Text and Idea of Aristotle's Science of Living Things (TIDA)

Christopher Frey is currently the McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at The University of Tulsa. He held previous appointments at The University of South Carolina and The University of Chicago.

He works primarily on the history of ancient Greek philosophy, with an emphasis on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics. He is completing a book entitled The Principle of Life: Aristotelian Souls in an Inanimate World. It concerns the distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the unity of living organisms, nutrition, birth, death and, more generally, what one’s metaphysical world-view looks like if one takes life to be central.

In addition to this main area of research, he has secondary projects (and occasionally publishes) in the philosophy of perception and mind, metaphysics, and the philosophy of action.

Publications

“Aristotle on the Soul’s Unity” in Caleb Cohoe (ed.), Aristotle’s On The Soul: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, 2022, 88-103.

“Aristotle on the Intellect and Limits of Natural Science” in John E. Sisko (ed.), Philosophy of Mind in Antiquity, Routledge, 2018, 160-174.

“Capacities and the Eternal in Metaphysics 8 and De Caelo” Phronesis, Vol. 60, Issue 1, 2015, 88-126.

“Two Conceptions of Soul in Aristotle” in David Ebrey (ed.), Theory and Practice in Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 137-160.

“From Blood to Flesh: Homonymy, Unity, and Ways of Being in Aristotle” Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 35, Issue 2, 2015, 375-394.

“Organic Unity and the Matter of Man” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XXXII, Summer 2007, 167-204.