The Odyssey of Eidos: Reflections on Aristotle’s Response to Plato

Aristotle sets the horizons of our inquiry: What is it when we say we know something? And is the object of knowledge a universal or particular [tode ti] object? Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s theory of form/Forms in light of his notion of actuality has generated a variety of topics that frame our inquiry: ＂Understanding Eidos as Form in the Works of Aristotle as Plato’s Critical Student＂; ＂Aristotle on Plato’s Forms as Causes＂; ＂Notes on the Relationship between Plato’s Parmenides and Aristotle’s Metaphysics Alpha＂; ＂’Separate’ and ’Inactive’? Aristotle’s Most Challenging Critique of Plato’s ’Forms’＂; ＂Too Much Unity in a City Is Destructive of the City: Aristotle against Plato’s Unification Project of the Polis＂; ＂Aristotle on the Soul as Actuality＂; ＂Delphic Piety in the De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias＂; ＂Aristotle and Plotinus: Act and Potency and the Two Acts＂; and ＂Al-Fārābīon Habit and Imagination.＂ Here, the Peripatetic readings of form and actuality are parsed from the precipice of historical, analytic, and continental approaches to the mind/language/object problem, with advocacy of the importance of Aristotle’s contribution to this inquiry for the present age.

Mark J. Nyvlt is full professor and dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Dominican University in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect (2012). He is also a musician.