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Аристотел

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The Hylomorphic Turn

University Press Scholarship Online

Oxford Scholarship Online

Aristotle's Two Systems

Daniel W. Graham

Print publication date: 1990

Print ISBN-13: 9780198243151
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198243151.001.0001

The Hylomorphic Turn

Daniel W. Graham

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198243151.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter presented how the problematic of Physics i and

Aristotle's prior philosophic positions and certain ‘facts’
generate a conception of form and matter. Aristotle sets
himself the task of giving a general account of change, one
which will be proof against the Eleatic challenge. He appeals
to his One Under Many principle, which perhaps embodied the
most basic insight on his S1 ontology. The development of
hylomorphism can be traced from the S1 conception of
substance. This chapter argues that there may be no
development at all. Aristotle always had a theory of matter and
only formally introduces it in Physics i. His predecessors also
already had the concept of matter. Hence, it is arbitrary to
suppose that he did not inherit the notion.

Keywords: Physics i, conception of matter, Eleatic challenge, One Under Many

principle, hylomorphism, conception of substance, theory of matter

Page 1 of 44

PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All
Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a
monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: null;
date: 10 March 2016
The Hylomorphic Turn

Physics i introduces the correlative concepts of matter and

form.1 Since the other works of S2 presuppose an
understanding of these concepts, Physics i is prior to them in
order of exposition. Furthermore, Jaeger's reconstruction of
the early Metaphysics has made it evident that Physics i and ii
are among the earliest works of the physical and metaphysical
treatises.2 Thus they provide an appropriate place to look for
clues to the transition from S1 to S2. In this chapter I wish to
argue that Physics i provides just the clues we need to
reconstruct the transition; for the argument of the work
documents a dialectical development in Aristotle's thought. In
grappling with a certain problem, Aristotle takes a path that
leads him to posit the existence of form and matter. Thus the
first book of the Physics embodies a philosophical discovery or,
from another point of view, an invention, which enables
Aristotle to solve certain problems but which also enforces a
modification of his earlier views. Physics i exhibits the
motivation for the ontology of S2 and also chronicles Aristotle's
adoption of the new position. The subject of the book is
change, and in particular the number of principles that are
needed to explain change. Before we turn to the (p.120)

discussion of change in Physics i we need to see what S1 has to

say on the subject.

5.1 Concepts of Change in S1

Overall, Aristotle does not address problems of change in S1.
This is not to say that he has no interest in questions of
change, since, as we shall see, he does deal with certain
puzzles relating to change, and he does have certain ways of
dealing with change. But despite various hints and partial
treatments, we find no unified theory of change in S1, nor any
attempt to provide one. What we find in fact is a way of
treating change that tends to obscure its problematic nature
vis-à-vis certain other phenomena.

Aristotle provides an implicit classification of change in the

Categories. His list of entities in Chapter 4 contains four types
which have to do with action. These are the last four types of
entity: posture, possession, action, passion. In giving examples
of all of these Aristotle uses finite verbs. Thus ‘is reclining’, ‘is

Page 2 of 44

sitting’ are examples of posture; ‘is shod’, ‘is armed’ of

possession; the active-voice constructions ‘is making an
incision’, ‘is cauterizing’ exemplify action, and the
corresponding passive-voice constructions passion. Several
problems arise concerning this classification. In the first place,
just how general are the classes meant to be? The examples
seem surprisingly anthropocentric. Should the class that I
have translated ‘posture’ (κεῖσθαι) be rather rendered more
generally ‘position’ as some translators do? Should
‘possession’ (ἔχειν) rather be translated ‘state’? The evidence
consists mainly of the examples themselves. Note that
‘position’ cannot here mean ‘place’, which is a separate
category, and it cannot include predicates like ‘to the left of’,
which would be relatives for Aristotle.3 Similarly, we cannot
understand ‘state’ in too wide a sense because postures are
states no less than are possessions. Aristotle seems to have in
mind for ἔχειν the fact that ‘is shod’ and ‘is armed’ can be
glossed by ‘has shoes on’ (ἔχει ὑποδήματα) and ‘has
arms’ (ἔχει ὅπλα), respectively.4 The problems one meets in
trying to generalize these categories suggest that Aristotle
had not thought them through in a more than superficial way.
The fact that (p.121) Aristotle has so little to say about these
four categories, which I shall hereafter call the verbal
categories, may indicate that Aristotle saw no particular
problems with them.5

As curious and anthropocentric as they are, the first two

verbal categories do not have significant implications for a
theory of change precisely because they deal with states, that
is, those situations which do not change. On the other hand,
the last two verbal categories, action and passion, do have
implications for a theory of change. The examples Aristotle
gives of action and passion are drawn from medical
terminology. He uses transitive verbs in the active and passive
voice respectively: ‘x operates on y’ gives an example of an
action; ‘y is operated on by x’ gives an example of a passion.
Now if we look at the categories of action and passion as an
attempt to analyse changes, we find that the attempt is not
very successful. For any values we can substitute for ‘x’ and ‘y’
the two sentences above describe the same event. There is no
reason to have two separate verbal categories related as

Page 3 of 44

active to passive in one's ontology. There simply are not two

distinct phenomena which an active and a corresponding
passive construction denote. Here is a case in which a
difference of surface syntax is misleading. Aristotle himself
notes the identity of the underlying event in S2, aptly noting
with Heraclitus that the way up and the way down are one and
the same, only described from different points of view (Ph. iii
3, 202a17–21). Here, however, he says nothing.

Although the active—passive distinction is unhelpful as an

approach to change, the assumption that underlies it poses an
even greater obstacle to understanding change. The
assumption is that change can be handled as a predicate, of
the same order as other predicates such as those of quality
and quantity. Aristotle advertises the categories as classes of
simple entities. If change is one of these, it seems to follow
that it is ontologically simple and hence unanalysable. By
making this assumption Aristotle seems to preclude the
possibility of breaking down actions into components, (p.122)

assigning to them identity conditions, and otherwise inquiring

into their structure. Specifically, this approach seems to rule
out querying the number of principles involved in change. For
to try to count principles is to deny the simplicity of change—
to cease to treat it as an ultimate predicate.

Against this unpromising background, we find in the

Categories one important glimmer of an insight into the nature
of change. In reciting the characteristics of substances,
Aristotle notices a ‘special property’ unique to substances:
they are receptive of contraries while remaining one and the
same (5, 4a10 ff.). For instance, a certain man can be pale or
dark without changing identity; but the same colour cannot be
pale or dark. Aristotle tacitly assumes that the man in the
example is light or dark at different times (ὅτε μέν … ὅτε δέ …,
a
19) but he does not call attention to the qualification. In fact,
he omits any mention of time in his definition of the special
property of substance: substance is ‘receptive of opposites
while remaining the same and one in number’ (a10 f.), he
notes, but he fails to say ‘at different times’. By contrast, his
statement of the law of non-contradiction in Metaphysics iv
(3,1005b19 f.) explicitly includes the important restriction that

Page 4 of 44

the same attribute cannot belong to the same thing in the

same respect ἅμα ‘at the same time’.6 Aristotle's inattention to
the time factor in the Categories passage is significant. What
this means is that Aristotle is not focusing on change per se.
For temporal succession is an essential condition of change.
Thus the Categories passage not only is not an explicit theory
of change, it is not even an account of change. Nevertheless,
his remarks are suggestive of a theory in a way that his
treatment of changes as predicates is not. For in his comments
we can glimpse a potential account of the structure of a
change.

For example, Socrates, who is pale, becomes tan. According to

the Categories scheme, we find the following elements: (1)
there is a substratum, namely the substance Socrates, which
remains self-identical through a change. (2) There is a
succession of attributes, specifically the contrary qualities
light and dark (Gr. λευκός, μέλας). One quality is present at
one time, another at another. (3) There is a time parameter in
terms of which the change must be (p.123) described; one
quality follows another in a temporal sequence.7 In terms of
this scheme we may propose an account of change: change is
an exchange of contrary attributes of a substratum in time.
Since properly speaking only substances are substrata, we
may give the equivalent statement that change is an exchange
of contrary attributes of a substance in time.

One limitation that is immediately apparent is that the present

account deals only with accidental change, that is, change in
the accidents of substance. Thus it is at best only a fragment
of a general theory of change. Aristotle provides no directions
in S1 for extending the account to cover all cases of change, on
the presumption that there are more kinds of change than
accidental (an assumption confirmed in Cat. 14).8 Moreover, it
is difficult to see how Aristotle might extend the theory, since
it is so anchored to the categorial structure of S1 that there is
little room to expand the theory without undermining that
structure. But the whole question of adequacy of a theory of
change revolves around the problem that had to be solved in
the fourth century. We must look more closely at the problem
and the possible lines for a solution.

Page 5 of 44

5.2 S1 and the Eleatic Problem of Change

It is clear from the overall argument of Ph. i that Aristotle

takes the traditional problem of change seriously. Although he
points out that it is not the natural philosopher's task to
defend against objections to the possibility of change, he
nevertheless addresses the question in Chapters 2 and 3. It is
appropriate that he should, for Ph. i is not really a book of
natural philosophy, but a methodological prologue to such a
study. After examining the methods of the natural
philosophers and extracting certain principles, as well as
developing his own general schema of (p.124) change,
Aristotle returns to the problem of change in Chapters 8 and 9
to show how his approach solves the problem and does so in a
more rigorous way than Plato's theory. Thus Aristotle
conceives of his theory of change as the fruits of a dialogue
with the traditional opponents of change. His theory is
designed to resolve traditional puzzles and to lay to rest some
ghosts of the past. At the same time as he engages his
philosophical predecessors, he introduces his own logical
distinctions and metaphysical apparatus. It is by a sensitive
application of his own philosophical advances that he claims to
be able to overcome past obstacles to an adequate philosophy
of nature.

