational framework that is consistent with the framework of ousia.

Which Greek concept is translated by essentia ? The question is raised from a methodological perspective and aims at re‑examining the Latin texts on which philologists have based the history of essentia. Neither Cicero nor Seneca used the term, because they did not need it: its philosophical meaning is fully developed only when the theological discussions about the Trinity arise. The absence of essentia in the classical period gives some useful information about the way Plato was read at Rome: thus a critical history of the Latin philosophical lexicon should contribute to a better understanding of the reception of Greek philosophy in Rome.

This article examines the problem of the status of the different degrees of being that Plato, in the Timaeus, seems to attribute to the different kinds of reality that he distinguishes. In what sense and under what conditions is it possible to state that the intelligible forms, the sensible things and the spatial and material substratum of the chora “are” and “exist” ?

Expressing ‘essence’ in the translation and commentary of Timaeus by Calcidius (4th c. p.D.) depends on Platonist terminology which is not completely stabilised. We will see how, in his translation, Calcidius translated Greek words as οὐσία or φύσις, but also how he used the word substantia whereas there was no expression of essence in the Greek text. The Latin commentator used both essentia and substantia, but the latter quite often. However, in doing so, he weakened the meaning of the word substantia. Lastly, Calcidius translated into Latin and used Greek no‑Platonist expressions with a very specific signification of ‘essence’.

In Aristotle, substance, being specified in Z17 as cause and principle, is to be understood according to the analogical theory of principles and causes, namely form, matter and privation. These three causes involve potentiality and actuality, since form, privation, and the compound substance are in actuality, while matter is in potentiality. ≪What a substance is≫ depends on the connection between these three principles. In order to grasp the meaning of this connection, one has to put the analogical theory of principles back in its context, where previous theories on contraries (Plato’s theory included) are amended.The amendment of previous theories of principles relies on positing a third term, matter, between both opposites, i.e. form and privation. The implied distinction between matter and privation allows an understanding of generation which makes it compatible with substance. While generation removes privation, substance as form gives shape to matter, final matter and shape being identical to one another. Predication of matter by form supplies a relevant pattern for considering the relationship between matter, form and privation. At the same time, predication of matter by form provides both a renovated theory of opposites and a new theory of form as a cause, i.e. a theory of form as actuality.

This paper deals with the Aristotelian notion of topical matter (ὕλη τοπική) mentioned in a few passages of the Metaphysics and ascribed to the celestial bodies. Taking into account the metaphysical context of each occurrence of this notion, it tries to determine for what metaphysical use this notion has been developed and what impact it has on the ousiological analysis of the celestial substances. It suggests that the notion of topical matter, although intended to provide a convenient tool that makes possible a metaphysical, i.e. universal study of sensible substances, by allowing to subordinate every sensible substance to similar principles, in fact prevents celestial substances from being defined as ordinary hylomorphic compounds and leads to conceive them as a particular type of substances.

The initial dilemma. I.1. The gradual rise of the Metaphysics. I.2. A bold contribution from textual history. I.3. A new perspective on late ancient commentaries. I.4. First philosophy or Metaphysics? I.5. Can tradition be ignored? II. ‘Being’ and οὐσία at the core of Aristotle’s theoretical research. II.1. Ontology as a science of ‘being’ in Aristotle: “What is X?” in the foreground. II.2. The first caveat: the copula function of Aristotle’s ‘being’. II.3. The definite article τό as quotation marks before the flexed forms of ‘be’: τὸ ὄν, τὸ εἶναι, τὸ ἔστιν. II.4. Further explanations about Aristotle’s ‘being’. III. Οὐσία, the core of Aristotle’s theoretical philosophy. III.1. οὐσία and the criterion of pre‑eminence as Plato’s legacy. III.2. The dialectical roots of ontology. III.3. οὐσία from Zeta to Lambda. III.4. οὐσία as essence and οὐσία as substance. III.5. οὐσία as a syntactical core; the word’s etymology. III.6. οὐσία as the first sense of being in Aristotle’s first philosophy. III.7. Ontology as science, science of the science. IV. Historicizing: the semantic gap. IV.1. Editorial tradition: ontology and οὐσία as a fil rouge in the order of Metaphysics books. IV.2. οὐσία in the first century B.C. IV.3. οὐσία by Alexander of Aphrodisias. IV.4. Metaphysics and its purpose: the role of the Lambda book. IV.5. Being and οὐσία: a relationship lost over time. IV.6. The Aristotelian tradition as a way to cooperation.

In the Corpus Aristotelicum there are two different theories of substance which apply to the sublunary world. The first theory is found in the Categories and selects the individual concrete as a primary substance (πρώτη oὐσία). The second is found in the Metaphysics (mainly in book Z) and selects the Form (εἶδος) and the Essence (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) as a primary substance. Most of the interpretations of modern Aristotelian scholarship claim an inconsistency. They suggest that if at all Aristotle has a theory of substance, then it is either the substance theory of the Categories or the one of the Metaphysics but not both of them. The supposition of all these interpretations is that Aristotle’s theory of substance is unambiguous and that there can be only a single primary substance. These interpretations suppose that the theory of substance is applicable only to a single domain, namely to ontology.In my paper I argue that this supposition is false. I suggest that Aristotle’s theory of substance is applicable not only to ontology but also to the domain of determinology whose meaning is explained in the paper. The theory of substance of the Categories applies to ontology whereas the one of the Metaphysics applies to determinology. The two theories are consistent with each other in a way that there are two commensurate sorts of primary substance: the individual concrete as the ontological primary substance of the Categories and the Form‑Essence as the determinative primary substance of the Metaphysics.Furthermore, I claim that Aristotle’s concept of substance is manifold and flexible. The concept evolves and is expanded in the Metaphysics. It is manifold because his theory of substance has a certain structure which includes the following three criteria for selecting a primary substance: (1) subjecthood viz. being a subject (τὸ ὑποκείμενον), (2) independence (τὸ χωριστόν) and (3) (well) determined individuality (τὸ τόδε τι). Aristotle’s concept of substance is flexible because these criteria do not have an absolute signification per se but are general and relative. They get a final signification when they are applied either to the ontology in the Categories or to the determinology in the Metaphysics. Their application to a certain domain establishes a theory of substance according to the domain in question and selects a primary substance according to the same domain. Aristotle’s concept of substance is flexible also because in the Metaphysics he enlarges his first concept of substance expressed by the three criteria by adding a new sort of substancehood expressed by the idion criterion.

The idea that defines quiddity – independence or neutrality in relation to the modalities of existence – allows Avicenna not only to speak of a duality in the being of existing things, but also to use apparently logically incompatible notions to qualify quiddity: that of reality (or truth), on the one hand, and that of possibility (or falsity), on the other. The very conception of the independence of quiddity – which lets us consider quiddity as a separate element in the existing thing – can be recognized in the resolution of the doubt that concludes the Maqāla fī l‑tawḥīd of Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī (d. 974). A comparison between Avicenna’s discussion of quiddity in his Metaphysics and the discourse of Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī confirms the idea that this Christian philosopher and theologian who was active in Baghdad in the tenth century could have played an important formative role in the ontology of the great Persian philosopher.

This article aims to consider the permanence of the Greek term ousia, sometimes transcribed as usia, during the early Middle Ages, when the translation by substantia was imposed. We consider two figures of the Carolingian period, John Scottus Eriugena and Ratramnus of Corbia. We suggest that the word ousia/usia may express aspects of being that the Latin term substantia does not support.