Read The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: Richard Mckeon
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (40 page)
Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1
. The scope and method of this book.
2
. The problem: the number and character of the first principles of nature. 185
a
20. Reality is not one in the way that Parmenides and Melissus supposed.
3
. Refutation of their arguments.
4
. Statement and examination of the opinions of the natural philosophers.
5
. The principles are contraries.
6
. The principles are two, or three, in number.
7
. The number and nature of the principles.
8
. The true opinion removes the difficulty felt by the early philosophers.
9
. Further reflections on the first principles of nature.
A.
1
. Nature and the natural.
B.
2
. Distinction of the natural philosopher from the mathematician and the metaphysician.
C.
The conditions of change.
3
. The essential conditions.
4
. The opinions of others about chance and spontaneity.
5
. Do chance and spontaneity exist? What is chance and what are its characteristics?
6
. Distinction between chance and spontaneity, and between both and the essential conditions of change.
D.
Proof in natural philosophy.
7
. The physicist demonstrates by means of the four conditions of change.
8
. Does nature act for an end?
9
. The sense in which necessity is present in natural things.
A.
Motion.
B.
The infinite.
4
. Opinions of the early philosophers.
203
b
15. Main arguments for belief in the infinite.
5
. Criticism of the Pythagorean and Platonic belief in a separately existing infinite.
204
a
34. There is no infinite sensible body.
6
. That the infinite exists and how it exists.
206
b
33. What the infinite is.
7
. The various kinds of infinite.
207
b
34. Which of the four conditions of change the infinite is to be referred to.
8
. Refutation of the arguments for an actual infinite.
A.
Place.
1
. Does place exist?
209
a
2. Doubts about the nature of place.
2
. Is place matter or form?
3
. Can a thing be in itself or a place be in a place?
4
. What place is.
5
. Corollaries.
B.
The void.
6
. The views of others about the void.
7
. What ‘void’ means.
214
a
16. Refutation of the arguments for belief in the void.
8
. There is no void separate from bodies.
216
a
26. There is no void occupied by any body.
9
. There is no void in bodies.
C.
Time.
10
. Doubts about the existence of time.
218
a
31. Various opinions about the nature of time.
11
. What time is.
219
b
9. The ‘now’.
12
. Various attributes of time.
220
b
32. The things that are in time.
13
. Definitions of temporal terms.
14
. Further reflections about time.
1
. Classification of movements and changes.
224
b
35. Classification of changes
per se.
2
. Classification of movements
per se.
226
b
10. The unmovable.
3
. The meaning of ‘together’, ‘apart’, ‘touch’, ‘intermediate’, ‘successive’, ‘contiguous’, ‘continuous’.
4
. The unity and diversity of movements.
5
. Contrariety of movement.
6
. Contrariety of movement and rest.
230
a
18. Contrariety of natural and unnatural movement or rest.
1
,
2
. Every continuum consists of continuous and divisible parts.
3
. A moment is indivisible and nothing is moved, or rests, in a moment.
4
. Whatever is moved is divisible.
234
b
21. Classification of movement.
235
a
13. The time, the movement, the being-in-motion, the moving body, and the sphere of movement, are all similarly divided.
5
. Whatever has changed is, as soon as it has changed, in that to which it has changed.
235
b
32. That in which (directly) it has changed is indivisible.
236
a
7. In change there is a last but no first element.
6
. In whatever time a thing changes (directly), it changes in any part of that time.
236
b
32. Whatever changes has changed before, and whatever has changed, before was changing.
7
. The finitude or infinity of movement, of extension, and of the moved.
8
. Of coming to rest, and of rest.
239
a
23. A thing that is moved in any time directly is in no part of that time in a part of the space through which it moves.
9
. Refutation of the arguments against the possibility of movement.
10
. That which has not parts cannot move.
241
a
26. Can change be infinite?
1
. Whatever is moved is moved by something.
242
a
19. There is a first movent which is not moved by anything else.
2
. The movent and the moved are together.
3
. All alteration pertains to sensible qualities.
4
. Comparison of movements.
5
. Proportion of movements.
1
. There always has been and always will be movement.
2
. Refutation of objections to the eternity of movement.
3
. There are things that are sometimes in movement, sometimes at rest.
4
. Whatever is in movement is moved by something else.
5
. The first movent is not moved by anything outside itself.
257
a
31. The first movent is immovable.
6
. The immovable first movent is eternal and one.
259
a
20. The first movent is not moved even incidentally.
259
b
32. The
primum mobile
is eternal.
7
. Locomotion is the primary kind of movement.
261
a
28. No movement or change is continuous except locomotion.
8
. Only circular movement can be continuous and infinite.
9
. Circular movement is the primary kind of locomotion.
265
a
27. Confirmation of the above doctrines.
10
. The first movent has no parts nor magnitude, and is at the circumference of the world.
1
(Physics)
1
[184a]
When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have principles,
(10)
conditions, or elements, it is through acquaintance with these that knowledge, that is to say scientific knowledge, is attained. For we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as far as its simplest elements. Plainly therefore in the science of Nature,
(15)
as in other branches of study, our first task will be to try to determine what relates to its principles.
The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not ‘knowable relatively to us’ and ‘knowable’ without qualification. So in the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what is more obscure by nature,
(20)
but clearer to us, towards what is more clear and more knowable by nature.
Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather confused masses, the elements and principles of which become known to us later by analysis. Thus we must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole that is best known to sense-perception,
(25)
and a generality is a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts.
[184b]
Much the same thing happens in the relation of the name to the formula.
(10)
A name, e. g. ‘round’, means vaguely a sort of whole: its definition analyses this into its particular senses. Similarly a child begins by calling all men ‘father’, and all women ‘mother’, but later on distinguishes each of them.
