2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A New Study on the Metaphysical Significance of Aristotle' s Concept of 'ENERGEIA'
| Project/Area Number |
16520007
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Philosophy/Ethics
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| Research Institution | Chiba University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKAHASHI Kyuichiro Chiba University, Faculty of Letters, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (60197134)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Keywords | energeia / hexis / representation / memory / emotion / moderation / intention / normativity |
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| Research Abstract |
This research was planed as a sequel of two projects which concentrated on studying the significance of Aristotle's concept of 'energeia 'respectively in the theory of action and in the philosophy of mind, and so planed to step into the study of the significance of his concept of 'energeia' in the metaphysics. However, before entering this step it turned out that it is necessary to examine roles and places of the 'representation' in the broad sense, especially 'emotions ' which are in between two states of energea i.e.'sense' and 'thought',and to reexamine those of 'hexis', particularly 'virtues' in the theory of action.
The reason why of the reexamination of roles and places of "hexis" is that in several fields of Aristotle's philosophy the concept of "energeia" works as a conceptual framework to "break off" the explanation rather than to explain something. To put in a different word, for each object to reach its energeia is not a "change" to it, but it is, so to speak, designed as "recovery" of its "inherent way of being", so substantial argument about the significances of energeia is done in the argument of the formation of "hexis".
The arguments of Aristotle about memory, emotion and virtue as moderation are, if said in modern way, after examining carefully the "natural scientific" base of those states of mind and action, to try to make clear their "normativity", which is not always fit well to natural scientific laws, and place them in the "naturalistic". view of the world.
The theory of 'energeia' in cosmological and teleological fields, with which I could not trest in this project, is a study of the changeless world based on the theory of hexis as theory of change. The investigation in the significance of 'energeia' in this "metaphysical" sense is scheduled to be done in the project "A New Study on the Metaphysical Significance of Aristotle' s Concept of 'ENERGEIA II'", which starts this year supported by this subsidy.
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