Aristotle's Two Systems

This study addresses major problems in interpreting Aristotle, such as whether the reader should reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of the corpus by assuming an underlying unity of doctrine (unitarianism), or by positing a sequence of developing ideas (developmentalism).

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In this study, Daniel W. Graham addresses two major problems in interpreting Aristotle. First, should we reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of the corpus by assuming an underlying unity of doctrine (unitarianism), or by positing a sequence of developing ideas (developmentalism)? Secondly, what is the relation between the so-called logical works on the one hand and the physical-metaphysical treatises on the other? Although the problems appear to be unrelated, Graham finds that the key to the first lies in the second, and in doing so provides the first major alternative to the unitarian approach since Jaeger's pioneering developmental study of 1923.