PHILOPONUS

On Aristotle Physics 4.10-14

This page intentionally left blank
PHILOPONUS
On Aristotle
Physics 4.10-14

Translated by
Sarah Broadie

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

 Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in 2011

Paperback edition first published 2014

© 2011 by Sarah Broadie

Sarah Broadie has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as Author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted
by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN HB: 978-0-7156-4088-3

PB: 978-1-4725-5796-4
ePDF: 978-1-4725-0171-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Acknowledgements

The present translations have been made possible by generous and

imaginative funding from the following sources: the National Endowment
for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs, an
independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the
British Academy; the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society
(UK); Centro Internazionale A. Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del
Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis
Foundation; the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Gresham
College; the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown
Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown Trust; Dr Victoria
Solomonides, the Cultural Attaché of the Greek Embassy in London.
The editor wishes to thank Donald Russell, Pantelis Golitsis, Mossman
Roueché and Ursula Coope for their comments, Ian Crystal for
preparing the volume for press, and Deborah Blake at Bristol Classical
Press, who has been the publisher responsible for every volume since
the first.

Typeset by Ray Davies

Printed and bound in Great Britain
 Contents

Preface Richard Sorabji vii

Translator’s Note xiii

Translation 1

Notes 99
Bibliography 116
English-Greek Glossary 117
Greek-English Index 120
Subject Index 128
This page intentionally left blank
 Preface
Richard Sorabji

This commentary by Philoponus, translated here by Sarah Broadie,

discusses Aristotle’s treatment of time in his Physics Book 4, Chap-
ters 10-14, and it creates a surprise. The other parts of Book 4 of
Aristotle’s Physics concern place and vacuum, and the supposed
impossibility of motion in a vacuum. On all these subjects Philo-
ponus’ commentary offered innovative corrections of Aristotle which
were a genuine contribution to science. These corrections were not
all confined to the two digressive ‘Corollaries’ on place and vacuum,
which interrupt the commentary. In those Corollaries Philoponus
argued against Aristotle that a body’s place is not its immediate
surroundings, much less the inner surface of its immediate surround-
ings, but is a three-dimensional extension that it occupies. This
concept of place as space does not exclude place being an empty
vacuum, even though extraneous reasons may require it always to be
occupied.1 Nor, says Philoponus to the later acclaim of Galileo, would
motion in a vacuum be impossible. The absence of resistance in a
vacuum does not (absurdly) imply that movement would take no
time, but only that it would not require extra time to overcome
resistance.2 The heavens take time to rotate, according to Aristotle
himself, even though they meet no external resistance.3 Philoponus
attacked Aristotle’s explanation of the motion upwards and down-
wards of earth, air, fire and water in terms of their having a natural
place.4 He recorded experiments anticipating Galileo with the
dropping of different weights from a height, to establish that speed
of fall is not proportional to weight.5 Pantelis Golitsis has rightly
pointed out that when innovations in the Corollaries are not re-
flected in the main commentary, this need not imply a change of view
viii Preface

by Philoponus, since he warns that he is saving criticisms for the

Corollaries.6 But an enormous innovation does occur in the main
commentary itself. The motion of projectiles after they have left the
thrower’s hand depends, in Aristotle’s view, on the hand turning
pockets of air into no-longer-moved movers of the projectile, and so
requires air, not vacuum. But if that were the case, Philoponus
complains, artillery could shoot projectiles by means of bellows blow-
ing air at its projectiles. Instead, we should postulate impetus, that
is, a force implanted by the thrower directly into the projectile, not
into the air.7 Thomas Kuhn has called that a scientific revolution.
After that, we turn with anticipation to Philoponus’ commentary
on the last part of Aristotle’s Physics Book 4, concerning time. We
have all the more reason to do so, because of the history of objections
against Aristotle on time that were surely known to Philoponus. The
doctor Galen had taken Aristotle to task for drawing the inference
that time itself requires change from the premiss that our thoughts
have to change when we notice time.8 He also charged Aristotle’s
definition of time with circularity because of its reference to prior and
posterior. Themistius had defended Aristotle against this charge,9
and Themistius was tacitly used in Philoponus’ own commentary on
the Physics no less than 600 times, in the estimate of its editor,
Vitelli.10 Further, the head of the Aristotelian school, Alexander, had
written a separate treatise on time,11 and had defended Aristotle’s
claim that time depends on consciousness,12 although Themistius in
his commentary on Physics Book 4 was not to be satisfied with
Alexander’s defence.13 Themistius’ objection is part of a series of
arguments he gives against Aristotle’s treatment of time.14 In his
treatise, Alexander put forward a view that goes beyond Aristotle,
that the instants by which we divide time into past, present and
future exist only in the mind.15
The surprise comes when we find that Philoponus’ commentary on
the part of Physics Book 4 that concerns time is a straight exposition,
with little objection or defence of Aristotle. This cannot be because it
was too early in his career for him to have thought of criticisms,
because the main part of Philoponus’ commentary on Book 4 on time
is the one piece of commentary that allows us to date it precisely. A
reference at the very beginning of the commentary on 4.10, at 703,16-
 Preface ix

