Aristotle Interdisciplinary

In the conviction that Aristotle’s philosophy is best understood with an interdisciplinary approach, the project examines the intersections between Aristotle’s metaphysics and his natural philosophy.

The project takes as its point of departure Dr Papandreou’s book Aristotle’s Ontology of Artefacts, a study which shows that a full reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of everyday objects can only be achieved by resorting to the intersections between his metaphysics, his physics, and his biological works. Thus, Aristotle Interdisciplinary digs deeper into natural philosophical themes, such as animal artefacts and the concept of failure in art and in nature, two topics that can only be assessed by implementing them with metaphysical notions. As an integral part of this approach and in line with Aristotle’s own methodology, the project investigates the extent to which Aristotelian and pre-Aristotelian natural philosophy, including biology, prompted and influenced Aristotle’s metaphysical notions of unity and being. Aristotle Interdisciplinary explores the fortune of his Metaphysics and the role played by its conceptual arsenal in the shaping of the philosophy of later thinkers. Particular focus is devoted to the commentaries on the Metaphysics written by the Neoplatonist Asclepius of Tralles and the Byzantine philosopher Michael of Ephesus.

Marilù Papandreou is Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bergen and at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She obtained her PhD at the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) where she also worked as Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin. Papandreou has published articles chiefly on Aristotle’s natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics as well as on Aristotle’s reception and commentary tradition. Her forthcoming book Aristotle’s Ontology of Artefacts (Cambridge University Press) reconstructs Aristotle’s account of artefacts and its Platonic heritage.