187812 PHYSICS Ls everything arises (DK 32 B6), five, air, earth, and water, which came to be known as the four elements (v. textual note on 187526). Anaxagoras is said to have posited an unlimited number ‘both of homeomerous things and of opposites’ (25-6). A thing is called homeomerous if the same description which applies to it applies to parts of it. Thus bone, or a piece of bone, is homeomerous, because bits of bone are bone, and half a piece of bone is still a piece of bone. Aristotle may be saying that ‘Anaxagoras held that there were infinitely many kinds of homeomerous stu a8 well as infinitely many pairs of opposites, hot-cold etc.; or he may (perhaps more forcefully) be saying that besides infinitely many pairs of opposites, Anaxagoras posited infinitely many particles or ‘seeds? of each kind of homeomerous stuff (cf. DK 59 B 4). ‘The significance of this grouping appears from De gen. et cor. 1 3141-6: “Those who derive everything from a single type of matter must make coming to be and ceasing to be alterations. ‘The underlying stuff remains ‘one and the same, and what is like that is said to be altered. For those ‘who posit several kinds of matter, alteration will be different from coming to be. Coming to be and ceasing to be will occur when things come to- gether and separate.’ That is, as the rest of the chapter shows, those who make the matter of things in itself uniform can and must allow qualita- tive change. When an egg becomes a chicken, or water in a kettle be- ‘comes hot, the underlying stuff alters. Those, in contrast, who make the matter of things in itself diverse, in itself determined by qualitics like hot, cold, pale, dark, wet, dry, soft, hard (3r4*18-19), cannot consistently allow that there is alteration, since alteration is precisely change in respect of such qualities. By alteration we normally understand a change such as a tomato undergoes when it turns from green to red: in such a case there is a definite, identifiable thing, a tomato, which remains throughout the change. A man like Empedocles cannot allow alteration in this sense, at least in respect of basic qualities like hot and cold, because these determine his elements; there is no concept under which he can identify fa thing which changes from hot to cold throughout the change. From, this alone it docs not follow that Empedocles must do away with qualitative change altogether, and say that what appears as a case of rise in temperature is really a case of hot stuff coming along and/or cold stuff departing. There is still the possibility that the cold stuff changes into hot stuff in such a way that the change is a ceasing to exist of the cold stuff and a coming into existence of the hot. However, this possibility Empedocles will not allow (3242-5), on the ground, presumably, common to all the other physicists, that that which comes into existence must do so cither out of nothing or out of what exists already, and neither is possible (191%28-31, cf 187*g2-5). Hence although Anaxagoras (18730) and Empedocles (cf. 189%24-6) did in 64 Ls COMMENTARY 188491 fact allow qualitative change, Aristotle is right to accuse them of being inconsistent (315*3-4). ‘The view of the first group of physicists may at first seem more attrac tive: there is a quantity of matter in the universe which neither comes to be nor passes away, but merely changes in quality—in colour, temperature, etc., or, perhaps better, in shape, state of motion, and the like. Itis generally accepted that Aristotle's own view is of this kind — that he posits a single, universal, indeterminate substratum for all change. Such a line, however, is not free ftom difficulty. Tt involves what Aristotle calls a ‘separation’ of matter and qualities, the matter becomes embarrassingly unknowable, and the qualities slide in and out of the actual world in a way which raises just those questions about coming to be and ceasing to be that the theory of a permanent substratum was designed to evade. The traditional view that Aristotle is none the less committed to this line will be challenged below. In the present chapter Aristotle is maialy concerned with the second group of physicists. His arguments against them are on the whole straight- forward. The clause 187°30, which T translate ‘there will always be some quantity smaller than any yet yielded’, is literally: “it (sc. the yield at any time] will still not exceed some magnitude in smallness’. I take Aristotle to mean: for all x, xis a yield implies there is a.y such that x is not smaller than y. Others take him to mean: there is a_y such that for all x, x is a yield implies x is not smalle: than y, The latter would be a better premiss for Aristotle’s argument, but it is hard to see how he could establish it. When in 188°r4-15 Arstotle says that there is a sense in which clay does not divide into clay, he is probably thinking of it as dividing into earth and water (cf. Plato, Theaet. 