著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

日本倫理学会

雑誌

倫理学年報 (ISSN:24344699)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.68, pp.97-111, 2019 (Released:2021-05-17)

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The notion of practical syllogism occupies a crucial place in contemporary debates on human action. The practical syllogism is a form of practical reasoning expressed in syllogistic form, in which a human action is defined as a conclusion drawn from major and minor premises. This notion was not invented by modern or contemporary philosophers; it was Aristotle who first applied the concept of practical syllogism to account for the nature of our actions. What Aristotle meant by this notion, however, is unclear. The present article aims to clarify the meaning of the notion of practical syllogism in Aristotle’s works, such as De Anima, De Motu Animalium, and Nicomachean Ethics. In these works, he divided syllogism into two patterns: the means-end pattern and the rule-instance pattern. Most previous studies focused on the former pattern and did not address the significance of the latter. In this article, I first explain Aristotle’s idea of practical syllogism in general. Then, focusing on the rule-instance pattern, I will show that this pattern of practical syllogism plays an important role in Aristotle’s theory of human action, particularly in his Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, children and young people can become good persons only after they undergo moral development by respecting the rule-instance pattern practical syllogism. In setting forth my argument, I also address the divergence between Aristotle’s notion of rule and the Kantian idea of duty as, in his development of this notion, Aristotle did not consider the Kantian idea of duty that is independent of particular actions. For him, the rule must be inseparable from particular human actions, amounting to that which people, who want to become good persons, should learn and establish to carry out their own actions.

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

日本哲学会

雑誌

哲学 (ISSN:03873358)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2019, no.70, pp.205-219, 2019-04-01 (Released:2019-04-18)

参考文献数

11

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Aristotle’s APo. claims that scientific knowledge requires a cause serving as the middle term in the demonstration. APo. II 11 considers how the well-known “four causes” should be understood in the theory of demonstration. What is key is the relation of the final cause to the other three causes. This paper discusses how the theory of demonstration handles these causes by considering their status and interrelation. Aristotle examines the four causes from the perspective of the major and minor terms in a demonstration. The grounding cause states the essence of the minor term, and the essential and efficient causes state the essence of the major term. However, there are difficulties in considering the final cause. For, in the example of being healthy, illustrating the final cause involves two demonstrations. In the first demonstration, the middle term (food not staying on the surface) explains the essence of the major term (being healthy). In the second demonstration, however, the middle term (being healthy) does not explain the essence of the major term (food not staying on the surface) or the minor term (walking after dinner). In order to answer this problem, we have to mention two points: First, the final cause appears last in generation but arises first as the initial point of the explanation; secondly, the final cause explains the processes to the end as for the end. By considering these facts, I show that the second demonstration explains the major term and the minor term by the middle term from the viewpoint of temporal order that the first demonstration establishes. This paper argues that APo. II 11 divides the four causes into the final cause and the other three causes and claims that the second demonstration includes “hypothetical necessity”. Consequently, this paper shows that Aristotle aims to exclude chance from a demonstration having the final cause as the middle term by introducing hypothetical necessity.

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

環太平洋大学

雑誌

環太平洋大学研究紀要 = BULLETIN OF INTERNATIONAL PACIFIC UNIVERSITY (ISSN:1882479X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.17, pp.11-19, 2020-11-30

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This paper aims to clarify Plato’s thoughts on education in Meno. In this dialogue, Meno asks Socrates whether virtue is teachable. Socrates answers that he does not know whether virtue is teachable and goes on to ask, in turn, how to define virtue. Meno presents three definitions of virtue, each of which are refuted by Socrates. Meno grows weary of their conversation and presents Meno’s paradox – that if one knows what one is seeking, inquiry is unnecessary, but if one does not know what one is looking for, inquiry is impossible. Therefore, Meno argues that inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible. He does this to cease his discussion of virtue with Socrates. However, Socrates perceives Meno’s intention and responds by presenting the “theory of recollection” – that learning essentially consists of remembering things we knew before we were born but then forgot – to argue that inquiry should persist. Most scholars take the theory of recollection to be Plato’s response to Meno’s paradox. Recently, however, Dominic Scott objected this interpretation by introducing the distinction between “Meno’s challenge” (80d5-8) and the dialogue’s “eristic dilemma” (80e1-5). In other words, Scott claims that Plato’s theory of recollection is not intended as a response to Meno’s paradox. By pointing out several problems with Scott’s interpretation, I claim that discovery depends on the possibility of inquiry and therefore that the theory of recollection is both intended to solve and indeed solves Meno’s paradox.

著者

酒井 健太朗 Sakai Kentaro

出版者

九州大学哲学会

雑誌

哲学論文集 (ISSN:0285774X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, pp.19-35, 2013-09

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

古代哲学会

雑誌

古代哲学研究 (ISSN:03865002)

巻号頁・発行日

no.49, pp.14-26, 2017

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

環太平洋大学

雑誌

若手研究

巻号頁・発行日

2021-04-01

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典学研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.64, pp.27-38, 2016

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

九州大学哲学会

雑誌

哲学論文集 (ISSN:0285774X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, pp.29-46, 2016-09

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

九州大学哲学会

雑誌

哲学論文集 (ISSN:0285774X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, pp.19-37, 2018-09

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

日本哲学会

雑誌

哲学 (ISSN:03873358)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2019, no.70, pp.205-219, 2019

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<p>Aristotle's <i>APo</i>. claims that scientific knowledge requires a cause serving as the middle term in the demonstration. <i>APo</i>. II 11 considers how the well-known "four causes" should be understood in the theory of demonstration. What is key is the relation of the final cause to the other three causes. This paper discusses how the theory of demonstration handles these causes by considering their status and interrelation. </p> <p>Aristotle examines the four causes from the perspective of the major and minor terms in a demonstration. The grounding cause states the essence of the minor term, and the essential and efficient causes state the essence of the major term. However, there are difficulties in considering the final cause. For, in the example of being healthy, illustrating the final cause involves two demonstrations. In the first demonstration, the middle term (food not staying on the surface) explains the essence of the major term (being healthy). In the second demonstration, however, the middle term (being healthy) does not explain the essence of the major term (food not staying on the surface) or the minor term (walking after dinner). In order to answer this problem, we have to mention two points: First, the final cause appears last in generation but arises first as the initial point of the explanation; secondly, the final cause explains the processes to the end as for the end. By considering these facts, I show that the second demonstration explains the major term and the minor term by the middle term from the viewpoint of temporal order that the first demonstration establishes. </p> <p>This paper argues that <i>APo</i>. II 11 divides the four causes into the final cause and the other three causes and claims that the second demonstration includes "hypothetical necessity". Consequently, this paper shows that Aristotle aims to exclude chance from a demonstration having the final cause as the middle term by introducing hypothetical necessity. </p>

著者

酒井 健太朗

出版者

九州大学哲学会

雑誌

哲学論文集 (ISSN:0285774X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, pp.19-35, 2013-09