17, dates the writing to 517 AD. His teacher, Ammonius, would then
have been near the end of his life, and this commentary of Philoponus
is not one of those that are described as being taken from the
seminars of Ammonius. There would have been ample time for the
brilliant Philoponus to think about the wealth of past criticisms and
suggestions, and to work out his own position. One explanation
would be provided by Verrycken’s controversial view that the com-
mentary written in 517 represents a non-combative early strand, and
that all revision came later as a result of religious conversion, and
was added into parts of the early strand.16 But why was it not added
into the comments on time?
So far we might be drawn to a different explanation. Different
commentaries reflect lectures to different levels of student. I sug-
gested in the preface to Owen Goldin’s translation of the commentary
on Posterior Analytics Book 2, that the difference from Philoponus’
commentary on Book 1 might be due not to its being by a different
author, but to its reflecting Philoponus’ lectures to a more elemen-
tary level of student. Might the commentary on Aristotle’s treatment
of time similarly reflect lectures to a more elementary group of
students than those who were regaled with the lectures on Physics
Book 4, Chapter 8, introducing impetus theory? It is the difference
between these two parts of the main commentary on Book 4 that we
need to explain. If the reason lies in the level of the audience, our
expectations of the content of the commentary would have been
pitched too high, although we would be getting clearer about the
circumstances of Philoponus’ writing.
But even if this explanation is correct, it does not provide the
whole story, as is shown by two passages on which Sarah Broadie has
commented and to which she has drawn my attention. Within the
commentary on Physics 4.13, translated here, Philoponus makes one
of three references17 to his still earlier commentary on Book 8 of
Aristotle’s Physics. He tells us that he had there refuted Aristotle’s
attempt to show that motion exists always – in the sense, that is, of
having no beginning or end. This in turn has implications for a
beginning or end of time, given the view, shared by Aristotle, that
motion and time go together. It means that Aristotle should not
argue, as he does at Physics 4.13, 222a29-30, that time will not end,
x Preface

since motion will not end. Nor need Aristotle’s opponents accept his
further argument (222a33-b7) that an instant is the end of one time
and the beginning of another, so that there can be no final instant of
time. For those who disagree will not accept that an instant is always
a beginning as well as an end. Evidently in the lectures reflected in
the present commentary on Book 4 Philoponus does not repeat his
arguments on motion from the earlier commentary on Book 8, but
only alludes to them. The most obvious reason is that Aristotle does
likewise, only mentioning in Book 4 the arguments on motion which
he supplies in Book 8. On the other hand, Broadie draws attention to
two arguments by Philoponus in Book 8 about time, including the one
about an instant not needing to be both beginning and end. They have
survived in an Arabic paraphrase of Philoponus’ commentary on
Book 8, available in English translation.18 The important point is
that objections to Aristotle were voiced both in the earlier commen-
tary and, with references back, in our commentary written in 517 AD.
On the view that these objections to Aristotle did not occur to
Philoponus until some later conversion to Christianity, we should
have to postulate that anti-Aristotelian afterthoughts were added
into his commentaries on both 4 and 8.
There is one more point to be made. The present commentary
contains interesting claims not only against Aristotle, but also in
supportive exposition of his views. The one to which Broadie has
drawn my attention, and which she expounds, occurs at 771,20-8 and
concerns motion. Aristotle supposes at Physics 4.13, 222b33-223a4
that one body cannot be compared as faster than another, if one is
travelling straight and the other round a bend. Philoponus comments
that speed round a bend may be faster than speed along a straight
line, even if it takes more time to cover the same distance. The reason
he gives is that motion round a circumference is impeded by the bend.
This is presumably a response to the phenomenon that he and
Aristotle will have sensed, that change of direction requires more
effort than motion in a straight line. Motion in a straight line was
later to be treated by Newton as the motion that, once started, would
continue without requiring new forces, merely the absence of con-
trary forces – it is inertial motion. By contrast every change of
direction would require a new force. Neither Aristotle nor Philoponus
 Preface xi

drew Newton’s conclusion, and indeed Philoponus’ impetus was not

inertial, but would wear out in the absence of renewal, while the best
example of inertial motion in Aristotle would be not straight, but
circular movement supposedly executed by the stars. But both think-
ers had sensed the impediment to motion round a bend, and Broadie
suggests that Philoponus takes the actual speed on a bend to be
the speed that a body would have attained if it had been running
on a straight track. In correspondence with Broadie, Sylvia Berry-
man has pointed out that the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanica
considers motion round a circumference to be a product of two
motions, one of which, a pull towards the centre, impedes the
motion round the circumference.

