Aristotle’s Non-Aristotelian Account of Gender
October 2026
Sixth Annual Meeting of the Canadian Aristotle Society
Aristotle claims in Politics I.5 that women are inferior by nature, yet neither his biological nor his metaphysical account of sexual difference straightforwardly supports that conclusion. I argue that it does not follow: the differences Aristotle identifies fail to establish the inferiority he asserts. The problem lies instead in his scientific methodology, where gender ideology seeps into his interpretation of biological difference and begins to function as though it were a natural explanatory principle. Drawing on feminist scholarship on gender ideology, I argue that Aristotle mistakes socially habituated norms for nature itself. This makes his account of gender non-Aristotelian, in that it rests on exactly the sort of dogmatic assumption his science is meant to avoid.
Young Geniuses and Intellectual Virtue: Aristotle’s Exception in EN VI.8
October 2025
Dr. C. Michael Gelven Graduate Philosophy Conference, Northern Illinois University
In EN II.1 Aristotle says intellectual virtues mostly arise from teaching, and so require experience and time. The qualifier leaves room for exceptions, and in EN VI.8 he appears to grant one: mathematical geniuses can emerge in youth, though the young cannot acquire an understanding of natural science. I argue that sophia can develop without teaching when its subject matter involves intelligible rather than sensible objects. Mathematics proceeds by abstraction; natural science depends on observation accumulated over time. Reading the asymmetry in EN VI.8 as tracking that ontological distinction dissolves the apparent contradiction.
Experiential Learning: The Role of Experience in Acquiring Aristotle’s ἐπιστήμη of Natural Science
March 2024
Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South
What role does ἐμπειρία play in acquiring the intellectual virtue ἐπιστήμη? The standard answer is that experience supplies the first principles from which demonstration proceeds. I argue that this is true but incomplete. Experience also cultivates a conviction about what one knows, and it is that conviction which raises scientific knowledge to the level of an intellectual virtue rather than mere knowledge of the subject.