Marilù Papandreou: Aristotle's Ontology of Artefacts

Aristotle’s Ontology of Artefacts concerns the metaphysical status of products of art/craft (technê) in Aristotle, in particular material objects. Both contemporary metaphysicians and historians of philosophy have reasons to reject the project at the outset. While contemporary metaphysicians often engage with modern issues to which Aristotle seems alien, historians of philosophy doubt that there is such a modern topic in Aristotle. In this talk, I am going to present some objections raised by my interlocutors and respond to them. In particular, I am going to argue that (1) Aristotle can be shown to have dealt with tricky cases discussed in the current metaphysical debate in a manner that can be inspiring also today; (2) Aristotle indeed offers a coherent and elaborate account of artefacts which has crucial consequences on his metaphysics as a whole.