Notes
1. See David Sedley, ‘Philoponus’ conception of space’, ch. 7 in Richard
Sorabji, ed., Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, 2nd edn,
Supplement 103 to the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, London,
2010.
2. 678,24-684,10.
3. 690,34-691,5.
4. 581,8-31; 632,4-634,2
5. 683,5-25.
6. Pantelis Golitsis, Les commentaries de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon
à la Physique d’Aristote, Berlin 2008, 31 and 36, is speaking against Koen-
raad Verrycken’s postulation of a change of mind. But Verrycken’s defence
of his view, which I have not seen, is expected in Lloyd Gerson, ed., The
Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Cambridge University
Press, announced for December 2010.
7. 641,13-642,20.
8. Galen ap. Simplicium in Phys. 708,22-709,13, translated in Richard
Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD, A Sourcebook,
vol. 2, ch. 11 f1.
9. Galen and Themistius ap. Simplicium in Phys. 718,13-719,18, trans-
lated in Sourcebook, vol. 2, ch. 11 a1.
10. H. Vitelli, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. 17, index, p. 992,
s.v. Themistios.
11. Translated by Robert W. Sharples with Fritz Zimmermann, Phronesis
27, 1982, 58-81.
12. In Alexander’s treatise on time and Simplicius’ report, in Phys.
759,20-760,3, translated in Sourcebook, vol. 2, ch. 11 d2-3.
13. Themistius in Phys. 163,1-7, in DA 120, 17-21, translated in Source-
book, vol. 2, ch. 11 d6-7.
14. Themistius in Phys. 161,29-163,11.
15. Translated in Sourcebook, vol. 2, ch. 11 e7, 8, 9.
16. I have summarized Verrycken’s view and the objections to it to date
in Richard Sorabji, ed., Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science,
xii Preface
2nd edn, Supplement 103 to the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies,
London, 2010, 14-17. His defence of his view is expected soon, see above n.
6.
17. The other references are at Philoponus in Phys. 3.5, 458,30-1 and 4.8,
639,7-9.
18. She cites the translation from 816,14 of the Arabic by Paul Lettinck,
Philoponus: On Aristotle Physics 5-8, Duckworth, London, 1994, 135.
 Translator’s Note

The translation is from the edition of H. Vitelli, Berlin 1888. In

reproducing Philoponus’ lemmata, I have occasionally filled out a
lemma with words from Aristotle; these supplements appear in
square brackets. Bold type in the translation indicates that Aristotle
is being directly quoted. References to Aristotle in the notes are to
the edition of Bekker, 1831. The present translation has had the
benefit of comments from four anonymous referees for the CAG
translation project.
This page intentionally left blank
 Philoponus
On Aristotle
Physics 4.10-14

Translation
This page intentionally left blank
 Philoponus on Aristotle,
Physics 4.10-14

217b27 Next for discussion after the subjects mentioned is 702,10

time.
It is the natural philosopher’s task to examine time too, no less than
any of the preceding subjects. For this too is one of the concomitants
of all physical entities.1 <Aristotle> again approaches this <topic>,
too, by the same route,2 first asking whether it exists or does not exist 15
and arguing against each of the two sides, and then <asking> next
the subsequent questions: I mean, ‘What is it?’ and ‘What sort of
thing is it?’. First he argues that time does not exist. Although it is
obvious that time exists, nonetheless the grounds he gives on which
he bases the attempt to show that time does not exist cannot be
lightly dismissed.
Of time, he says, one part has gone past and does not exist, and
the other is future and does not yet exist [217b33-4] (for these are 20
the two parts of time, the past and the future); but each of these two
does not exist; hence time consists of things that do not exist; but if
X consists of what does not exist, X itself, too, does not exist (for if X
exists, the parts of it themselves exist too); hence time does not exist.
Again, he says, everything that is extended and divisible into parts
is implemented either by way of the totality of its parts together or 25
by way of <just> some of its parts: e.g., animals and plants by way of
the totality, and the games by way of <just some> parts. For it is 703,1
because the wrestling or the boxing is present that the games are
said to be present. But time, although it is extended, subsists neither
by way of the totality of its parts (for it is not the case that all time
is together) nor yet by way of <just> a part: for neither the past nor
the future exists, since the one no <longer> exists and the other does 5
 4 Translation

not yet exist. So if time neither is by way of a totality, nor by way of

parts, it indeed seems not to be at all.
The now, he says, which alone seems to exist, is neither time nor
a part of time. For the part measures the whole (it is a third or a tenth
or a thousandth or some other <fraction> by which the whole is
measured out), but the now does not measure time. For the now is
10 unextended. Nor does time consist of nows, since everything divisible
consists of divisibles. So the now is not part of time. A fortiori, then,
it is not time either. Nor, then, is it by way of the now that time
subsists.
Having made these <points> he shows that the now too3 is in no
way a thing that exists. Perhaps ‘now’ is only a word with no
15 <corresponding> reality. He establishes this by taking two axioms.
The first is that it is impossible for there to occur two times together
unless one contains and the other is contained [218a11-14]. (For we
say that a year and a month and a day are present now – <the> year
is the 233rd of Diocletian, <the> month is Pachon, <the> day is the
10th4 – so these three times occur together; the year, however,
contains the month and this <contains> the day. But that there
20 should occur two equal times together, e.g. two days or two months
or two years, is impossible.) The second <axiom> is that everything
that existed before and now does not must have perished [218a14].
By using these axioms in his proof, he proves that the now does not
exist. The reasoning will proceed from division: if (a) the now exists,
he says, then either (a1) the prior <now> is one and the same as the
25 posterior <now> and is as it were one now flowing (as it were) from
eternity,5 being present, always the same, to everything: or (a2) it is
other and other. And if it is other, then either (b1) the prior one stays
on when the posterior one comes into being: or (b2) it does not stay
on but perishes. And if it perishes, then (c1) it certainly perishes in
something:6 therefore <it perishes> either (d1) in itself or (d2) in
another. And if (d2) in another, it has perished either (e1) in the now
that is next to it or (e2) in the one that is further away. So: since the
30 division produces a total of five segmentations, if it is shown that
none of them can stand, it would be evident that the now in no way
exists.
This is how he shows that the prior now is not other than the
 Translation 5