The problem of change originates with Parmenides, who

attacks the assumptions of natural philosophy. He first makes
a distinction between a positive method of Is and a negative
method of Is Not (B 2, B 6). Only the former route of inquiry is
intelligible. By an elaborate tapestry of nested reductio
arguments, he claims to identify the signposts along the route;
these show that being is (1) without beginning or end, (2)
homogeneous, (3) unchanging, and (4) determinate (B 8.1–4).9
Parmenides intends his attack to invalidate philosophical
cosmogonies and cosmologies, as shown by the second half of
his poem, ‘The Way of Opinion’, as it became known in the
tradition. There he constructs what he claims to be a superior
cosmology, only to undercut it by diagnosing a fallacious
premiss in its construction (B 8.50 ff.).

Page 6 of 44

Parmenides' arguments did not put an end to natural

philosophy, but they did force a radical rethinking of the
assumptions which underlay it. Empedocles, who in rhetoric,
poetic form, and argument acknowledges his debt to
Parmenides, continues to pursue natural philosophy only by
adopting a plurality of Eleatic beings, namely the four
elements, which individually conform to the four signposts of
Parmenides. He preserves natural change only by making it an
epiphenomenon of the elements. Roughly, he seems to have
construed Parmenides' case against change in the following
way:

(1) If something changes, it comes to be.

(2) Nothing comes to be.
(3) Therefore, nothing changes.

(p.125) As a (partial) follower of Parmenides, he accepts (2).10 But

as a natural philosopher, he can not accept (3). Accordingly, he
denies (1). He sees a way to rehabilitate change by making it a
product of the mixture of pre-existing beings possessed of Eleatic
properties.11 Thus he accommodates change, since he interprets it
in such a way that it does not entail coming to be, at least in the
sense of physical generation. A corollary of his approach is that
change is not really real: it is an accident of interrelations between
the real things, the elements. In particular, coming to be and
perishing do not occur at all, but are only appearances
corresponding to qualitative redistributions, which are the only
changes possible.
Other post-Parmenidean system-builders use similar strategies
to accommodate change within an Eleatic framework which
rules out generation. Anaxagoras follows Empedocles in both
his ideological rejection of generation and his adoption of
mixture as a method of accounting for change. However, he
seems to have gone farther than Empedocles in multiplying
elemental bodies, and in rejecting the nascent account of
chemical combination of Empedocles. For Anaxagoras there is
only physical mixture and a dominance of the element that
exceeds in quantity. The atomists, on the other hand, make
their beings discrete and microscopic and account for change
by the physical arrangements of aggregates.

In their desperate attempts to justify change within the

framework of Eleatic assumptions, the Presocratics never

Page 7 of 44

thought to attack premiss (2) of the Eleatic objection to

change. Why is there no coming to be? Parmenides' key
argument seems to proceed as follows (B 8.7 ff.):

(1) If what is comes to be, it must come to be from what

is not.
(2) It is impossible for it to come to be from what is not.
(3) Therefore, what is does not come to be.12

(p.126) The key premiss is (2). Parmenides' first supporting reason

is that it is not sayable or thinkable ὅπως οὐκ ἔστι (lines 8 f.).
Depending on whether we supply a subject or whether we see the
last phrase as a sentence-frame, whether we understand the verb
as existential, copulative, or something else, there are a large
number of possible interpretations. I cannot here explicate the
argument further. But it should be apparent that there are many
possible ways of interpreting, and hence of attacking, the
argument. What is surprising is that none of the Presocratics
makes that attempt to attack this argument. It becomes a
philosophical orthodoxy that what is cannot come from what is not.
Plato does take on Parmenides' account of not-being in his
famous discussion in the Sophist. Yet he never makes use of
his conceptual tools to attempt a unified theory of change.
Aristotle is probably right in seeing the influence of Cratylus
in Plato's acceptance of a primordial flux (Met. i. 6, 987a32–
b
1). The belief in a fundamental condition of change absolved
him from the need to explain change. What needed explaining
was rather the constancy exhibited in phenomena. In any case,
when Parmenides' assumptions concerning being and non-
being were finally challenged, the objections were not
immediately applied to the problem of change. Plato himself
had at least two accounts of change. The argument from
opposites in the Phaedo contains a striking anticipation of the
Categories account of change as an exchange of contraries.
Like many Platonic theories, however, it appears as a
somewhat ad hoc construction to serve another purposes (the
argument for immortality), and Plato never takes up the theory
again. Subsequently, the Sophist treats change (or, more
precisely, motion) as one of the highest kinds, that is, as an
irreducible principle in much the same way that the verbal
categories of Aristotle are irreducible. But Plato does not

Page 8 of 44

elaborate this theory either, so we are left without a general

Platonic theory of change.13

(p.127) In Physics i Aristotle is aware of himself as a scion of a

long line of natural philosophers who have been troubled by
the objections the Eleatics raised. Unlike the Presocratics, he
is not afraid to challenge Eleatic principles of being, and he
comes to the conflict armed with technical advances of the
Academy, expertise in logic, and a sophisticated metaphysical
machinery. But we must ask to what extent the principles of
S1 enable him to reply to the Eleatics. As we have seen, S1
gives him the concepts of substance as a substratum and
contrary predicates as the termini of change and thus
suggests a paradigmatic account of change.

We can immediately note some advantages of this account. In

the context of Eleatic objections that change involves
postulating that what is comes to be from what is not, the
above account provides grounds for a reply. If the substance
and the attributes pre-exist, there is no reason to worry that
what is has come to be from what is not. For there was already
something present. On this account, then, change is not
radical in the way the Eleatic fears. Furthermore, there is
something that remains constant in the change, namely the
substance. Thus in a certain sense constancy is prior to
change. Finally, there is, metaphorically speaking, a
foundation for change, which is the substance. Since this
entity is one of the fundamental realities in the first place, its
presence provides a metaphysical guarantee that there will be
no ex nihilo creations and hence no metaphysical
discontinuities in the world.

The primacy of substance thus serves to underwrite the

possibility of change in Aristotle's system. Perhaps this is no
accident, for primary substance has been endowed with the
properties of Eleatic being: it is one, self-identical, complete
and determinate, and in itself changeless. Unlike Parmenides'
ἐóν, σὐσίαι are not unique. There are a plurality of primary
substances, each with its own independent integrity. Like
Parmenides' ἐóν, primary substance is self-sufficient and
perfect. Yet there is a sense in which the scheme of S1 offers

Page 9 of 44

little more than the Presocratic pluralists. They too had

posited beings with Eleatic properties, and they could account
for certain kinds of change. The one thing they never did
accomplish, however, was to restore the concept of generation
to a place in the theoretical account of change.14 Now (p.128)

Aristotle's S1 provides categorial distinctions of an order of

sophistication far beyond that of the Presocratics, but does his
system provide the means for rehabilitating generation?

In fact, the Eleatic properties of primary substance stand in

the way of such an account. The problem of generation, stated
in terms of Aristotelian categories, is how do things, that is,
substances, come to be?15 The challenge, which I shall
hereafter call the Eleatic challenge, is to give a satisfactory
answer to the question, ‘How can what is come to be from
what is not?’16 At the level of accidental change, the challenge
does not seem problematic: we have a continuum underlying
the change and attributes which are participating in the
change. But what of substances? They are, ex hypothesis
simple. If they come to be, it appears that they must come to
be from nothing, for there is nothing which constitutes a
substance and hence nothing that can be an ingredient in its
production. The metaphysics of atomic substantialism
systematically precludes an answer to the problem of
generation, which is the outstanding problem of change.

5.3 Aristotle's Options

Aristotle does take the Eleatic challenge seriously. He also
maintains in S1 that there are generations and destructions
(Cat. 14, 15a13). And he holds that primary substances are
metaphysically indivisible. These tents seem to involve an
inconsistent set of beliefs, which can be articulated as follows:

El: What is does not come from what is not.

G: Primary substances come to be.

SA: Primary substances are metaphysically simple.

The Eleatic principle (El) is easily interpreted as an injunction

against ex nihilo creation. The principle of generation (G) seems
(p.129) to be what Aristotle has in mind when he speaks of genesis

Page 10 of 44

or absolute coming to be: coming to be is by definition a change in

the category of substance.17 When these two principles are
conjoined with Substantial Atomism (SA), we find that there is
nothing which primary substance could be created out of, since it
has no components and hence no ingredients. It seems impossible
to hold all three principles as they stand; at least one must be given
up.
There is something to be said for rejecting each of the
principles, and some difficulty in doing so. There is one case in
Aristotle in which he is willing to reject El—in a way. He points
out that mathematical points appear without a mediating
process of change (Met. viii. 5, 1044b21 f.). The same remarks
apply to sensations,18 forms and essences,19 and to causes and
principles.20 However, Aristotle refuses to call such
appearances generations (γενέσεις) or to say that they come
to be (γίγνεσθαι).21 In each case we are dealing with
something metaphysically simple, and hence an entity whose
appearance cannot be mediated by a process of becoming. But
that very fact causes Aristotle to deny that such things come
to be, since for him coming to be is a process, not an
immediate change. Thus, while Aristotle is willing to take this
option, he is not willing to call such changes generations, and
consequenty he cannot use this approach to solve his problem
of generation.

Because Aristotle is unwilling to compromise on considering

immediate changes as generations, it seems that even if he
should reject El, he would also reject G. But since the set of
propositions can be rendered consistent simply by rejecting G,
let us consider that move by itself. There does seem to be
some precedent in Aristotle's tradition for making such a
move. Not only do the Presocratics after Parmenides reject
generation, but Plato himself, at least in one context, makes
such a move. For in the Middle Dialogues he maintains that
the soul is eternal. Hence there is at least one type of
continuing nucleus for attributes in the world. Of course, if we
go to the first principles of Platonism, we find that the Forms
are Eleatic beings which are eternal and perfect; however,
(p.130) because of their pristine self-sufficiency, they cannot

be the subjects of change. Hence they do not provide the

models for a (limited) theory of change that Platonic souls do.