2
The principles in question must be either (
a
) one or (
b
) more than one.
(15)
If (
a
) one, it must be either (i) motionless, as Parmenides and Melissus assert, or (ii) in motion, as the physicists hold, some declaring air to be the first principle, others water.
If (
b
) more than one, then either (i) a finite or (ii) an infinite plurality. If (i) finite (but more than one), then either two or three or four or some other number.
(20)
If (ii) infinite, then either as Democritus believed one in kind, but differing in shape or form; or different in kind and even contrary.
A similar inquiry is made by those who inquire into the number of
existents:
for they inquire whether the ultimate constituents of existing things are one or many, and if many, whether a finite or an infinite plurality. So they too are inquiring whether the principle or element is one or many.
Now to investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a contribution to the science of Nature.
(25)
For just as the geometer has nothing more to say to one who denies the principles of his science—this being a question for a different science or for one common to all—so a man investigating
principles
cannot argue with one who denies their existence.
[185a]
For if Being is just one, and one in the way mentioned, there is a principle no longer, since a principle must be the principle of some thing or things.
To inquire therefore whether Being is one in this sense would be like arguing against any other position maintained for the sake of argument (such as the Heraclitean thesis,
(5)
or such a thesis as that Being is one man) or like refuting a merely contentious argument—a description which applies to the arguments both of Melissus and of Parmenides: their premisses are false and their conclusions do not follow.
(10)
Or rather the argument of Melissus is gross and palpable and offers no difficulty at all: accept one ridiculous proposition and the rest follows—a simple enough proceeding.
We physicists, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion—which is indeed made plain by induction. Moreover, no man of science is bound to solve every kind of difficulty that may be raised,
(15)
but only as many as are drawn falsely from the principles of the science: it is not our business to refute those that do not arise in this way: just as it is the duty of the geometer to refute the squaring of the circle by means of segments, but it is not his duty to refute Antiphon’s
proof.
2
At the same time the holders of the theory of which we are speaking do incidentally raise physical questions, though Nature is not their subject: so it will perhaps be as well to spend a few words on them, especially as the inquiry is not without scientific interest.
The most pertinent question with which to begin will be this:
(20)
In what sense is it asserted that all things
are
one? For ‘is’ is used in many senses. Do they mean that all things ‘are’
substance
or
quantities
or
qualities?
And, further, are all things
one
substance—one man,
(25)
one horse, or one soul—or quality and that one and the same—white or hot or something of the kind? These are all very different doctrines and all impossible to maintain.
For if
both
substance and quantity and quality are, then, whether these exist independently of each other or not, Being will be many.
If on the other hand it is asserted that all things are quality or quantity, then, whether substance exists or not, an absurdity results,
(30)
if indeed the impossible can properly be called absurd. For none of the others can exist independently: substance alone is independent: for everything is predicated of substance as subject. Now Melissus says that Being is infinite. It is then a quantity. For the infinite is in the category of quantity, whereas substance or quality or affection cannot be infinite except through a concomitant attribute, that is, if at the same time they are also quantities.
[185b]
For to define the infinite you must use quantity in your formula, but not substance or quality. If then Being is both substance and quantity, it is two, not one: if only substance, it is not infinite and has no magnitude; for to have that it will have to be a quantity.
Again,
(5)
‘one’ itself, no less than ‘being’, is used in many senses, so we must consider in what sense the word is used when it is said that the All is one.
Now we say that (
a
) the continuous is one or that (
b
) the indivisible is one, or (
c
) things are said to be ‘one’, when their essence is one and the same, as ‘liquor’ and ‘drink’.
If (
a
) their One is one in the sense of continuous, it is many,
(10)
for the continuous is divisible
ad infinitum.
There is, indeed, a difficulty about part and whole, perhaps not relevant to the present argument, yet deserving consideration on its own account—namely, whether the part and the whole are one or more than one, and how they can be one or many, and, if they are more than one, in what sense they are more than one. (Similarly with the parts of wholes which are not continuous.)
(15)
Further, if each of the two parts is indivisibly one with the whole, the difficulty arises that they will be indivisibly one with each other also.
But to proceed: If (
b
) their One is one as indivisible, nothing will have quantity or quality, and so the one will not be infinite, as Melissus says—nor, indeed, limited, as Parmenides says, for though the limit is indivisible, the limited is not.
3
But if (
c
) all things are one in the sense of having the same definition, like ‘raiment’ and ‘dress’, then it turns out that they are maintaining the Heraclitean doctrine,
(20)
for it will be the same thing ‘to be good’ and ‘to be bad’, and ‘to be good’ and ‘to be not good’, and so the same thing will be ‘good’ and ‘not good’, and man and horse; in fact, their view will be, not that all things are one, but that they are nothing; and that ‘to be of such-and-such a quality’ is the same as ‘to be of such-and-such a size’.
Even the more recent of the ancient thinkers were in a pother lest the same thing should turn out in their hands both one and many.
(25)
So some, like Lycophron,
4
were led to omit ‘is’, others to change the mode of expression and say ‘the man has been whitened’ instead of ‘is white’, and ‘walks’ instead of ‘is walking’, for fear that if they added the word ‘is’ they should be making the one to
be
many—as if ‘one’ and ‘being’ were always used in one and the same sense.
(30)
What ‘is’ may be many either in definition (for example ‘to be white’ is one thing, ‘to be musical’ another, yet the same thing may be both, so the one is many) or by division, as the whole and its parts.
[186a]
On this point, indeed, they were already getting into difficulties and admitted that the one was many—as if there was any difficulty about the same thing being both one and many, provided that these are not opposites; for ‘one’ may mean either ‘potentially one’ or ‘actually one’.
