Klaus Corcilius

On May 12th, Professor Klaus Corcilius (University of Tübingen) will give a Public Lecture on “Aristotelian Pop-Up Entities” in room C111 at NOVA FCSH (Berna Campus, Building C). The lecture is part of the course Ancient Philosophy Themes and the activities of the Research Group on Ancient Philosophy.

Abstract

In this talk it is argued that pop-up entities are a pervasive, important, and largely neglected category of Aristotle’s ontology. Pop-up entities are entities that “sometimes are and sometimes are not without coming to be or passing away”. They include substantial forms of hylomorphic compounds, points, shapes, and other states of hylomorphic compounds, but also virtues, perceptual and noetic states, and even unmoved movers of episodes of self-motion. It is argued that Aristotle regards all pop-up entities as physically real, while regarding some of them as causally efficacious. He thinks of them as incomposites that exist, whenever they exist, in actuality. Aristotle assigns them important tasks, such as for example accounting for the causal efficacy of mental acts; much more importantly, however, he thinks of them as the features that make sublunary nature intelligible in the first place.