Page 11 of 44

Finally, Aristotle could put an end to the inconsistent set of

premisses by rejecting SA. By breaking primary substance
down into components, he might locate a component which
formed a basis for substantial change. Thus he would have the
means for bringing generation within the pale of a rational
explanation, one which would remove the stigma imposed by
Parmenides. Within the scope of S1 there is no hint of how this
analysis of substance might proceed. We might expect,
however, that the attempt would continue the general strategy
of the pluralists, who identified some continuing element that
was the subject of attributes which had the potential to
change. The rejection of SA would, nonetheless, be a radical
departure from Aristotle's previous philosophy, for it would
entail a denial of one of the principles of S1.

A denial of any of the three propositions above gives a

potential solution to the problem. But from Aristotle's point of
view, not all of them are live options. As we have seen, he will
not countenance a rejection of El as regards substances. In
this respect he is faithful to his philosophical roots.
Furthermore, his commitment to a philosophy of common
sense makes it impossible for him to reject G. For it is a
commonly accepted fact that men, animals, and plants come to
be and perish. In his attempt to justify the beliefs of common
sense Aristotle carries a heavier burden than the pluralists,
who did not blush to call generation a matter of appearance,
or to call a perception a matter of convention. Aristotle, for his
part, is committed to saving the phenomena, and he regards G
as part of the phenomena. In any case, a denial of G is really
no solution to the Eleatic challenge, but only a concession to it
that the most problematic species of change cannot be
defended as part of a rational philosophy of nature. The only
live option is to deny SA, and hence to reject one of the props
of S1. At this point a modification of S1 becomes a reality. The
only question is, how serious the modification will be.

But the immediate problem is to determine how one should

analyse subtance so as to answer the Eleatic challenge for
subtantial change. And here the schema of accidental change
we found in S1 comes into play. According to the schema,
there is a substratum, S, which continues throughout the

Page 12 of 44

change. There are (p.131) also two contrary attributes, say F

and H, which are in the substance at successive time. S can
serve as a foundation for the change: there is always some
being present, so the danger of something coming to be from
nothing does not arise. Similarly, F is a being, so that when H
appears it does not replace nothing but rather another being.
Within the context of the schema, no radical deficiencies of
being appear. The key to this schema is primary substance.
Since, according to the principles of S1, everything that is is
either a primary substance or predicated of a primary
substance—that is, dependent on it in some way—the presence
of primary substance is enough to ensure a continuity of being
throughout the change. We have noted already the Eleatic
character of primary substance. In terms of that character, we
can say that primary substance is the source of being in S1 and
thus is able to validate any change by underlying it. Thus a
change will have the same degree of reality that any non-
substance has: it will be a modification of a substance.

The schema succeeds in providing an explanation and

validation for a limited range of changes. Can the insights of
the schema now be exploited to justify substantial change
itself? The schema itself has roots in the pluralists and in
Plato's Phaedo account, but the former do not recognize the
integrity of substance and the latter never clearly articulates
the range of application of the principles in question. Can the
analysis of a situation of change into a substratum and
contrary attributes be applied recursively to a change of a
substance itself? Note that the invocation of a substratum,
Aristotle's One Under Many principle, is his most fundamental
insight into the nature of reality in S1. In his formal ontology,
it is the one under many which is endowed with the full
measure of reality. From this standpoint, to extend the
concept of substratum is consistent with the perception that
the world must be constructed from the foundations up. It is
perhaps to be expected that Aristotle should try to posit a
substratum for substance. But even given his predisposition to
favour a solution appealing to substrata, the quest for a new
foundation is not an easy one.

5.4 Models and the Schema of Change

Page 13 of 44

5.4.1 The Principles of Change

In Physics i Aristotle confronts the problem of change. The
(p.132) argument of the book documents a dialectical path to

the discovery of matter. I shall not attempt to give a detailed

commentary on the book, since the progress of Aristotle's
inquiry can be noted by a few landmarks along the way. But I
shall provide a loose philosophical commentary designed to
bring out the structure of his inquiry. What I wish to stress is
that the nature of the problem itself, together with certain
philosophical commitments and predilections that Aristotle
brings to it, enforces a rethinking of the premisses of his
philosophy. By observing the dynamics of Aristotle's inquiry
we can identify the occasion on which the momentous passage
from S1 to S2 took place and motivate that development.

First let us note some preliminary steps that Aristotle takes. In

addressing the problem of change he formulates the question
in terms of the number of principles required to explain
change. The inquiry takes on a Platonic ring when he begins
laying out the problem systematically at the beginning of
Chapter 2. Are the principles one, or more than one; if one,
motionless or in motion; if more than one, finite or infinite?
The carefully martialled phalanx of double questions recalls
Plato's painstaking scrutiny of being in the Parmenides.
Nevertheless, the queries provide the occasion for a dialectical
survey of opinions. Aristotle notes that it is not properly part
of a study of natural philosophy to refute denials of motion,
but true to form, he engages in the debate. The result of his
skirmish with the Eleatics is mainly negative—to reject one
alternative. However, he does tacitly create an important
framework for the ensuing discussion: he provides a historical
and dialectical backdrop for the inquiry concerning change. It
is indeed thanks to the Eleatics that natural philosophy has to
take the problem so seriously. Yet one would think from his
cavalier handling of the Eleatics (3, 186a10 ff.) that the
challenge was a trivial one. The structure of the rest of the
book belies this impression, as well it ought.

Aristotle pursues a more constructive path through the

physikoi in Chapters 4–6. He extracts from them first the point
that the contraries must be principles (5, 188a19 ff.), which

Page 14 of 44

point he seconds and supports (a30 ff.). Change cannot come

from any chance attribute, for example, from musical to white,
but it must come from an opposite, for example, not-white, and
specifically an appropriate contrary, for example, black.
Waterlow (1982: 7) has (p.133) argued that this requirement
is not a merely logical one, but one that reflects actual
constraints on change.22 For instance, in order for an object to
become white it must previously be coloured, that is, have an
attribute in the same range as white. Waterlow is right in
saying that Aristotle's point is not merely logical. But his point
still seems to be a conceptual rather than an empirical one.
For the presupposition of a change is some contrast between
the initial state and the final state, where this contrast is
based on a difference within the same conceptual category. An
account of the physical causes and conditions of a change
must be posterior to the conceptual recognition of the change.

In Chapter 6 Aristotle extracts the further point that there

must be a substratum for the contraries. That substratum is
the substance in which contraries inhere. Aristotle's
arguments here, for example, are that Love and Strife (of
Empedocles) must have a third thing to act on—a point that
does not establish Aristotelian substance as a third thing—and
that contraries are not the substance of anything, a question-
begging piece of Aristotelianism. Satisfied with these
dialectical arguments, Aristotle comes to the tentative
conclusion that there are three principles of change (189b16–
18).

Aristotle's survey of the literature shows an Aristotelian bias.

It is not by chance that the principles he turns up are precisely
those of the Categories schema of change. This is not to say
Aristotle is being disingenuous; he is simply making his usual
assumption that the history of ideas is cumulative and directed
toward the true philosophy, which happens to be realized in
his own theory. But for our part, we need not be taken in. The
historical discussion is a mask behind which Aristotle
introduces the schema of change we have already met. Thus
far, then, we have nothing new in the way of philosophical
insight other than an explicit invocation of the schema as a
potential solution to the problem of change.

Page 15 of 44

5.4.2 A Generalization of the Schema

Chapter 7 is the pivotal chapter of the book, and indeed the
turning-point of Aristotelian philosophy. In it Aristotle takes
recourse to some facts of ordinary language to tease out the
(p.134) solution to the Eleatic challenge.23 He asks us to
consider three sentences:

(1) The man becomes musical (or educated, cultured).

(2) The unmusical becomes musical.
(3) The unmusical man becomes a musical man.

He distinguishes between simple elements of this hypothetical

situation, namely Man, Unmusical, Musical, and compounds, for
example, Musical Man. On the assumption that all these sentences
describe the same situation, we make the following observations:
the compound does not remain through the change, for Unmusical
Man becomes Musical Man. On the other hand, not every element
changes, for Man continues through the change.
Seizing on this example, Aristotle generalizes the point to
apply to all cases of change (190a13 ff.). In every case there is
a factor that continues throughout the change and a factor
that does not continue. What does not continue is the contrary
attribute that is replaced by its contrary. Again appealing to
the linguistic evidence, Aristotle cites the following sentences:

(4) The man comes to be musical from being unmusical.

(5) The statue comes to be from bronze.

Aristotle uses these sentences to illustrate the point that in

general, though not without exception, the contrary is said to be
that from which something comes to be. We say (4) but we do not
say ‘He came to be musical from being a man.’ On the other hand
we do mention the continuant in (5) as the source, whereas we do
not say (in Greek) ‘The bronze becomes a statue.’24
As yet Aristotle has not made an explicit application of his
(p.135) principle that there must be some continuing factor to
the case of substantial change. At a33 ff. he argues for such an
application:

In other cases [sc. than those of substantial change] it is

clear that something must underlie what comes to be …
But that substances too, and everything else25 which is

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said to come to be simpliciter, come to be from some

substratum, can be seen by investigation. For there is
always something which underlies, from which
something comes to be; for instance plants and animals
come to be from a seed.

As a preliminary, note that Aristotle refers to the coming to be of

substances and similar things as coming to be simpliciter (or,
absolutely, ἁπλῶς). He has in mind the syntax of a statement
describing this kind of coming to be: we say of a substance simply
that it comes to be (or is born, Gr. γίγνεται), that is, we use no
further predicate. But for an accidental change, we add a
predicate, for example, ‘Socrates came to be dark.’ The description
of substantial change is marked by being simple or absolute, that
is, without a predicate, and hence by metonymy Aristotle calls the
species of change in question absolute coming to be.26 By referring
to generation in this way Aristotle reinforces the problem that
substantial change does not seem to manifest a complex structure
in the way that accidental change does. Now we have in the above
passage an argument from induction for the principle that,
notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of generation, there is a
substratum for substantial change:
(1) In all other cases there is a substratum.
(2) In each case of substantial change there is a
substratum.