posterior <one> (for it is this division7 that he formulates first): if the

prior one were other than the posterior, then either the prior one
stays on for the posterior one to arrive <at it>, or it does not stay on
for it. If, then, it stays on, the result will be that two times equal to 704,1
each other occur together; but this is impossible. For we said that it
is impossible that two times should occur together unless one con-
tains and the other is contained. So the prior now does not stay on as
the posterior now comes to be. But if it does not stay on, and <if>
everything that previously was and now is not must have perished, 5
it follows that the prior now has perished. But if it has perished, then
it has perished either in itself or in another. Now, it cannot have
perished in itself, since <in that case> the same thing will at once be
and not be: which is impossible. So <it has perished> in another. So:
either in the next one or in the further off one. That <it has
perished> in the next one is impossible, for in no way is a point
next to a point. Let this, he says [218a18], be conceded by us at this 10
stage (for he shows it in the last books of this work8), namely that
point cannot be next to point, nor now to now, nor line to line, nor
surface to surface.
Yet it would certainly do no harm if we show now that this is
impossible. If two nows or two points were next to each other, either
they would coincide with each other or they would be as dots apart 15
from each other, or they would be in contact in one respect and as
dots apart in a different respect. But if they coincide, they will not be
two but one; and if they are as dots apart they will not be next to each
other. For, according to his own definition in the fifth book,9 things
are next <to each other> just when nothing of the same kind is
between them. But for every two separate nows, the interval between
them is time, and in any time the nows are infinitely many. So 20
between the two separate nows there will be infinitely many nows of
the same kind as they. So the separate nows are not next to each
other. It follows that it is also impossible that if they are next <to
each other> they are separate. But if in one respect they are in
contact, and in another are distinct dots, they will not be partless. So
it is impossible for two nows to be next to each other.
So if the now perishes, it does not perish in the next now – not if a 25
next one does not even exist. But if it perishes in one that is further
 6 Translation

off and remote, necessarily the interval between these two nows is
time, and in any <given> time there are infinitely many nows. First,
then, its perishing in this now, and not perishing in <any one of> the
infinitely many nows in between, would be an arbitrary thing. Sec-
ondly, if it perishes in the remote now, it will turn out to be in the
30 intervening nows which are infinitely many – but it is taken for
granted that the previous one does not stay on when the subsequent
one comes to be. And at the same time the previous absurdity will
705,1 follow too: that of two equal times occurring together.10 So it is
impossible that the now is other and other. For all the assumptions
<under which this could hold> have been refuted.
But surely the now is not always one and the same? That is
impossible, for, he says [218a22-4], nothing extended that is bounded
is bounded by one boundary; instead, the smallest <number of
5 boundaries> is two; e.g. the line is bounded by two points, while the
now is the boundary of time, and it is the case both that time is
extended and that one can take a bounded time, e.g. a day or a month.
So if a given time, being extended, is bounded, and no bounded thing
has just one boundary, and the now is a boundary: then it is not
possible that the now is single. And, besides, if the things we say have
happened at the same time are things which happen at the same
10 now, and the now is single from <all> eternity, it will follow that the
Trojan wars have happened at the same time as events of our own
day. Hence nothing will be older or younger than anything else:
which is absurd. Hence it is not possible that the now is one and the
same.
Consequently, nor can <the now> in any way exist. For if it existed,
either it would be one and the same, or it would be other and other;
15 but it can be neither other and other nor one and the same. So in
every way it seems just not to exist.
If, then, time exists neither by way of the past, nor yet by way of
the future, nor yet by way of the now, it seems just not to exist at all.

217b30 The best plan will be to begin by listing the difficulties

connected with it, even making use of the exoteric arguments

20 He says exoteric arguments in order to contrast the demonstrative

 Translation 7

arguments presented to academic audiences with ones based on

received opinions and plausible considerations. It has also been
stated in Categories11 that those arguments are exoteric that are not
demonstrative, and are addressed not to the real <philosophers> in
the audience but to ordinary people, and are based on <merely>
plausible considerations.

218a2 One would naturally suppose that what is made up of 25

non-beings <could> have no share in reality.

