Der Fortbestand von Lebewesen ( abstract, pdf)

For something to be a living being is to engage in activities whose success is determined by criteria that emerge exclusively from a proper account of the nature of the living being in question.

Korrigierbarkeit als Merkmal des Mentalen ( pdf)

Descartes defines the mind as something whose activities are subject to an evaluation according to which they are, in principle, corrigible.

The Inner Man as Substantial Form (abstract, pdf)

When Descartes calls the soul of a human being an immaterial substance, he does not contradict the Aristotelian doctrine according to which the soul of a person is the substantial form of her body.

Matter in Z3 (pdf)

In Metaphysics Z3, Aristotle suggests that matter may be that about a composite substance or "this such" to which a bare "this" would refer in isolation. However, since a bare "this" would refer to nothing, Aristotle rejects this conception of matter.

Al-Ghazali on the Incoherence of "Substance" (pdf)

Forms and potentials inhere in a receptacle that exemplifies them, whereas universals and possibilities may inhere in a substratum that does not exemplify them, such as the intellect.

Naturteleologie, reduktiv (abstract, pdf)

Life is not a describable property of things. In order to understand what life is, we must start with our conception of the life that we know, human life, and reduce the notion of this life to a notion of mere life.

Generic Ways of Functioning (pdf)

A close paraphrase of Heidegger's Being and Time §18 on how we make sense of items in the world in terms of their generic ways of functioning. Items are related to systems of interrelated ways functioning that are related to purposes that fit into our lives.