Therefore,
(3) There is a substratum for substantial change.

Unfortunately, however, the inductive evidence given for (2) is in

error. For in the paradigm cases, a substratum continues in such a
way that it is present in the final product as well as the initial state.
(p.136) For instance Man is present in Unmusical Man and also in
Musical Man; Bronze is present in Unformed Bronze and Bronze
Statue. This requirement is essential for something's being called a
substratum, and indeed Aristotle writes the requirement into the
definition of matter (9, 192a31 f.). But the seed does not continue in
the final product; it has long since disappeared when the organism
reaches maturity. Thus the seed is not the substratum of the
animal, and there is no evidence to support (2), and hence (3)
remains unproved.27 Aristotle's list of five kinds of unqualified
generation (190b5–9) is meant to provide further inductive
confirmation that there is always a substratum (b9 f.). Yet three of
the kinds are illustrated by examples of artefacts while the
remaining two do not obviously confirm the claim in question.28

Page 17 of 44

Thus Aristotle fails to establish that there is a substratum for

substantial change.
After giving an exhaustive list of five different ways in which
things come to be, Aristotle states two general principles on
which his new-found theory of change is predicated:

All the things that come to be in these ways clearly come

to be from substrata. So it is clear from the argument
that everything that comes to be is always composite:
there is something which comes to be, and there is
something which comes to be this in one of two senses—
as either the substratum or the opposite. (190b9–13)

(p.137) The two principles Aristotle recognizes here are the

following:
SC: There is a substratum for every change.

CC: All things that come to be are composite.

Aristotle holds that it is a fact that substances come to be:

GS: Substances come to be.

From these the two principles and the fact, it follows that
CS: Substances are composite.

But CS entails not-SA. And SA is an axiom of S1 Thus we have as a

conclusion of the argument in Ph. i. 7 the theorem that overthrows
S1. So far, however, we have no more evidence for SC than for (2)
above. Aristotle has plainly moved from the relatively
unproblematic case of accidental change to the problematic case of
substantial change to establish the result. Yet his only proof for the
claim that there is substratum for substantial change is the false
analogy that plants and animals come to be from a seed. He has
picked up on a sentence whose surface structure misleadingly
suggests that it describes a generation from a substratum, whereas
it only describes a generation from a previously existing source. Is
that sufficient reason to overthrow a first principle of S1?

5.4.3 Obstacles to the New Theory

Thus far what we have observed is a hasty generalization from
the schema of change implicit in the S1 characterization of
substance to a general schema of change, in which it is
asserted that there is a substratum for every change. Call this
principle the Substratum for Change principle, SC above. The
chief attraction of SC seems to be the promise that it holds the

Page 18 of 44

key to answering the Eleatic challenge. In Chapter 8 Aristotle

exploits the schema to that end. Perhaps an examination of his
use of the new principle will shed light on his justification for
it.

Aristotle makes use of the description of a doctor doing

something or changing to expose a fallacy in the Eleatic
challenge (8, 191a36 ff.). For instance, we may say ‘The doctor
builds a house’ or ‘The doctor turns grey.’ These statements
can be true descriptions of events, but they are misleading.
For it is not in the doctor's capacity as a doctor that he builds
the house, or in his professional role that he turns grey. He
builds in his capacity as a builder, and he turns grey in so far
as he is dark-haired—or, even (p.138) more precisely, his hair
turns grey in so far as it was not grey. Ordinary descriptions
like ‘The doctor builds a house’ and ‘The doctor turns grey’
invite sophistical objections to scientific inquiries and thus
generate misinformation. The source of the problems is that
the events in question are described under an irrelevant
description (κατὰ σνμβεβηκός). The remedy is to give a
properly scientific description of the facts—what I shall call a
perspicuous description. By constructing perspicuous
descriptions we can forestall or dissolve various pseudo-
problems, sophistical and otherwise. The philosopher can
accept ordinary descriptions for everyday purposes, but if
objections arise based on a mistaken dependence on irrelevant
details of the description, he should take recourse to the
perspicuous description.

Now the Eleatic understands the statement ‘The doctor came

to be grey from not being grey’ as an instance of the scheme
‘S came to be from not being’, and he understands this scheme
in the sense of ‘What is came to be from what is not.’ Now
even this sentence is ambiguous, but as Aristotle notes, the
Eleatic understands ‘what is not’ as ‘what is not as
such’ (191b9 f.), that is, ‘What exists comes from what does
not exist.’29 This, according to the Eleatic, is the deep
structure of every description of change; and since the
statement is paradoxical, change is impossible.

According to Aristotle, the Eleatic gives a mistaken

interpretation. What we assert when we say that the doctor

Page 19 of 44

turns grey from not being dark is not that he, or his hair, or
greyness comes into being from non-existence. We mean that
what is grey comes to be so from not being grey. In
Aristotelian terminology, the substratum comes to be in a
certain state from its privation. Schematically, S comes to be F
from being not-F. Now what we represent schematically by
not-F is exactly what Aristotle means by ‘privation’. Aristotle's
reply to the Eleatics is that ‘What is comes to be from what is
not’ need not entail ‘Something comes to be out (p.139) of
nothing.’ Although a description of a change always involves a
negative, the negative does not denote non-existence but
rather a deprived state. In terms of Aristotle's scheme, the
Eleatic takes the negation to attach to Being simpliciter,
whereas it only applies to a particular mode of being, being
F. The perspicuous description always describes the change in
question in terms of a contrast between not being F and being
F, so that the possibility of absolute Being arising from
absolute Non-Being never presents itself. In Aristotle's words:

We ourselves say that nothing comes to be absolutely

from what is not, but that in some sense there is coming
to be from what is not, in an incidental way—for
something comes to be from privation, which is of itself
not-being, but which does not persist as an ingredient.
Yet this is perplexing, and it seems paradoxical that
something should come to be from what is not. (191b13–
17)

In a similar way, a positive description of a change, say ‘The hair

became grey from being black’ does not license an inference to
‘Being comes to be from Being’, for it is always some mode of being
that is described as contrasting with another in the pespicuous
description: S comes to be G from being F (b17 ff.).
Thus Aristotle has used his distinction to overthrow the Eleatic
challenge. This is no small feat, and indeed merits the greatest
praise for the author. However, we must return to the
question which we asked before looking at the argument of
Chapter 8. What justifies Aristotle in generalizing the schema
of change to substances? Thus far we have seen no further
need or justification for that step. For the fallacious Eleatic
inference can be blocked without including substance in the
theory of change. All that is needed is a conspicuous counter-

Page 20 of 44

example to the Eleatic's move from a negative description of

change to the assertion that something comes to be from
nothing.

We must note three factors that come into play here. (1)
Aristotle evidently is not merely interested in subverting the
Eleatic prohibition against change. He wishes to come up with
a general theory of change of his own. As we have noted, the
schema of change borrowed from Categories 5 is the most
promising account in S1. (2) As we have also noted, Aristotle
believes that as a matter of fact, substances do come into
being and perish. This is a datum of ordinary experience that
must be (p.140) defended philosophically. (3) Substantial
change itself is the most vulnerable kind of change. Since
substance is the ground of being in the Aristotelian
philosophy, there is a real threat the substance may prove to
be a being that comes to be from non-being or absolute not-
being. Thus it is incumbent to provide the same sorts of
protection for substantial change as for accidental change.
Given Aristotle's commitments to a general theory of change,
to the genesis of substances, and to the avoidance of creation
ex nihilo, and to the prior One Under Many principle, there is
a presumption in favour of extending the schema of change.

Let us return for a moment to the S1 schema of change. There

is a substratum, namely substance, which supports contrary
features at different times. We might diagram the schema as
shown in Fig. 5.1. If we imagine the vertical axis of the
diagram to represent the

scale of being
with reference
to universality,
such that F and FIG. 5.1. S1 Schema of Change
G are
universals and
s is a
particular, and if we take the horizontal axis to represent time, we
have a picture of one feature succeeding another in time. Now with
reference to the schema of change thus represented, we can ask
some difficult questions of substantial change. The point that I wish
to make is that even granted a strong motivation on Aristotle's part
to generalize the schema, and even excusing his mishandling of the

Page 21 of 44

evidence for a substratum of substantial change, there remain

serious conceptual obstacles to a generalization of the schema. The
problems that arise are these: (1) what is the substratum for
substantial change? (2) What are the features that enter into the
substratum? (3) How are these features contraries? The problems
are in part conceptual and in part empirical. The conceptual part
consists of trying to make sense of the elements of the schema as
applied to substantial change. The empirical part consists in trying
to identify the physical counterparts of the theoretical elements so
as to interpret and confirm or correct the general conception.
Let us take as an example of substantial change the coming to
be of an oak tree. Aristotle is inclined to identify the
substratum of (p.141) the change as the acorn. But as we have
seen, this identification cannot be correct. For the acorn does
not persist in the change. Furthermore, there is no feature
that seems to enter into the acorn per se such that the tree
can be said to be the product of the modification of the acorn
by that feature. And a fortiori there is no contrary to such a
feature. Thus we are without any empirical basis for applying
the schema of change to the case of an oak tree. The oak tree
has a source, but it does not have a substratum as far as we
have seen.

Do the linguistic descriptions of change with which Aristotle

started in Chapter 7 reveal any basis for applying the schema?
The cases of accidental change of course do not show how to
apply the schema, which is modelled on accidental changes, to
substantial changes. The descriptions of substantial change to
which Aristotle alludes are of the type ‘The oak comes to be
from the acorn’—which we have seen presents a specious
analogy to a description of something arising out of a
substratum. But there is one example which precisely
describes something arising out of a substratum: ‘A statue
comes to be from bronze’ (190a25). Here we have a case in
which the ἐκ ‘from’ identifies the substratum; there is a
substratum; and there is an object that comes to be in a non-
accidental sense.