He says reality, i.e. existence and being. For how would what is be
made up of non-beings?

218a3 Further, for every divisible thing, if it exists, it is neces- 706,1

sary that when it exists all or some of its parts exist.

<This is> another argument to show that time does not exist. Every-
thing divisible into parts, he says, when it is, either has all its parts
there together, as with animals and plants, or has some of them, as 5
with the games; but in the case of time, which is divisible into parts,
the parts are not there, neither all of them nor some of them (for the
past is not and the future is not yet); hence time does not exist.

218a6 The now is not a part: the part measures <the whole>,
and the whole must be made up of the parts.

Since he said that time does not subsist by way of its parts – but, of 10
the things that belong to time, only the now subsists – lest anyone
should say ‘But time does subsist by way of the now’, <Aristotle> first
shows that the now is not part of time, (for, he says, the part
measures the whole, and the parts make up the whole, whereas the
now neither measures time nor is time composed of nows); <and> 15
next he will show that the now in no way exists, by using the division
which has already been mentioned [703,23ff.].

218a11 and none of the parts in time which are other and other
are together (unless the one contains and the other is contained)
 8 Translation

20 <This is> one of the axioms, <i.e.> that it is impossible that two times
or parts of time should occur together unless one contains and the
other is contained.

218a14 that which is not but previously was must have per-
ished at some time12

That is: there must be a moment of time when it passed into non-
being, whether through perishing or not; for in my view this makes
no difference: here he has used the expression ‘perished’ in place of
‘not been’.13

707,1 218a15 the nows too cannot be together with each other, and
the prior one must at each stage have ceased to be

Having stated the axioms [218a11-14], he proceeds to introduce the

proof; the sequence of thought in the text is as follows: if the now is
5 always other and other; and it has been agreed that two parts of time
cannot occur together unless one contains and the other is contained;
and it has also been agreed that what previously was and now is not
must have ceased to be at some point: it is obvious, I suppose, that
these nows, too, cannot occur together with each other (because of
the first axiom), and that <in their case too> the prior one must at
10 each stage have perished (because of the second axiom). So since
it perished, when did it perish, and in which now? Either in itself or
in another, and if in another, either in another that is next to it or in
another that is remote. But each alternative is impossible.

218a17 the prior now cannot have perished in another now.

15 By in another now he means: in the one that is next and immedi-

ately in sequence. For it was because he was talking about that that
he followed with: For let it be granted that nows cannot be in
immediate sequence to one another [218a18-19]. It is also possi-
ble that <the phrase> perished in another now has been said with
a more widely shared reference, meaning ‘neither in the next now nor
in the remote one’, and that <he> then goes on through the cases one
 Translation 9

by one, first <taking the case of> next by saying For let it be
granted that nows cannot be in immediate sequence to one 20
another [218a18-19]. The reason he did not say that it is impossible
that they are in immediate sequence to each other, but rather <said>
let it be granted is that he has not shown this yet; rather, he claims
it as an assumption for the time being, but will demonstrate it
<later>.14

218a19 If then it was not in the next one that it perished, but
in another

<He says this because> the now’s perishing is not only not possible
in the next one (because there is no next one), but also not <possible> 25
in any other one that is not next. For, he says, between two nows
there must be time, and in every <stretch of> time there are infinitely
many points. So if the now perishes in none of these, it is together
with all of them. But this is impossible, for it has been stated that
two parts of time cannot occur together unless one contains and the
other is contained, and no now is capable of containing another now. 30

218a21 Yes, but neither is it possible for the now to remain 708,1
always the same.

Having refuted one segment of the division15 by the foregoing argu-

ments, <with the result> that now cannot be different and different,
he thereupon means to refute the other one too, <with the result>
that the now cannot be one and the same either. For nothing divisible 5
that is bounded has <only> one boundary: so if the now is a boundary
of time, and time is divisible (<which it is>, since it is continuous),
the now would not be single.

218a23 [no determinate divisible thing has a single boundary,]

whether it is continuous in one or in more than one dimension

He says continuous because just above he said divisible, since the

continuous is the divisible. So both: the divisible is in every case also 10
continuous; and: the continuous is in every case also divisible. The
 10 Translation

line is a thing continuous in one dimension, along its length, and in

just this respect it is also something divisible, while the surface and
the solid are continuous in more than one dimension, the surface
along two, and the solid along three; and in whatever way each has
continuity, in those ways it has divisibility too.

218a25 Further, if being together in respect of time

15 The second proof is that if the now is single, the Trojan wars would
be contemporaneous with events now; for both would be in the same
now – which describes the contemporaneous. So <the distinction
between> older and younger would be obliterated.

218a30 This may serve as a statement of the difficulties about

the data concerning time. As to what time is or what is its
20 nature, the traditional accounts give us as little light as <do>
the preliminary problems which we have worked through.

Having said at the beginning that we must ask concerning time

whether it exists or not and then <ask> what it is, he first argued
that time does not exist, and having proved its non-existence very
25 ingeniously from received opinions, he does not now argue in the
opposite direction – I mean to the effect that time exists, since the
self-evidence of this is more trustworthy than any demonstration (for
709,1 he will presently resolve the difficulties about it). He will now go to
ask what it is, and according to his usual <method> he first clears out
of the way the false views of the ancients concerning time. In all, he
tables three views on time.
Some, he says, thought that time is the revolution of the universe
5 [to pan]; others that it is the sphere itself [218b1], i.e. the corporeal
mass of the heaven;16 while yet others have said without qualification
that movement is time.
First he shows as follows that time is not the revolution: if the
revolution were time, then, since the part of time is time, it will follow
that the part of the revolution is a revolution. But this is impossible.
10 For a revolution is a return from the same to the same. So it is not
the case that the revolution is time. For if they said that the revolu-
 Translation 11

tion is a certain definite time, e.g. a day or month, it would have been
possible for part of the revolution to be part of time; but since they
say without qualification that time, insofar as it is time, is a revolu-
tion, it will follow that part of the revolution is not time (for part of
the revolution is not a revolution): with the result that the revolution, 15
too, will not be time.
Furthermore, he says, if we suppose that there is a plurality of
heavens, there would be a plurality of revolutions; but there would
not be a plurality of times: rather, there would still be one and the
same <time>. For there would not be many days together, or many
years, given that as things actually are the revolutions are many –
since the spheres are many – whereas time is single. So, in the same
way, even if there were other celestial and cosmic systems, there
would have been a plurality of revolutions but a single time. For if all 20
the celestial systems moved17 with equal velocity, one and the same
time would have been their measure in similar fashion <for all>: for
day and month and year would have been the same and equal for all
of them; while if they were of unequal velocities the movements of
the other celestial systems would have been measured by the swifter
movement, just as, in the actual state of things, the movements of the
other spheres are measured by the movement of the sphere of the 25
fixed stars. For the greater is always measured by the lesser. E.g.,
the ten-cubit piece of wood is measured by the cubit, and the cubit by
the inch. In the same way, then, the faster movement is measure of
the others. So the same time that measures out this <movement>
would be measure of all the other <movements> too.
That is how he shows that the revolution is not time. As for 30
showing that the sphere itself is not time either: he does not rate <the
opposite view> as even worth refuting. For this <view> is simple-
minded, and the syllogism by which they thought they established
that the sphere is time is plainly invalid. For it depends on a
combination of affirmative premisses in the second figure. All things
are in time, they say; and all things are in the sphere; ergo the sphere
is time.18 First, as I said, the combination is invalid; secondly, <be- 710,1
ing> in something is not always a matter of <being> in time.19 In one
sense these things are in the sphere, and in another sense they are
in time. For all things are in the sphere as in a place, but all things
 12 Translation

5 are not in time as in a place, but in a different manner. So strictly it

would be concluded that the sphere is not time – precisely the
opposite of what they wanted. All things are in the sphere as in a
place, but all things are not in time as in a place: so the sphere is not
time. In their argument the middle term does not function in the
same way in connection with both extremes. Now, it is also possible
10 to combine <the terms> syllogistically in the third figure:20 all things
are in the sphere; all things are in time; ergo the sphere is time. But
again the middle term does not combine in the same way with <both>
extremes, as I said. Because the view itself and the effort to support
it are transparently weak, Aristotle says nothing in response to its
proponents. But one can make these points against them: time
15 possesses past and future, but the sphere does not possess past and
future; part of time is a time, but part of the sphere is not a sphere,
so the sphere is not time; time is divided by the now, but the sphere
is not divided by the now; time subsists part by part, whereas the
sphere does not subsist part by part – so accordingly the sphere would
20 not be time either.
That it is not simply movement21 either, he shows as follows:
movement, he says, is only in the subject of movement, and in the
place in which the subject of movement is moved, whereas time is not
in the subject of movement nor yet in the place in which the move-
ment comes about, but accompanies everything everywhere in the
25 same way, being one and the same. Hence movement is not time. For
my movement is not in all things; nor is movement unqualified22
observed in all things, for some things are at rest. Second argument:
faster and slower belong to movement and change in general (for we
say that one movement is faster or slower than another; e.g. we say
30 that the movement of the sphere of the fixed stars is fast, while that
of Saturn is slow); but faster and slower do not belong to time; hence
time is not movement. And <the proposition> that faster and slower
belong to movement he does not even think it requisite to establish.
711,1 (For this is clear, as I said. Who does not know that the movement of
the sphere of the fixed stars is faster than the others, and <that>
after it comes the movement of the moon, and in this way <that> one
movement differs from another in respect of faster and slower? – and
at the very least <that> the eagle’s movement is faster than the
 Translation 13

jackdaw’s movement?23) On the other hand, he does establish that 5

faster and slower do not belong to time by a third syllogism as follows:
faster and slower, he says, are defined by time24 (for we say that a
large movement taking place in a small time is faster, and a small
movement taking place in a large time is slow; hence faster and
slower are defined by time); time is not defined by time (for it would 10
be ridiculous to say that time is defined by time); ergo faster and
slower do not belong to time. For one cannot say that a year is faster
or slower than a year, or a day than a day (if you understand ‘day’ as
the <whole> day-and-night period).
So once he has shown by these arguments that time is neither
revolution nor sphere nor movement, he next states that although
time is not movement, even so, it is not without movement. For 15
together with the noting of time, movement is thereby noted too. If
we take note of a duration of such and such length, we are thereby
taking note of a correspondingly long movement of the universe; and
conversely, if we note that the universe has moved by so much, we
thereby concurrently note a corresponding amount of time. This is
very clearly shown by something that happens to us every day. Often
when we have read a lot, and because of absorption lose awareness 20
of the amount, we thereby lose <track of> the time too. For often
when we have spent most of the day <reading>, we do not yet believe
that <even> a short part of it has gone by; but later, when we register
the quantity of our reading, we thereby register the length of the
time; and conversely, if we first register the length of time, we 25
thereby register the length of the movement; for we say that we have
read a lot since most of the day has been used up. Conversely, we say
that it seems that a lot of time has gone by because a large quantity
of reading has taken place. So if movement and time get noted, and
fail to be noted, together with each other, it looks, he says [219a8-10],
as if time either is the same thing as movement or is something about 30
movement. So, since it has been shown that it is not movement, it
must be that time is something about movement. So we must ask:
what about movement is it?
With these things stated, he proceeds to the next stage of the
question ‘What is time?’
 14 Translation

712,1 218a30 This may serve as a list of difficulties about the data
concerning time.25

That is, the previous difficulties were developed from data about
time: from its having past and future, from its being present by way
of the now, etc.

5 218a31 As to what time is or what is its nature, the traditional

accounts give us as little light as <do> the preliminary problems
which we have worked through.26

What he is saying is that the views of the ancients put forward in the
past will contribute nothing at all to our getting to know the essence
10 of time; on the contrary, they in fact create in us great unclarity about
it, every bit as much as the difficulties about it which we have just
put forward. For just as the latter fill us with unclarity about its
nature, so too do the sayings of the ancients. One of them declared its
nature to be this, another one that; but time – on the basis of common
notions – appears to be none of these things. So unclarity about the
15 nature of time is generated in us equally from the sayings handed
down from the ancients and from the difficulties we have just now
detailed. He is referring to the <point> that no part of time subsists
– that it subsists only by way of the now – from which it was deduced
that time in no way exists. So if the data concerning time bring us to
the thought of its not even existing at all, they throw us into what is
20 surely much deeper unclarity on the question ‘What would be the
nature of time?’.

218b1 Yet part, too, of the revolution is a time, but it certainly

is not a revolution.

For if the part of time is time, and the revolution is time, the part of
the revolution would be time too. But the part of the revolution is not
25 a revolution. So time is not the revolution.

218b3 Besides, if there were a plurality of heavens, the move-

ment of any of them would equally be time
 Translation 15

<This is> the second argument.27 If (he says) there were a plural-
ity of heavens there would also be a plurality of revolutions. So
there would also be a plurality of times. But that is impossible, for 713,1
even given that condition time would have been single and the
common accompaniment of all things, just as it is of the plurality of
revolutions of the spheres.28 So time is not the revolution.

218b5 Those who said that time is the sphere of the whole
thought so on the ground that all things are in time and all
things are in the sphere of the whole. 5

Since some held the sphere itself and the corporeal mass of the
heaven to be time, he has also provided the explanation of their
fallacy. <They committed it> (he says) because all things are equally
said to be both in the sphere (since it contains all things) and in time;
for on this basis they inferred invalidly (from two affirmatives in the
second figure29) that time is the sphere. But it would be simple 10
minded, he says [218b7-9], to consider the impossible consequences
of this position. We, however, have stated its consequences just now.

218b9 But as time is most usually supposed to be movement

and a kind of change, we must consider this view.

Having said that time is neither the revolution nor the sphere, he 15
now says that since to most people movement seems most of all to be
time, this precise question should be raised: whether <time> is
movement or not.

218b10 Now the change and movement of each thing occurs

only in the changing thing itself

The first argument to show that movement is not time is that 20

movement occurs only in the subject of movement and in whatever
the place might be in which the movement occurs, whereas time is
not only in the subject of movement but accompanies all things
equally. Hence movement is not time.
 16 Translation

218b12 or wherever the moving thing itself happens to be

25 I.e: ‘and in whatever place it is moved in’; for <he is using> ‘or’ instead
of the conjunction ‘and’.

714,1 218b13 Again, change is faster and slower

<This is> the other argument: the faster and the slower belong to
movement; the faster and the slower do not belong to time; therefore
movement is not time.

5 218b15 for the fast and slow are determined by reference to

time

<He is arguing> that the faster and the slower are not in time.30 It is
because the faster and the slower are determined by reference to time
(since ‘faster’ is what we say of the large movement that takes place
in a small time, and ‘slow’ of a small movement that takes place in a
large time); but time does not get determined by reference to time.
10 Therefore the faster and the slower are not in time.

