Groarke, Louis F. "Aristotle: Logic." (INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY).

Aristotelian logic, after a great and early triumph, consolidated its position of influence to rule over the philosophical world throughout the Middle Ages up until the 19^th Century. All that changed in a hurry when modern logicians embraced a new kind of mathematical logic and pushed out what they regarded as the antiquated and clunky method of syllogisms. Although Aristotle’s very rich and expansive account of logic differs in key ways from modern approaches, it is more than a historical curiosity. It provides an alternative way of approaching logic and continues to provide critical insights into contemporary issues and concerns. The main thrust of this article is to explain Aristotle’s logical system as a whole while correcting some prominent misconceptions that persist in the popular understanding and even in some of the specialized literature. Before getting down to business, it is important to point out that Aristotle is a synoptic thinker with an over-arching theory that ties together all aspects and fields of philosophy. He does not view logic as a separate, self-sufficient subject-matter, to be considered in isolation from other aspects of disciplined inquiry. Although we cannot consider all the details of his encyclopedic approach, we can sketch out the larger picture in a way that illuminates the general thrust of his system. For the purposes of this entry, let us define logic as that field of inquiry which investigates how we reason correctly (and, by extension, how we reason incorrectly). Aristotle does not believe that the purpose of logic is to prove that human beings can have knowledge. (He dismisses excessive scepticism.) The aim of logic is the elaboration of a coherent system that allows us to investigate, classify, and evaluate good and bad forms of reasoning. . . .

http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-log/

Cfp: "Marx and Aristotle," Eighth Annual Conference, Marx and Philosophy Society, Institute of Education, University of London, June 4, 2011.

Main Speakers:

Jon Pike (Open University)
Tony Burns (Nottingham)
Scott Meikle (Glasgow)

The Marx and Philosophy Society aims to encourage scholarly engagement with, and creative development of, the philosophical and foundational aspects of Marx's work. The society welcomes contributions from any philosophical or political position.

Visit: http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/.

Bloechl, Jeffrey. Review of Daniel Greenspan, THE PASSION OF INIFINITY. NDPR (May 2010).

Greenspan, Daniel. The Passion of Infinity: Kierkegaard, Aristotle and the Rebirth of Tragedy. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Among nineteenth century philosophers taking an interest in Greek tragedy, we are most likely to think of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872) withstood early scorn on its way to becoming a classic in twentieth century letters. Nietzsche's vision is well known: with the arrival in Greece of the cult of Dionysus, art that had hitherto been concerned only with appearances submitted to quiet observation became capable of evoking in the observer a frenzied sense of life otherwise occluded by the play of forms. Dionysian ecstasy, in other words, is the antecedent of an art that consumes the distance between observer and observed, an art that is no longer merely submitted to our consideration but instead takes possession of us. Nietzsche does not hesitate to find in the religious import of Dionysus a confirmation of the importance of this new art: just as the practices of the cult conduct the participant beyond the simple limits of individuality, so too does contact with certain works of art free us from the coil of our mortality. Of these works of art, Greek tragedy -- specifically until Euripides -- is supreme. It is the achievement of Aeschylus and Sophocles to have invested the Apollonian craft of appearance with the Dionysian fire of vitality, and the promise of their craft to have provided spectators with a temporary relief from the suffering that accrues to finite, death-bound existence. And yet the achievement no less quickly succumbed to the advances of a Socratic insistence on knowledge and truth, which Euripides introduced into the theater itself. In short, tragedy was born and fell ill within the bare century that separates the flourishing of Aeschylus and that of Euripides, and western culture has fallen slowly into the decadence at last recognized by Nietzsche. Daniel Greenspan's The Passion of Infinity: Kierkegaard, Aristotle and the Rebirth of Tragedy reminds us that Kierkegaard had already taken a quite different view of some of these matters three decades earlier, chiefly in some works of his so-called "first authorship" (1841-1846). In the order of Greenspan's presentation, these include Either/Or, Stages on Life's Way, Fear and Trembling, and The Concept of Anxiety. Well over half of the book -- chapters 6-12 -- develops a reading of these works, followed by shorter discussions of a few others, all on the matter of a suppression and reemergence of certain elements of tragedy. As one might expect, Kierkegaard's interest in Greek tragedy is complex. His focal point, as Greenspan develops it, is the interplay of freedom and fate, or more specifically the tragedian's attention to the manner in which fate may assert itself in the eruption of passions that overwhelm our freedom. From a great distance, this resembles something that Kierkegaard finds in the biblical accounts of Abraham or Job, both of whom, we ought not to forget, he reads decidedly in the service of efforts to awaken authentic Christianity from a deadening lethargy. Of course, there is a great difference between Greek tragedy and the Jewish bible, indeed even when interpreted by a single author with famously singular concerns. So how then might these things be squared? . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=19587.

