States and Performances
Aristotle's Test
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4990940 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel W Graham (0000-0002-1721-9303, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1980 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 119 |
| Pages | 117 |
| Publication date | 1980-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2219276 |
| OpenAlex | W2332989465 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 7 |
In Metaphysics 0 6 Aristotle proposes a division of actions into evepyetoc (actualizations) and XLv~aTL (movements). He divides actions into these two classes in accordance with a linguistic test: is a description of the action in the perfect tense true at the same time as a description in the present tense? This test has been plausibly recast as an entailment relation:1 does the present tense description entail the perfect? I shall call Aristotle's criterion so construed his completeness test. No commentators on the passage since Ryle have been able both to accept the test at face value, namely as a grammatical test, and to accept Aristotle's resulting classification. This I show in ? I. I argue in ? II that the failure to appreciate the eepy?ta-xivto s distinction is based on a double error. In the first place, Aristotle's examples have been misclassified; in the second, the Greek perfect has been mis- translated. When Aristotle's test is understood, his distinction-a different one from that generally attributed to him-can be vindicated. I meet objections and provide a point for Aristotle's theory in
Art history · Test (biology) · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Classics · History · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,19 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 2024 (41) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |