Space, Time, Matter and Form. Essays on Aristotles Physics

203 Pages·2006·1.06 MB·English

by  David Bostock

SPACE, TIME, MATTER, AND FORM
Essays on Aristotle’s Physics
OXFORD ARISTOTLE STUDIES
General Editors
Julia Annas and Lindsay Judson
published in the series
Space, Time, Matter, and Form
Essays on Aristotle’s Physics
David Bostock
Aristotle on Meaning and Essence
David Charles
Time for Aristotle
Ursula Coope
Aristotle on Teleology
Monte Ransome Johnson
On Location
Aristotle’s Concept of Place
Benjamin Morison
Order in Multiplicity
Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle
Christopher Shields
Aristotle’s Theory of Substance
The Categories and Metaphysics Zeta
Michael V. Wedin
Aristotle’s De Interpretatione
Contradiction and Dialectic
C. W. A. Whitaker
Space, Time, Matter,
and Form
Essays on Aristotle’s Physics
DAVID BOSTOCK
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Preface
Early in my philosophical career, roughly in the time between Geach (1962)
and Wiggins (1967), I conceived the ambition of writing a fat tome on
Aristotle’s conception of substance. As years went by, I worked on it from
timetotime,andtherewasquitealongdraftinexistencebeforeIfinallydecided
to abandon the project. The idea had been that the book would be in three
parts: (i) substance as subject of predication (the Logical Works); (ii) substance
as what persists through change (the Physical Works); and (iii) substance as
what fundamentally exists (the Metaphysics). What finally led me to abandon
this idea was the realization (not really crystallized until my 1994) that part iii
was hopeless. I had begun with the thought that Aristotle’s conception of what
countedasasubstancewasinterestingandimportant,eventoday.Toclarifythis,
I should say that I have never believed in what some philosophers think of as
‘metaphysics’,i.e.intheideathatphilosophersarespeciallyabletodescribe‘the
realnatureoftheworld’,asnooneelseis.Thatseemstomeamerechimera.But
I did believe in what Strawson in the preface to his (1959) called ‘descriptive
metaphysics’,i.e.intheideathatphilosopherscanatleastsayhowweordinarily
think of ‘the world’, and what is more fundamental or less fundamental in this
ordinary way of thinking. That was where the Aristotelian conception of a
substance seemed to me to be highly significant, and yet (in those days) rather
neglected.
Ofthisproposedfattome,nothingnowremainsoftheworkthatIhaddone
on part i except what I have recently rescued as my (2004). The essays 1–5
publishedhererepresentwhatisleftofthepartiioriginallyplanned.Theyareall
concerned, in one way or another, with the idea that substance is what persists
through change, taking into account both substance as matter and substance as
form. But at the same time the last of them, i.e. essay 5, explains why I did
eventually abandon this rather grandiose project. There are interesting and
relevant things to be said about Aristotle’s idea of substance, as that appears
in the Logical Works and in the Physical Works. But, as I now think, there is
almostnothingthatiseitherofcontemporaryrelevanceorofantiquarianinterest
tobefoundinhisMetaphysics,andtheonlyconclusiontoreachaboutthatwork
isthatconfusionreigns.Heisperpetuallychanginghismind,fromonepageto
another, about what ‘really’ deserves to be called a substance, and the result is
that the concept just evaporates. These are hard words, but I mean them: the
central books of the Metaphysics yield no coherent doctrine at all. I have tried
hardtofindone(inmy1994),butIhavetosaythatthissearchdidnotsucceed.
Consequently my proposed part iii simply collapsed, and with it all of the
originaldesign. Thefirstfiveessayspublishedorrepublishedherecontainwhat
vi Preface
nowremainsofthatoriginalpartii,buteachisnowpresentedinaformthatis
intended to allow it to stand alone, not as part of a continuous discussion.
The remaining essays 6–10 never were part of any overall project, but stem
justfrommyowninterestinparticularthemesthatAristotletreatsofintherest
of his Physics. (The same interest also explains my contribution to Robin
Waterfield’s translation of the work (1996), which has something to say about
mostaspectsofthebook,butnotinanysuchdetailastheessayshere.)Icannot
pretendthattheseessaysofferanythinglikea‘complete’coverageofthemesfrom
Aristotle’sPhysics,fortheyconcentrateonlyonselectedtopicsonwhichIthink
thatIhavesomethingofmyowntosay.Inmostcasestheyaresimplyreprinted
here from an earlier publication, though I have (in those cases) added a brief
Additional Note to say how I have since changed my mind—or, more often,
have not changed it. I hope that it will be found convenient to have them here
assembled in one volume.
I thank the relevant publishers for permission to reprint here all of these essays
thathavebeenprintedbefore,i.e.essays1,2,3,7,9,10.Fullpublicationdetails
are given in each case as a footnote to the first page of the essay.
New footnotes are indicated by asterisks.
D.B.
Contents
List of Abbreviations viii
1. Aristotle on the Principles of Change in Physics I (1982) 1
2. Aristotle on the Transmutation of the Elements in
De Generatione Et Corruptione I. 1–4 (1995) 19
3. Aristotle’s Theory of Matter (2001) 30
4. Aristotle on Teleology in Nature 48
5. Aristotle’s Theory of Form 79
6. Aristotle on the Eleatics in Physics I. 2–3 103
7. Aristotle, Zeno, and the Potential Infinite (1972) 116
8. A Note on Aristotle’s Account of Place 128
9. Aristotle’s Account of Time (1980) 135
10. Aristotle on Continuity in Physics VI (1991) 158
References 189
Index 193
List of Abbreviations
ARISTOTLE’S WORKS
Cael. DeCaelo
Cat. Categories
DeAn. DeAnima
DeInt. DeInterpretatione
EE EudemianEthics
EN NicomacheanEthics
GA DeGenerationeAnimalium
GC DeGenerationeetCorruptione
Metaph. Metaphysics
Meteor. Meteorologica
PA DePartibusAnimalium
Phys. Physics
Post.An. PosteriorAnalytics
OTHER ABBREVIATIONS
DK H.Diels,rev.W.Kranz,DieFragmentederVorsokratiker,10thedn.(Berlin:
WeidmannscheVerlagsbuchhandlung,1961)
fr. fragment
1
Aristotle on the Principles of Change
in Physics I
I
AristotleopensPhysicsibystatingthataninquiryintonature(periphuseos@),like
otherinquiries,shouldbeginwithanaccountoftherelevantprinciples(archai).
He does not tell us what he means by ‘nature’—for that we have to wait until
bookii—andhedoesnottelluswhathemeansbya‘principle’inthiscontext,
but as we read on we may come to think this omission unimportant. For
straightway at the beginning of chapter 2 he appears to place himself in the
tradition of a series of writers on nature (peri phuseos@) whose views on the
‘principles’(archai)wereperfectlywellknown.ThusThalesheldthattherewas
one‘principle’,namelywater,whileAnaximenesselectedairandHeraclitusfire;
Empedocles again held that there were four principles (earth, water, air, fire),
Anaxagoras that there were infinitely many, Leucippus and Democritus that
there were just atoms and void, and so on. So Aristotle, it would seem, is
preparing to offer us his answer to the question to which these answers had
alreadybeenpropoundedbyhispredecessors:heispreparingtolisttheultimate
ingredients of the world, and to give an account of how the world is made up
fromthoseingredients.Perhapsthischaracterizationofwhattheolderphysicists
were up to is rather oversimplified, but I think it is not worth elaborating their
problemnow.ForitsoonturnsoutthatAristotle’sproblemisafterallanentirely
different one. The main theme of this paper is to draw attention to the differ-
ence, to ask how far Aristotle himself was aware of it, and to trace some of the
consequences of his lack of awareness.
We may begin by noticing that as Aristotle’s discussion proceeds it soon
becomes clear that the principles he is interested in are not so much the prin-
ciplesofnaturalobjects(taphuseionta)butratherofnaturalprocessesorchanges,
and in particular generations. This theme enters at the beginning of chapter 4,
wheretheolderphysicistsaresaidtogeneratethings(gennos@i,187a15)fromtheir
ReprintedfromMalcolmSchofieldandMarthaCravenNussbaum(eds.),LanguageandLogos:
StudiesinAncientGreekPhilosophyPresentedtoG.E.L.Owen(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press,1982),179–96.