5.4.4 The Model for Substantial Change

The bronze statue example is introduced without fanfare, and
indeed Aristotle produces it only to show that there are
exceptions to the rule of thumb that ‘from’ singles out the

Page 22 of 44

contrary. For in the bronze statue description, ‘from’

introduces the substratum.30 I would like to suggest, however,
that this unpretentious example is in a certain sense the
turning-point of Aristotelian philosophy. For although the
example appears unobtrusively and as part of an oblique
argument, it provides a conceptual bridge that makes the
transition from the atomism of S1 to the hylomorphism of S2
possible. In brief, it suggests a model for substantial change.

We will not be in a position to appreciate the role of the statue

example without a preliminary understanding of the place of
(p.142) models in general in theory formation. Mary Hesse

(1966) has made an especially perceptive study of models and

their role in science.31 According to her, models are not simply
tools to be used in the context of discovery and then discarded
when a satisfactory formalization is reached. For although
formalization is one of the chief victories of science, it is also
one of the chief obstacles to further research. In a highly
formalized theory it becomes problematic what empirical
phenomena correlate with the terms and statements of the
theory. It is precisely at this point that the model becomes
indispensable. The model provides a concrete analogy to the
highly abstract and formal theory in such a way that it
suggests correlations. Moreover, the model assists the
scientist to exploit the theory in new ways, since it suggests
new areas of exploration. In certain cases the points of
analogy with the model may break down; for instance both the
wave model and the particle model of light fail to account for
all the phenomena. However, this does not mean that we can
dispense with models in our theorizing. It simply means that
sometimes we need a complex model or a plurality of models.
Overall, models provide the scientist with a non-arbitrary
method for introducing new correlations and testing these,
one which is essential if a theory is to grow and submit to new
tests.

Much of Hesse's argument in her first essay is directed toward

the controversy between those who, like N. R. Campbell, hold
that models are an essential part of scientific theorizing, and
those who, like Pierre Duhem, hold that they are dispensable
adjuncts to the essentially formalist project of science. Into

Page 23 of 44

that controversy we need not enter, since we are not dealing

with science per se, but rather a quasi-scientific philosophy.
What is crucial for the present study is to determine the role
of models and the extent of their importance for Aristotle. Of
course Aristotle himself has a kind of meta-theory in the
Posterior Analytics, which we may or may not wish to take as
indicating a meta-theoretical commitment to formalism.32
However, we have already noted that Aristotle's commitments
in S1 do not necessarily carry over to S2. In any case, we shall
be dealing chiefly with his practice in S2 and not his meta-
theoretical view of what he is doing. Thus it is to illuminate
Aristotle's actual practices in theory construction and
elaboration (p.143) that we must consider the general function
of models in theories.

Before we return to Aristotle, I would like to call attention to

one more way in which models may be seen as crucial to
theories. This is in the terminology used and even in the
conceptualization that results from using certain terms with
their conceptual connotations. At a certain inchoate stage of a
scientific theory the scientist may borrow terms from another
theory because he is trying to analyse a problematic subject-
matter in terms of an established science.33 The terms become
imbedded in the very principles of the theory and tend to
structure the theory according to their own internal logic. For
instance, the early theory of electricity was understood by
analogy to hydraulic phenomena. Hence terms like ‘current’,
‘capacity’, ‘resistance’, and ‘electron flow’ came to be applied
to electrical phenomena. As electrical theory developed
equations of its own and disanalogies were found with
hydraulic phenomena, the theory became less dependent on
the model. In this way terms can come to be fossilized within a
theory. At one time such terms may have been an organic part
of a vibrant theory. On the other hand, a theory may not
outgrow the model, or it may not yet have outgrown it at a
certain stage of development. When this is the case, that is,
when the model itself plays a role in actually structuring a
theory, I shall call the model a constitutive model.

Page 24 of 44

I would like to
suggest that
the obstacles
we have
observed in
generalizing FIG. 5.2. Analogy between changes
the schema of
change of S1
can partially be overcome by using a model, and that Aristotle
did tacitly use a model to overcome them. We have seen that
in Physics i. 7 Aristotle found that ordinary language
descriptions of changes supported the schema to the extent of
showing a complex relationship of (p.144) exchange of
features in a substratum. In the problematic case of
substantial change, however, the linguistic evidence gave no
similar grounds for analysis. Incidentally, Aristotle noticed
that a case like a description of the coming to be of a statue
did refer to a substratum. Fig. 5.2 considers an analogy as a
proportion.34

In the case of accidental change, we have contrary qualities

(or quantities or places) which belong to a substance at
different times. The overall structure is one of a substratum
with incompatible features which cannot inhere in it at the
same time, but which can replace each other at different
times. In the case of craft production, differences of shape
inhere in the material. Those differences are incompatible
with one another, and they do exist as modifications of a
substratum. The substratum is a stuff which lends itself to
different shapes.

How then can we bring the problematic case of substantial

change under the schema? By making use of the analogy of
craft production as a model for substantial change we can
solve two-thirds of the conceptual problem. For if we take
craft production as paradigmatic, we can determine
analogically what the substratum and what the features are of
substantial change. This will leave us only with the problem of
determining in what sense there are contrary features in the
change. The final feature in the coming to be of a substance
will be whatever corresponds to the shape of the craft

Page 25 of 44

product. The substratum will be whatever corresponds to the

material. What these things actually are may still be
problematic, but the problem will be one of a lower order than
the conceptual problem. It will be a relatively empirical
problem to determine what fills the role of shape and material.
If one should make a mistaken identification, this will not
overthrow the conceptual scheme, but only call for a more
careful interpretation of that scheme.

The strategy which I have just sketched for generalizing the

schema of change can be discerned in Physics i. 7—not,
perhaps, so much in a conscious plan as in the unfolding of the
exposition. I have already noted that the statue example is
introduced by the way. At 190b5 ff. Aristotle introduces a list
of different kinds of changes to show that all involve a
substratum.

The things that come to be in an absolute way come to

be either (a) by change of shape, as a statue, (b) by
addition, as things that grow, (c) by (p.145) subtraction,
as a herm from stone, (d) by composition, as a house, (e)
by alteration, as in things whose material [ὕλη] turns.

Note that in these five examples three are drawn from craft
productions. The last example is one in which the alteration is not
an accidental change but a transformation of a material resulting in
a new object.35 Here again the material—shape analogy is not far
removed from the case at hand. I suggest that Aristotle is thinking
in terms of the craft analogy as he elaborates these examples.
Strictly speaking changes of shape should, on the S1 analysis, count
as accidental changes, since shape is a kind of quality.36 But here
Aristotle is not attending to this restriction, which he abandons in
S2.37 In his mind the craft production is more closely linked with
substantial change than accidental change, and paradigmatic for
an understanding of substantial change.
Aristotle pushes the model by treating craft productions as
paradigm examples of the feature—substratum analysis:

So it is clear from the argument that everything that

comes to be is always composite: there is (1) something
which comes to be, and there is (2) something which
comes to be this in one of two senses—as either (a) the

Page 26 of 44

substratum [ὑποκείμενον] or (b) the opposite

[ἀντικείμενον]. I mean by ‘opposite’ Unmusical and by
‘substratum’ Man, and furthermore Formlessness and
Shapelessness and Disorder are opposites, Bronze and
Stone and Gold are substrata. (190b10–17)

After giving his examples in terms of the unproblematic case of

accidental change, he applies the distinctions to craft examples,
which evidently are stand-ins for substantial change.
We have left till now the problem of what the contraries could
be. The passage just quoted shows what Aristotle's answer is:
one feature is described in positive terms and the other as the
negation of that feature. Thus the opposite of Musical is
Unmusical, of Formed is Unformed. This analysis marks a
departure from the schema of S1, in which the features
involved in a change are both described in positive terms, for
example, ‘black’ and ‘white’. It was (p.146) required that these
features be contraries, but they were not analysed as
contradictories. Here Aristotle uses the correct general term
for ‘opposite’, ἀντικείμενον rather than the specific term for
‘contrary’, ἐναντίον, to designate the positive feature and its
negation.38

The new analysis seems to grow out of the problematic of

Physics i. For the underlying problem of the book is to
formulate a reply to the Eleatic challenge: ‘How can what is
come to be from what is not?’ It is only by studying changes
under a description where there is a process from what is not
to what is that Aristotle can face this challenge. Of course it is
also true that only by studying such a contrast can even all
cases of accidental change be brought under a single
description-type. For there is no contrary to Musical as there
is to White. Nonetheless, in making this simple move Aristotle
has transcended the schema of change he suggested in
Categories 5 and reiterated in the earlier chapters of Physics i.
Now he requires that the features in a change be not
contraries but contradictories.39

This move is essential for allowing Aristotle to bring

substantial change into a general theory of change. For it is a
characteristic of substance that it has no contraries (Cat. 5,
3b24 f.). Thus there could be no way to generalize the S1

Page 27 of 44

schema if we kept the requirement that the features be

contraries. But for every possible feature it makes sense to
talk of a contradictory. For the feature Formed there is the
feature Not-Formed. Of course a problem arises as to whether
this negative feature is really a feature or the absence of a
feature. Aristotle's language in Chapter 7 does nothing to
dispel the impression that the negative description of the
feature denotes an actual feature.40 However, he does finally
give a technical term to what is denoted: στέρησις (191a14,
also 190b27). As we have seen, this term signifies a
deprivation in S1. Here, however, it means a privation,
something, Aristotle says in Chapter 8, that is ‘of itself not-
being’ (191b15 f.). This may be a roundabout way of saying
what we would like Aristotle to say, that (p.147) a privation is
not a negative feature, but the absence of a feature.41 With the
concept of privation established, Aristotle can safely proceed
to generalize the schema of change to the most problematic
case.

To be precise, however, we must note that the new schema of

change is neither a generalization, nor a logical extension, of
the old one: it is a more general schema that grows out of it.
For there are fundamental differences between the S1 schema
and the newly won S2 schema. Most notably, the new schema
does not treat the features as contraries. Consequently,
change cannot in general be analysed as an exchange of
contraries. The features are opposites, and in particular
contradictories, or at least expressed by contradictory
predicates. Since, however, there is reason to believe that the
negatively expressed term does not denote a real predicate,
but rather the absence of a predicate, change is not an
exchange of features at all. Rather it is the acquisition of a
positive feature, which paradigmatically is a structural
determination, by the substratum. Change is a process from
not-being to being, and ideally a progression toward a higher
level of integration. The direction of change from privation to
possession carries with it an inference that change is naturally
progressive—a suggestion that will have interesting
implications for the development of S2.42

Page 28 of 44

Thus although S1 does not really have a developed theory of

change, it implies one. And although the S2 theory of change
grows out of the tacit S1 account, nevertheless, the S2
theory of change is different from the S1 theory in a
fundamental way. For there is a symmetry about the S1 theory
which is not present in the S2 theory. According to the S1
theory change is mere exchange of features. Since these are
ontologically indifferent qualities, there is in principle no
distinction in value between a change from F to G and a
change from G to F—say between Socrates' changing from
(p.148) pale to tan or tan to pale. But in the S2 theory, change
is from absence to presence of a feature. If that feature is a
feature of a higher ontological order—for example, a
substantial form—there will be a progression in one direction
and a regression in another. On the basis of this asymmetry
we might consider change in one direction to be natural and
the other unnatural. Here a subtle revision of principles
presents us with a radically different perspective on change.
This is perhaps the first instance in which the hylomorphic
turn produces revolutionary insights into the world.

Yet we are ahead of ourselves. For as yet Aristotle has not

recognized matter as a principle, nor has he clearly moved
from the logical to the ontological plane. Turning to the
question of how many principles there are, Aristotle observes:

The substratum is one in number but two in form—for

the man, the gold, and in general the matter are
countable. For they are more particular, and what comes
to be does not come to be from them in an incidental
way. But the privation and the contrary are incidental to
the process. (190b23–7)

Here ‘matter’ still appears in a non-technical sense.43 It is simply a

generic term for material or the material object in such a way that
it is conceived of as continuous with a concrete substance like man.
Yet we can see from this use how matter might by extension come
to apply to substratum for change, again as a generic term.
What we might expect Aristotle to call matter, namely the
substratum for substantial change, Aristotle calls in 191a8 the
‘underlying nature’ (ὑποκειμένη ϕύσις):44

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The underlying nature is knowable by analogy. For as

the bronze is to the statue, or the wood to the bed, or the
matter and45 what is formless before it gets form to one
of the things having form, so is the underlying nature to
the substance and the particular and the being. (191a7–
12)

(p.149) Aristotle does not apply the term ‘matter’ directly to the
substratum for substantial change, but only to the model.
Nonetheless, the model of craft production determines the
conceptualization of the relevant states of affairs. The proportion
Aristotle uses to explicate the elements of substantial change is:
material : form [in craft products] :: x : substance. The x must be
understood as the analogue of material in a product, whatever that
may signify for a natural substance. The concept of matter as the
substratum for substantial change is clearly present here, as an
extension of what Aristotle calls matter in 190b25. It is interesting
to note Aristotle's suggestion here that for the understanding of the
substratum for substantial change there is no recourse but to the
model. The analogy to the model exhausts the cognitive content of
this sense of matter.
Thus far we have seen some striking evidences of how the
example of craft production, introduced as it is in an incidental
way, insinuates itself as a paradigm example of change and
then begins to serve as a model for the problematic case of
substantial change. But we can step back and look at the
influence of the example in a broader context of
conceptualization. From this seemingly innocent discussion of
change in Chapter 7 we see a new technical terminology
emerging: the elements of change are matter and form. The
term ὕλη, which Aristotle had never used before, now comes
to stand for the substratum of change; the term εἶδος, which
he had used only to designate species or Platonic Form, now
comes to stand for any feature arrived at by change. Where do
these terms come from, or, in the case of εἶδος, what
motivates the change of meaning? The obvious answer is that
they are dictated by the model. In its technical use, ὕλη is co-
opted from the term for material, εἶδος, as Aristotle's use of
μορϕή in 191a10 f. shows, is used by analogy to the non-
technical sense of ‘figure, shape’. There are, no doubt, some
hidden reminiscences of Platonic conceptions here,46 but for
now the important fact is the connection to the model. What

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we seem to have here is a case like that of early electrical

theory in which terms like ‘current’ and ‘electron flow’ are
borrowed from another subject-matter in order (p.150) to
explicate by analogy a relatively obscure field of inquiry.47 We
do not know what the substratum for matter is, nor what
feature comes to be present in it. But we do understand an
analogous phenomenon in which something comes to be in
absolute sense by the shaping of material. We adopt the
conceptual categories appropriate to the analogue, thereby
taking it over as a model.

It is as yet an open question how significant the craft model is

for S2. A model can serve a merely heuristic function which,
although it is important for a certain stage of theory
construction, may be dispensable. On the other hand, a model
may prove to be what I have called a constitutive model, one
so intimately linked to a theory that it cannot be dissociated
from it. I shall argue that the craft model is closely connected
both with the initial articulation of S2 and its continued
interpretation. For now we may note that the model is crucial
for an adquate account of change—an account which meets
the Eleatic challenge for all recognized types of change. On
the basis of the model we can now fill out the conceptual
development from the S1 scheme of change to the S2 scheme,
as shown in Fig. 5.3. Fig. 5.4 shows how change can be
represented still more schematically, so that we see more
clearly the influence of the model on the S2 scheme. As the
unformed material is to the formed material in a craft
production, so the privation is to the form in the matter of a
substantial change. By replacing the m of S2 with a substratum
in general, we get a perfectly general account of change—one
which can comprehend the S1 scheme of accidental change of
a substance as well as genesis. Thus the craft analogy, by
becoming a model for a hitherto intractable kind of change,
mediates the transition to a new conception of change.

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(p.151)

From this
point on
Aristotle is
committed to
explicating
FIG. 5.3. Craft Model I
the
phenomena of
change in a
way
consistent
with the
model. The
model of
course FIG. 5.4. Craft Model II
imposes
strictures on
our
conceptualizing, but in return it promises to provide answers
to the hitherto intractable questions of genesis. In Kuhnian
terms, it promises to provide a paradigm which will transform
problems into puzzles to be solved by following its procedures.
Thus there is a pragmatic justification for this hylomorphic
turn. Note, however, that the turn is, in substance if not in
intent, revolutionary. At one point in the argument Aristotle
sets out his general position:

It is clear then that if there are causes and principles of

natural entities, from which they ultimately derive and
from which they come to be—not accidentally, but with
regard to the substance by which they are identified—
everything must come to be both from substratum and
form [μορϕή]. For the musical man is in a certain way
composed of Man and Musical; for it is analysed into the
definitions of these. It is clear then that everything would
come to be from these elements. (190b17–23)

Here Aristotle makes use of an example drawn from accidental

change to defend the substratum-form analysis for substantial
change. The result is an ontological analysis into form and matter.
For the final sentence states what the ontological components of
things that change are, not the causal sources, since the form is not
a source in any sense. Obviously the analysis applies to substance,

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and consequently Aristotle hereby abandons the ontological

simplicity of substance. He invokes SC, the principle that there is a
substratum for every change. As we have seen, the evidence for SC
in the problematic case of substantial change is its close analogy to
craft production. With a new ontology buttressed by a new model
the theory of change will be built on a new foundation. Aristotle
gives up his first ontology in order to gain a more powerful theory
—one that will give a unified theory of change. To use Kuhnian
categories again, we may say that the old paradigm (p.152)

generated an anomaly that proved fatal to its extension: it treated

substance as ontologically simple while holding that there was
subtantial change and holding that change could only be accounted
for by analysis. And it is precisely in accommodating substantial
change that the new theory proves its worth.

5.5 Conclusion
In this chapter we have seen how the problematic of Physics i.
together with Aristotle's prior commitments to certain
philosophic positions and certain ‘facts’ generate a conception
of form and matter. To recapitulate: Aristotle sets himself the
task of giving a general account of change, one which will be
proof against the Eleatic challenge, namely: ‘How can what is
come to be from what is not?’ In the face of Eleatic
refutations, the tradition has managed to justify change at the
expense of generation, that is, absolute coming to be.
Aristotle, however, has a commitment to defend the
phenomena of everyday experience, one of which is
generation. But he accepts the Eleatic refutation of ex nihilo
creation. Thus the only avenue open to him is to show that
generation, like other forms of change, consists of a
rearrangement of pre-existing elements. At the same time he
must show that this particular kind of rearrangement found in
generation differs significantly from other kinds of change.
Aristotle appeals to his One Under Many principle, which
perhaps embodied the most basic insight on his S1 ontology.
There must be an entity to underlie generation as substance
underlies accidents and hence accidental change.

The obstacles to this analysis are considerable because, while

the elements of accidental change are easily identified from
ordinary-language descriptions of a given change, the
elements of generation are not so identified. What is the

Page 33 of 44

substratum, what are the features that inhere in it, how are
these features contraries? Descriptions of natural generation
give no clue, because they describe the event in absolute
terms, for example, ‘Socrates came to be (was born)’. But by
examining the text of Chapter 7, we can find that Aristotle,
almost by accident, hits upon a kind of change that in
important respects mimics natural generation, for which the
elements can be identified. In craft production there is a
substratum (the material); a prior, relatively unformed state;
and a (p.153) posterior, relatively formed state. By exploiting
the characteristics of this example, that is, using it as a model
for natural generation, he can solve the conceptual problems
of generalizing the schema of change found in S1 The problem
of finding actual realizations of the elements, the matter,
privation, and form, can be left as a puzzle to be resolved
later.

