Aristotle's 'completeness test' as Heuristics for an Account of Dynamicity
Johanna Seibt · 2015
If being were ‘dynamic,’ would it be more amenable to a definition? In this paper I present a number of preliminary considerations for an exploration of this question. Working from the methodological stance of analytical ontology, I assume that the first task for an ontology of dynamic being(s) must be to locate suitable linguistic data that can represent the conceptual content to be modelled by an ontological domain theory. I try to show that Aristotle’s so-called ‘completeness test’ in Metaphysics Theta. 6, and the discussion of this passage in Aristotle scholarship, offers some useful heuristic leads to a class of inferential data (aspectual inferences) that analytical ontologists have all but overlooked so far. In addition, I suggest that the passage also can offer some ideas about how one might formulate, in mereological terms, a component of an implicit definition of dynamicity.