147 ¢). On bricks and walls (*15-16) cf. De gen. et cor. IT 334*19-*2. CHAPTER 5 In this chapter Aristotle offers two arguments for the view that the principles of physical things are opposites. One (188*19-30, 188°26- x89%x0) is an argument from authority or ex consensu sapientium, With the remarks on Democritus (188%22-6) compare Met, A 985%13-19- ‘The atoms were made of homogeneous stuff, but they constitute dif= ferent things according as they differ in shape, posture, and order (cf. Locke, Essay II. viii. 10-14). The fanciers of odd and even and love and strife (188°34) were, respectively the Pythagoreans (v. Met. A 986"15~19), and Empedocles. For the distinction between things known by perception and things known by means of an account (189*4-8) cf. Plato, Politicus, 285 d-286 a. ‘The other argument, 1830-26, is based on consideration of the logos sons 65 F188°91 PHYSICS Ls (231). Ross takes this as meaning ‘from a consideration of the argument? and cites as a parallel De gen. et cor. I 325814, where Aristotle speaks of philosophers who say one ought to follow the argument. This passage is not in fact a good parallel, because Aristotle is apparently quoting a well-known slogan, and the argument in question is a famous one. Better for Ross's interpretation are Plato, Rep. 1 349 4-5, Laws V 733 46-7, etc. However, another passage in Plato, Phaedo 99 ¢ 4~ 100 a 2, suggests that ‘considering /ogai’ is simply considering speech, or things said, and this passage is the more deserving of attention here, because the argument which follows is foreshadowed by Phaedo 70 c~ 72d. T have tried to leave the matter open by translating ‘from logical considerations’; the phrase seem to me akin in meaning to ‘logically’ in MetZ 102913 (cf. Met. A 98731~2 with A 1069*28), and the logical considerations adduced there turn out to concern the way we speak. Aristotle says that it is not a matter of chance what comes to be out of what, but a thing always comes from its opposite or something in between. This is not an empirical doctrine to the effect that the universe is regular; it is the purely logical doctrine that change is within definite ranges. We would say that a thing changes from being red to being blue, or from being round to being elliptical; we would not say that a thing changes from being red to being elliptical, or from being round to being blue—though of course something round which changed to being elliptical might also have happened to be red, cf. 188°34~6. This seems to be a sound point, and one way of understanding an Aristotelian ‘kind of thing’ or category (18914, 24-6) is as a range within which things may change. In taking this line, Aristotle diverges both from the Presocratics and from Plato, He differs from the Presocratics, in that whilst they made everything come to be out of the same opposed principles, either dense and rare or cold and hot or the like, he makes things come to be out of different but analogous opposed principles. In so doing, he removes, the discussion from the sphere of empirical to the sphere of philosophic inquiry. And his insistence that pale does not come from just anything other than pale but from the opposed state, is probably directed against Plato, who in the Sophist construes ‘that which is not f as ‘that which is not identical with f°, so that it covers not only whatever is opposed to f, but also things which have nothing to do with fat all: see 256-9, especially 259 b. If Aristotle were asked whether Plato is not as competent as him- self to remove the difficulty about coming to be experienced by the Presocratics (see above, p. 64) this is probably one of the points he would make. ‘The outline of 188*30-26 is fairly clear, but there are a couple of points left in some obscurity. First, the nature of the opposition. Pale and dark, hot and cold, are indefinite opposites: neither ‘pale? nor 66 16 COMMENTARY 189814 ‘dark’ is the expression for a definite colour—things are called pale and dark relative to some norm and, e.g., a pale Sicilian may be darker than a dark Swede. On the other hand, the arrangement of bricks in a house is something definite, and whilst the state of ‘being arranged not, thus but otherwise’ may be called indefinite (cf. De int. 1630-2), the ‘two are opposed, not like pale and dark or hot and cold, but rather like correct and incorrect or hitting and missing. It will appear in chapter 7, but hardly appears here, that the opposites which are principles are opposed in this latter way. Second, it is unclear whether the opposites are entities the correct expressions for which would be abstract, like ‘pallor’, ‘knowledge of music’, or concrete, like ‘pale thing’, ‘thing which knows music’. Aristotle uses the neuter adjective with the definite article, which may be taken cither way. We shalll have to settle this point too when we come to chapter 7. For the idea (188%23-5) that particular colours are ‘out of” i.e. com- pounds of pale and dark ef. De sensu 3, Plato, Tim. 67 d-68 d. CHAPTER 6 In this chapter Aristotle argues that whilst it cannot plausibly be held that the principles of physical things are less than two or more than three in number, there are reasons for thinking they may be as many as three, A hasty reading might make us think that Aristotle is arguing that, besides the opposites of the sort identified in chapter 5, we must always suppose that there is a third factor underlying them. In fact, he is careful not to be so dogmatic. Whereas he usually describes even the ‘most questionable points he makes as dear or plain (délon, phaneron), here he uses carefully guarded language: there is an argument for positing an underlying thing, 189*21-s, °s7-183 people might feel difficulties otherwise, “22, 28; if anyone accepts certain arguments, he must say so and s0, *35~15 but in the end, whether we are to posit under lying things remains a very difficult qu-stion, %29. The truth is that Aristotle is presenting a mild antinomy: the arguments that the principles are opposites suggest that there are two in number, but there are also arguments suggesting they must be as many as three. Chapter 7 is intended, among other things, to resolve the antinomy (v. Aristotle's summary of the whole discussion, 191°15-19)- tle begins by rehearsing the arguments against allowing either ‘ple only, or an unlimited number (189*11~20). Among the about positing an unlimited number he includes the fact that there is ‘only one opposition in eaca kind of thing, and reality is one such kind (189°13-14). ‘Kinds of thing’ were explained above 67