"Thought and Action in Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition," Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, June 16-18, 2009.

This Conference is intended to provide a formal occasion and central location for philosophers and scholars of the Midwest region (and elsewhere) to present and discuss their current work on Aristotle and his interpreters in ancient and medieval philosophy. PRESENTERS: Established Scholars: send a title and tentative abstract; Graduate Students: send a title, abstract and a supporting letter from your faculty advisor or dissertation director. Send applications to: Richard.Taylor@Marquette.edu The Organizing Committee will select presenters on the basis of qualityof proposals (title and abstract) and scholarly record as the primary criteria. Presenters selected will be asked to confirm their participation by registering and paying the conference fee ($40). CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: February 20. 2009 PROGRAM ANNOUNCED: March 1, 2009. Presented by the Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and the Aquinas and the Arabs Project with the support of the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette University. Further details may be found here: http://web.mac.com/mistertea/Midwest_Seminar/2009_Summer_Aristotle_Conference.html.

Shields, Christopher. "Aristotle." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY September 25, 2008.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) numbers among the greatest philosophers of all time. Judged solely in terms of his philosophical influence, only Plato is his peer: Aristotle's works shaped centuries of philosophy from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance, and even today continue to be studied with keen, non-antiquarian interest. A prodigious researcher and writer, Aristotle left a great body of work, perhaps numbering as many as two-hundred treatises, from which approximately thirty-one survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, from logic, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, through ethics, political theory, aesthetics and rhetoric, and into such primarily non-philosophical fields as empirical biology, where he excelled at detailed plant and animal observation and taxonomy. In all these areas, Aristotle's theories have provided illumination, met with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding readership. Because of its wide range and its remoteness in time, Aristotle's philosophy defies easy encapsulation. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of Aristotelian texts and themes—spanning over two millennia and comprising philosophers working within a variety religious and secular traditions—has rendered even basic points of interpretation controversial. The set of entries on Aristotle in this site addresses this situation by proceeding in three tiers. First, the present, general entry offers a brief account of Aristotle's life and characterizes his central philosophical commitments, highlighting his most distinctive methods and most influential achievements. Second are General Topics which offer detailed introductions to the main areas of Aristotle's philosophical activity. Finally, there follow Special Topics which investigate in greater detail more narrowly focused issues, especially those of central concern in recent of Aristotelian scholarship. . . . Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/.

Sattler, Barbara. "Review of Christopher Shield's ARISTOTLE." NDPR (July 2008).

Shields, Christopher. Aristotle. London: Routledge, 2007. Shields' presentation focuses on philosophical problems that are interesting also for a contemporary philosopher. Shields' conception of his book becomes most obvious in contrast to Ross's well-known Aristotle (1923): While Ross gives us a synopsis of every chapter of a work of Aristotle, Shields picks out some central problems and frequently connects them with contemporary philosophical debates, as when he points out both differences and common features between Aristotle's essentialism and modern modal views (p. 105). What one might miss in Shields is an attempt to give us a sketch of the overall project of a whole work of Aristotle's and an explicit indication of the works that Shields does not discuss at all in this introduction, among others, Aristotle's numerous biological works. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=13685.