Part II of the Parmenides and its reception in Metaphysics, Iota : identity and non-identity

Demonstrating that Aristotle is a careful reader of Plato whose interest does not merely lie in rejecting the ideas of his teacher is not a task that has been ignored by scholars. However, surprisingly, there has been no extensive attempt to approach Aristotle's reception of Part II of the Parmenides in this way. One of my overall aims in this thesis is to correct this by demonstrating that Aristotle's engagement with the first and second deductions of the Parmenides in Metaphysics, Iota 3 is sophisticated and complex. My second aim is also one that has been unattempted: to show that in both texts, we uncover important lessons for contemporary metaphysicians. My final goal is to show that my exploration of both texts has significance for our understanding of the Parmenides and Metaphysics, Iota and the study of Plato and Aristotle more generally. In achieving this, I focus on the treatment of numerical identity and non-identity in the first and second deductions of the Parmenides and Metaphysics, Iota 3. The thesis falls into five chapters. In the first, I settle some important preliminary questions. In the second, I uncover definitions of identity, non-identity, similarity and dissimilarity in both texts and argue that we might think they could aid contemporary proponents and opponents of a 'strict' Leibniz's Law. In my third chapter, I explore whether this is in fact possible. My fourth chapter concerns two laws of identity and non-identity that seem uncontroversial but which we might worry Plato and Aristotle violate in Part II and Iota. My final chapter deals with identity and non-identity in the context of wider discussions of relativity in Plato and Aristotle. I conclude by showing that I have met all three of the overall aims of this thesis.