Thus we can trace the development of hylomorphism from the

S1 conception of substance. We find in Ph. i the opportunity
and the problem which can make sense of a revision of his
principles. Indeed, not only can we tell a good story around
Ph. i, but we find in the book traces of a dialectic that leads
from a non-technical use of the term ὕλη to a technical use.
Aristotle introduces the term here in a way which
transparently reveals his motivation in introducing it. As
Aristotle observes elsewhere, ‘The solution of a problem is a
discovery’ (EN vii. 4, 1146b7 f.). By this account, his
postulation of matter is a discovery, one which he reaches by
wrestling with a traditional problem within the context of
certain constraints. Furthermore, as we argued at the outset
of the chapter, Ph. i is the earliest work of the physical and
metaphysical treatises. Thus it seems plausible to suppose that
Ph. i not only introduces matter but indeed provides the locus
of Aristotle's discovery. This book is a document of the
hylomorphic turn. After this landmark work, no theory could
be quite the same, and indeed the other physical and
metaphysical works presuppose its concepts. Ph. i thus opens
the door both to the philosophy of nature and to a new
metaphysical conception of the world. Accordingly, in
resolving the problem of change Aristotle precipitates the
development of a new metaphysical system, S2. The

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development we have uncovered is an instance that confirms

the Change Hypothesis which was proposed at the end of the
last chapter. There is no need for any other developmental
hypothesis.

There is, however, one kind of hypothesis which we have not

considered. That is that there is no development at all:
Aristotle always had a theory of matter and only formally
introduced it in Ph. i. There are two grounds that are
sometimes advanced for this claim. First, Aristotle's early
works contain theories that entail the existence of matter.
Happ (1971: 270), following a remark by During (1955: 156)
that the early Protrepticus makes use of the δύναμις—ἐνέργεια
distinction, which presupposes the matter—form distinction,
thus infers the existence of a concept of matter in the (p.154)

early Aristotle. But we have already seen that only ἐνέργεια -S

presupposes the matter—form distinction, and this concept
does not appear in the Protrepticus (or in any other early
work).48

Secondly, Aristotle's predecessors (that is, Plato, or the

Academy, or the Presocratics, or all of them) already had the
concept of matter and hence it is arbitrary to suppose Aristotle
did not inherit the notion.49 Of course Aristotle encourages
this view by his schematic history of philosophy in Met. i and
his acknowledgement of Plato's receptacle as a forerunner of
his concept of matter.50 Yet a distinction must be made if we
are to settle the question. There is a major philosophical
difference between a concept of matter as the stuff of the
universe, and a concept of matter as a substratum for change.
The first notion is essentially a physical, the second a
metaphysical concept. Most of Aristotle's predecessors had the
former concept, for which Aristotle did the service of
providing a generic term. But none of them had the second
concept.51 In particular, Plato's receptacle will not do as a
source because it does not form the basis for a theory of
change, being rather a locus for instantiation.52 Of Aristotle's
predecessors only Plato comes close enough to Aristotle's level
of abstraction to have conceived of a general substratum of
change—but Plato approaches the problem in the Phaedo, not
the Timaeus, and he fails to generalize his results in such a

Page 35 of 44

way as to (p.155) arrive at a theory of matter = substratum-

53
for-change. Furthermore, since Aristotle's discovery of
matter results from his inquiry into the problem of change
rather than a problem of material composition, we can infer
that the early concept of matter as the stuff of the universe did
not play a formative role in the origin of the concept (though it
may have influenced its subsequent articulation, as no doubt
the Timaeus discussion did).54 Thus there is no reason to
maintain the anti-developmentalist position that Aristotle
always had a theory or concept of matter.

We have seen that Aristotle arrives at a satisfactory account of

change through what amounts to a dialectical engagement
with the Greek philosophical tradition. His newly won position
leads, however, to the denial of his old position. For the theory
of change entails that substance is ontologically complex,
which in turn entails that SA is false, from which it follows that
S1 is false. Aristotle does not approach the problem of change
with the intention of subverting his own established position,
nor does he focus on the metaphysical consequences of his
theory of change. He is merely following out an argument to
its conclusion. In this sense, he is not a revolutionary. Indeed,
given the problem and the constraints, Aristotle's rejection of
SA is philosophically economical and eminently sensible—even
conservative. Nevertheless, the consequences of his new
theory are revolutionary with respect to S1. But hylomorphism
opens new horizons, and henceforth Aristotle is firmly
committed to the principle. And so, without methodological
fanfare or ideological polemic, Aristotle quietly and
unwittingly passes from one world-view to another.

Notes:
(1) For reviews of the literature on matter, see Cencillo (1958:
150–68), Happ (1971: 2–49).

(2) Jaeger (1923, pt. II, ch. 3 = 1948, ch. 7) demonstrates that
Met. i, iii, and xiv constitute the earliest stratum of the
Metaphysics; they were probably composed at Assos soon
after Aristotle left the Academy. Jaeger's reconstruction of the
early Metaphysics is generally accepted today as a secure
landmark of Aristotle's development. (See Ross 1957: 72.) Met.

Page 36 of 44

i refers to the four cause theory of Ph. ii. 3 and 7 at 3,983a24–

b
1; 4, 985a 11 f.; 7, 988a20–2; 10, 993a11 f.; cf. 1, 981a18–20
with Ph. ii. 3, 195a32 ff.; and of course the whole of Met. i is an
extended application of the four cause theory to the history of
philosophy. Furthermore, Met i. 5, 986b27–31 refers to Ph. i.
2–3, and Met. xiv. 5, 1092a33–5 presupposes Ph. i. 7. Finally,
Ph. ii itself at 3, 194b23 f. presupposes Ph. i. 9, 192a31 f. and
the background argument of Ph. i. 7–8. Thus Ph. i antedates
Ph. ii and both seem to have been written before Aristotle left
the Academy and began the Met. (cf. Jaeger 1948: 296, 299;
Ross 1936: 7–9).

(3) Cat. 7, 6b11 f.; cf. 9, 11b8–10.

(4) For arguments that the categories are derived from an

anthropocentric conception, see Gillespie (1925: 80–3); cf.
Owens (1960–1: 78 n. 19).

(5) Note the cursory treatment in Cat. 9. Aristotle lists

different numbers of categories in different places; see Bonitz
378a45 ff. While in many cases his lists are incomplete, several
times he drops only posture and possession (Bonitz, ibid., 50–
4); once he drops all the verbal categories and replaces them
with κίνησις, Met. vii. 4, 1029b24 f.; once he includes
κινεῖσθαι and κινεῖν, EE i. 8, 1217b26–9. This indicates his
dissatisfaction with the original classification of action in the
Categories.

(6) Cf. Plato, Rep. iv. 436 B 8 f. who also recognizes the need
for temporal qualifications in similar contexts (using ἅμα, B 9).

(7) Plato, Phd. 70 D ff., seems to arrive at the same scheme.

However, note that he so de-emphasizes the role of the
substratum that it passes unnoticed until 103 A–B. Thus it
takes him more than 30 Stephanus pages to get back to what
Aristotle would say is the most important element of the
scheme.

(8) 15a13–33. It may be objected that this passage comes from

the second half of the Categories, which is sometimes called
the Post-Predicaments and treated as spurious. Against this,

Page 37 of 44

See Ch. 11 n. 9. The treatment of στέρησις in Cat. 10 can be

seen to be early by contrast with the S2 account; See Ch.
5.4.4. It is also interesting that Aristotle does not make use of
a categorial distinction to account for the different kinds of
change in Cat. 14. This suggests that his classification there
may be pre-theoretic.

(9) Mourelatos (1970: 92 ff.); for other views on signposts, see

ibid., p. 95 n. 2.

(10) B 8, B 12, B 16.

(11) B 8, B 9, B 23.

(12) Aristotle gives a similar argument as follows (Ph. i. 8,

191a327–31):

((1a)) If what is comes to be, it must come to be either

from what is or from what is not.
((2a)) If it comes to be from what is, it does not come to
be.
((3a)) It is impossible for it to come to be from what is
not.
((4a)) Therefore, what is does not come to be.

It is often assumed that Aristotle is commenting on Parmenides

(e.g. A. Mansion 1945: 75). He may infer the first half of the
dilemma from B 8.11 or he may regard it as tacit, for he introduces
his analysis as something of a diagnosis rather than a report. The
dilemma may also have been in Aristotle's text, if Tarán is right to
emend ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος in 8. 12 to έκ τοῦ ἐόντος (see Tarán 1965: 96
ff.). However, it seems more likely overall that Aristotle's argument
is following a later dilemmatic version of the argument given by
Melissus and reported by Simplicius in Ph. 103.15–19; cf. Cherniss
(1935 b: 61 n. 254).

(13) Aristotle refers to Plato's account of the Receptable and of

the Great and Small as predecessors of his own account, Ph. i.
9, 191b35 ff. and GC ii. 1, 329a13–24, pointing out defects in
the Platonic theory. While Aristotle may have found an
anticipation of his own theory and even inspiration in Plato's
concepts, it is doubtful that Plato intended his concepts (which
are difficult to interpret) to solve problems of change. Rather

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they seem to be part of an account which aims at grounding

the existence of sensible objects.

(14) Cf. GC i. 3, 317a32–b35. In GC i. 1, Aristotle claims that

those who have a plurality of elements should have recognized
generation, though they did not. But of course their elements
are the substantial entities of their systems, and these are not
generated (with the possible exception of Empedocles' four
elements which arise out of the one). Hence the pluralists are
justified in denying generation from their own point of view.

(15) GC i. 3, 317b20 ff.

(16) GC i. 3, 317b23–31; Ph. i. 8, 191a24–33 presents the

Eleatic challenge as a dilemma concerning whether being or
not-being is the source. (See n. 12.) In what follows I shall
concern myself only with the more problematic claim that not-
being is the source.

(17) Met. xii. 2, 1069b9–13; Ph. v. 1, 225a12 ff.; cf. Top. v. 2,

139b20.

(18) DS 6, 446b2–4.

