In this book, Theodore Scaltsas brings the insights of contemporary philosophy to bear on a classic problem in metaphysics that stems from Aristotle's theory of substance. Scaltsas provides an analysis of the enigmatic notions of potentiality and actuality, which he uses to explain Aristotle's substantial holism by showing how the concrete and the abstract parts of a substance form a dynamic, diachronic whole.

Aristotle's views on the fundamental nature of reality are usually taken to be inconsistent. Two sources for these views are Categories and the central books of Metaphysics. This text argues that he is engaged in different projects in these books.

Laura Castelli presents a new translation of the tenth book (Iota) of Aristotle's Metaphysics, together with a comprehensive commentary. Castelli's commentary helps readers to understand Aristotle's most systematic account of what it is for something to be one, what it is for something to be a unit of measurement, and what contraries are.

This book argues that according to Metaphysics Zeta, substantial forms constitute substantial being in the sensible world, and individual composites make up the basic constituents that possess this kind of being. The study explains why Aristotle provides a reexamination of substance after the Categories, Physics, and De Anima, and highlights the contribution Z is meant to make to the science of being. Norman O. Dahl argues that Z.1-11 leaves both substantial forms and individual composites as candidates for basic constituents, with Z.12 being something that can be set aside. He explains that although the main focus of Z.13-16 is to argue against a Platonic view that takes universals to be basic constituents, some of its arguments commit Aristotle to individual composites as basic constituents, with Z.17’s taking substantial form to constitute substantial being is compatible with that commitment. .

Aristotelian (or neo-Aristotelian) metaphysics is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. This volume brings together fourteen essays from leading philosophers who are sympathetic to this conception of metaphysics, which takes its cue from the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy. The primary input from Aristotle is methodological, but many themes familiar from his metaphysics will be discussed, including ontological categories, the role and interpretation of the existential quantifier, essence, substance, natural kinds, powers, potential, and the development of life. The volume mounts a strong challenge to the type of ontological deflationism which has recently gained a strong foothold in analytic metaphysics. It will be a useful resource for scholars and advanced students who are interested in the foundations and development of philosophy.

Presents the full text of "Metaphysics," by Aristotle, presented by the Perseus Project of the Department of Classics at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Includes author information and help for texts and text tools. Offers Greek text with morphological links. Links to the home page of the Perseus Project.

Michael J. Loux here presents a fresh reading of two of the most important books of the Metaphysics, Books Z and H, in which Aristotle presents his mature theory of primary substances (ousiai). Focusing on the interplay of Aristotle's early and late views, Loux maintans that the later concept of ousia should be understood in terms of a theory of predication that carries interesting implications for contemporary metaphysics. Loux argues that in his first attempt in identifying ousiai in the Categories, Aristotle encountered a set of ontological problems which he wrestled with again in Metaphysics Z and H. In the Categories, where the primary realities are basic subjects of predication construed in essentialist terms as things falling under natural kinds, familiar particulars are the primary ousiai. In subsequent works, Aristotle holds that since familiar particulars come into being and pass away, they must be composites of matter and form; and in Metaphysics Z and H, he explores the implications of this insight for the search for ousia. Maintaining that the substantial forms of familiar particulars are the primary ousiai, the later Aristotle interprets forms as predicable universals rather than as particulars, each uniquely possessed by a single object.