Past Event: WGAP: Anna Marmodoro (Durham Univ. and Oxford)

Title: Can a ‘such’ be a ‘this’? Aristotle’s Parmenidean Essentialism

Abstract: Parmenides and Plato thought that substances are just kinds, each kind unified qualitatively as a ‘such’. Aristotle, on my understanding, then revolutionised ontology by arguing that concrete substances, too, are just kinds, each unified qualitatively as a ‘such’. For him, on my reading essence is not predicated essentially of substance; rather, a substance is an instantiated essence: a Parmenidean one (as an incomposite kind), which is particular (as an instantiated kind) – a ‘such’ that is a ‘this’. ‘Instantiation’ was new to Aristotle (and philosophy), and a formidable metaphysical challenge for him: can a ‘such’ be a ‘this’, while the substance remains indivisibly one? I identify Aristotle’s innovative arguments in his theory of substance to address this question, and show that underlying his hylomorphism lies a metaphysical account of particular unities.