(19) Met. vii. 14, 1039b20–6; viii. 3, 1043b14–18; ibid. 5,

1044b21–3.

(20) Met. vi. 3, 1027a29 f.

(21) Met. vii. 8, 1033b5–8; viii. 5, 1044b21–3.

(22) On some problems with Aristotle's claims see Bostock

(1982: 190).

(23) Cf. Wieland (1960: 212–14) and (1962: 112 ff.), Charlton
(1970: pp. x–xii), Jones (1974: 477 ff.), Bostock (1982: 183),
Waterlow (1982: 12).

(24) Code (1976: 360 f.) interprets 190a5 f., ‘[we say] not [the]
bronze [comes to be a] statue’ as meaning ‘we not only say …’.
He argues that if we do not interpret the passage this way it
will contradict both 189b32–190a13 and the lines that follow
190a25 f. I do not agree. 189b32 ff. deals with accidental
change, as does the passage following the quotation. But

Page 39 of 44

190a5 f. deals with change of a stuff, a change which Aristotle

later denies is alteration (Ph. vii. 3, 245b3 ff.), citing linguistic
evidence: we use the adjectival ‘thaten’ expression in such
cases. (Cf. Ross's references, 1936: 492 ad loc.) In other
words, the matter is not spoken of in nominal form, as a
subject (cf. Wieland 1962: 131 f.). But we do refer to the
matter by the noun form in cases of accidental predication or
alteration (245b12–6a1). There is, then, a difference in the
logical form of a description of a material changing its shape
and the description of an accidental change. Note also that in
the disputed passage, Aristotle marks a transition to
descriptions of accidental change with ‘however’ (μέντοι, 190a
26), signalling a contrast in the logic of the two kinds of
expressions. Aristotle's remark seems to be a report of
ordinary langauge usage which we should take as a datum.
(Bostock 1982: 183 n. 7 thinks Aristotle is guilty of a linguistic
confusion here; but there is confusion only relative to English
intuitions.)

(25) Ross (1936: 492) excludes ἄλλα (b2) and reads the καί (b1)
as epexegetical. If he is right, Aristotle may be speaking of
substantial change alone.

(26) Cf. the treatment of existence as Being simpliciter, A.Po. ii.

2, 90a9 f., 12.

(27) For an attempt to save Aristotle's seed example, see

Waterlow (1982: 47). She holds (p. 22) that for Aristotle ‘the
possibility of change and becoming depends upon the
metaphysical distinction between things and properties that
are not things …’. On my interpretation this is false: the
possibility of change depends upon the more general
distinction between substrata (including non-substantial
matter) and features (including substantial form). Jones (1974:
488–90 et passim) argues that e.g. the animal comes from the
embryo, which does not remains, and that in general the
matter is not a continuant but an individual item from which
the resultant comes to be. Cf. Charlton (1970: 131 f.). This
view seems to contradict Aristotle's definition of matter at Ph.
i. 9, 192a31 f. and to make nonsense of his whole notion of
substratum. See the criticisms of this position in Code (1976).

Page 40 of 44

On the seed example, see Code (1976: 364 f.). Couloubaritsis

(1980: 177) stresses that the seed example is pre-theoretical.

(28) Bostock (1982: 185 f.) rightly notes that 190a31–b10 is

essentially an empirical inquiry that prepares for a conceptual
argument on the need for a substratum for substance. Yet it is
important to realize that the empirical inquiry does not offer
strong support for a substratum for substance. The two non-
artefact examples Aristotle gives are that things come to be by
addition, as in the case of things that grow, and those that
come to be by alteration (ἀλλοίωσις), as in the case of things
whose matter is transformed. But the former is a case of
growth, not genesis, and the latter is problematic because it
requires us to distinguish a kind of alteration that is not
qualitative change but substantial change.

(29) GC i. 3, 317b25–31 suggests that Aristotle's paradigm case

of what-is-not as such is not so much one of simple non-
existence, i.e. non-being, as one of complete indeterminacy or
nothingness, i.e. not-being F, for any F whatsoever. This seems
to mark a general tendency of the Greek tradition. See
Mourelatos (1976) on the early tradition, Owen (1971: 247 et
passim) on Plato. But whatever Aristotle's specific analysis of
what is not, the diagnosis of the contrast between the Eleatic's
interpretation of the phrase and the interpretation relevant to
the context can be paralleled by the 20th-century contrast
between existential and the predicative senses of the verb ‘to
be’.

(30) See Barnes (1982: 39 f.), Waterlow (1982: 11, 17 f.) on the
logic of ἐκ ‘from’/‘out of’. Although Aristotle could have
exploited the logic of ἐκ to make his points, he does not do so
here. Notice that he sometimes does emphasize the semantic
analysis: GA i. 18, 724a20 ff.; Met. v. 24; xiv. 5, 1092a21 ff.

(31) Cf. also Black (1962: ch. 13).

(32) On this question, see Łukasiewicz (1957: 15–17).

(33) Kuhn's findings (1970: 132–4, cf. 90) suggest that

revolutionary new paradigms of scientific research may result
from applying the concepts of one science to those of another
under certain circumstances.

Page 41 of 44

(34) See Hesse's treatment of proportion in analogies (1966:

64 ff.).

(35) See Ross (1936: 493) for an explication of (e): e.g. wine
turns to vinegar. Ross takes ὕλη here as an anticipation or a
gloss. On the contrary, it is perfectly in place as a non-
technical use of the term, as Wieland (1962: 125) and Bostock
(1982: 187 n. 12) observe. On the semantic development of the
term ὕλη see A. Mansion (1945: 74 and n. 65), Solmsen (1961)
and (1963: 492), Wieland (1962: 135 f. and n. 24, 210),
Bostock (1982: 187), Graham (1984: 48 f.).

(36) Cat. 8, 10a11.

(37) See Ph. vii. 3, 245b6 ff.

(38) Cf. Wieland (1962: 127 f.), who interprets the move as
part of an attempt to identify the subject of change.

(39) On στέρησις as a contradictory, see Met. x. 4, 1055b3 ff.

Of course in one sense only propositions can be
contradictories.

(40) Note the treatment of the privation in 190a17–21, where it

is spoken of as a positive element.

(41) See also 191a6 f., where the talk of a privation and form is
reduced to talk of the absence/presence of a feature. This is
Aristotle's considered position. See Met. x. 4, 1055b3–29; vii.
7, 1032b3–5; iv. 6, 1011b19 f. and references at Bonitz 700a3 f.
Against this, see Cherniss (1944: 270 f.), who claims that
στέρησις is not mere negation.

(42) Of course changes to a less organized state are

describable in this mode also. Cf. Wieland (1962: 134 n. 24),
who, however, goes too far in saying that no value judgement
is involved in the scheme. Strictly speaking, he is right, but
our preferred way of referring to changes suggests a favoured
direction of change. The thesis of Met. ix. 8, that actuality is
prior to potentiality, is a philosophical justification of this pre-
theoretical suggestion. See Ch. 7.3.

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(43) Cf. Wieland (1962: 130 n. 19), Bostock (1982: 187 n. 12). I
previously (1984: 49) took this occurrence in a quasi-technical
sense to anticipate the definition at 192a31 f.; that view now
seems to me an overinterpretation.

(44) Cf. Bostock (1982: 187).

(45) Diels and Ross exclude the three preceding words

(omitted by Simplicius) on the grounds that they spoil the
analogy between unformed : formed and matter : substance.
But ‘unformed’ is tacit in all the examples, while the
substratum is explicit, so some mention of the substratum is
necessary to preserve the points of similarity. See also Bostock
(1982: 187 n. 12), who stresses that ὕλη is used non-
technically.

(46) See Cherniss (1944: 90 f.) Solmsen (1960: 83) on the

Phaedo as an inspiration for Aristotle's principles of change.

(47) See Hesse (1965) following Black (1962: 38 ff.) on the

value of metaphor in extending the terms of an observation
language. Of course I claim that the language being developed
is ultimately not the observation language but the theoretical
language.

(48) See Ch. 4.3.2. Furthermore it is not clear that the

Protrepticus provides the earliest occurrences of δύναμις-
ἐνέργεια, as is often claimed (e.g. by Jaeger 1928: 632–4); I
would date the work around or after the transition to S2: see
11.3. On the σύναμις-ἐνέργεια distinction, See Ch. 7.

(49) See e.g. Berti (1977: 297–9), Couloubaritsis (1980: 200

ff.).

(50) Ph. i. 9, 191b35 ff.; iv. 2, 209b11–16, b33–210a2; GC ii. 1,

329a13–24. Note, however, that in the same breath that
Aristotle attributes hylomorphic notions to Plato, he accuses
him of conceptual confusions—thus providing prima-facie
evidence against his own interpretation. See de Vogel (1949:
204).

(51) See Happ's survey (1971: 82–270), Cherniss (1944: 172 f.).

Page 43 of 44

(52) Cf. Cherniss (1944: 170–3), Ross (1951: 125, 221 f., 233),
Solmsen (1960: 42 f.), (1961: 395), Happ (1971: 121–35). The
famous gold analogy (Tim. 50 A–C) is introduced as the answer
to a problem of reference (cf. E. N. Lee 1971: 231); its value
for understanding the nature of the receptacle is unclear. Note
also that it cannot be taken for granted (as it almost always is)
that the Timaeus was written before Ph. i: on the traditional
dating, the Platonic dialogue is late, whereas the Aristotelian
treatise was written while Aristotle was at the Academy. See
Düring (1955: 154, 156), who raises this possibility against
Claghorn (1954)—though the positive evidence he adduces for
the view is faulty (Graham 1984: 37–9). Of course if Ph. i were
the earlier treatise, at least part of Ch. 9, which discusses the
Timaeus, would have to be a later addition. Owen (1953) has
argued that the Timaeus should be dated early; against this
see Cherniss (1957).

(53) See above, n. 7.

(54) This consideration counts against the theory of Bos

(1975); See Ch. 4 n. 37.

Page 44 of 44

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