218b17 but time is not determined by time; neither by being a

sort of quantity of it nor by being a kind of it

For movement is determined by time both in respect of quantity and

in respect of quality: in respect of quantity, because we say ‘long
movement’ of the movement that takes place in a large time, and
‘short’ of the one <that takes place> in a small time; and in respect of
15 quality, because we say ‘faster’ of the large movement that takes
place in a small time, and ‘slow’ of the small one that takes place in
a large time. Time, however, is not determined by time either in
respect of quantity (for we do not say that the year is determined by
a year), nor yet is time determined by time in respect of quality. For
20 in no way is time faster or slower. For a day is not faster or slower
than a day.
 Translation 17

218b19 We need not distinguish at present between movement

and change.

Since we formulated the argument <so as to apply to> change, and

not all change is movement, and it was not change that they claimed
time to be, but movement – because of this he says that we should 715,1
not let it make a difference whether movement and change are the
same thing or not, but shall use the terms as if movement and change
are the same thing. For in the next books31 he is going to show that
change is wider than movement. For coming to be and perishing are
change but not movement. 5

218b21 But neither does time exist without change

For although time is not movement and change, even so <time is> not
without movement and change.

218b21 for when the state of our minds does not change at all,
or we have not noticed its changing, we do not think that time 10
has elapsed

I.e., whenever we are moving but do not take note mentally that we
are moving, we do not think that time has elapsed; but when we
notice the movement we immediately become aware of time.

218b23 any more than to those who are fabled to sleep among 15
the heroes in Sardinia, when they are awakened

He takes a story as example. It used to be said that certain sick

people would withdraw to the heroes in Sardinia and would be
treated, and on withdrawing32 <there> would sleep for five days on
end, and then on being woken up would believe it to be the hour when
they got to the heroes. So just as (he says) those people in the story 20
in failing to register the revolutions of the universe by which it
revolved33 also failed to perceive the time passing, and conversely in
failing to perceive the time also failed to perceive the movement but
instead thought that when they fell asleep and when they got up were
 18 Translation

one and the same now – just so, if the nows were not different but one
25 and the same, there would not be time. For just as in the case of what
seems to be one now there seems to be neither time nor movement,
716,1 so in the case of what is really one <now> there is neither time nor
movement. But if that is so, either movement and time are simply
identical with each other, or time is something about movement. If,
then, it has been shown that it is not movement, time must be
something about movement.

5 219a2 We must take this <question> as our starting-point since

we are trying to discover what time is: what about movement
<is it>?

Since, he says, our purpose is to discover what time is, and reasoning
has just now made it clear that time must be something about
movement, let us, in pursuing that self-same inquiry, start from here
10 and take up the question: time is what about movement? Is it a sort
of attribute, or an incidental property, or something else?

219a3 we perceive movement and time together

He takes up the same argument again, that movement and time are
noticed along with each other.

219a4 for even when it is dark and we are not being affected
15 through the body, if any movement takes place in the soul we at
once suppose that some time has indeed elapsed

Not only by registering bodily movement do we immediately come to

notice time, but even when we are not aware of any bodily movement,
20 and all our senses are still and the soul moves only its imaginative
part, time is (here too) immediately apprehended along with such a
movement. And this <gives> an a fortiori argument: so true is it that
time is apprehended together with movement that even if we do not
externally perceive a single bodily movement – <i.e.> one that is
certainly accompanied by time – but do perceive a psychological
change, we immediately thereby become aware of time along with it.
 Translation 19

Thus time is in some way naturally akin to movement. Just as time 25

is apprehended along with movement, so too conversely awareness
of movement comes to us along with the awareness of time. For, as I
said, if we become conscious of time’s having passed, we immediately
register that we have read a great deal, or have slept a great deal, or 717,1
have been subject to <a great deal of> some other movement.

219a10 That which moves, moves from something to some-

thing, and all magnitude is continuous. Therefore the
movement corresponds to the magnitude.

Having refuted the predecessors’ claims about time, he now means 5

to lay out his own view. He first takes it as an assumption that
movement is continuous, and he establishes this in this way: every
moved thing is moved from something to something (for this is true
of every movement, but whilst it is true of every movement he himself
formulates the argument as if for movement in respect of place) – so: 10
if movement is from something to something, then movement is over
magnitude (for if it is from something to something, what is between
must be magnitude; so that movement in respect of place is over
magnitude); but every magnitude is continuous, so movement is over
<something> continuous; but what moves over the continuous is
moved with a continuous movement; so movement in respect of place
is continuous. Therefore the continuous exists primarily in magni- 15
tude, and because of magnitude in movement too. Again, since the
prior and the posterior are in the continuous (for in the magnitude
this is prior and that is second), because of this the prior and the
second must occur in movement too. For as matters stand with
magnitude so they stand with movement. So since the prior and 20
posterior occurs in magnitude, this must occur in movement too. So
the prior and the posterior are in movement. Now, since we come to
awareness of time precisely by coming to awareness of movement,
and in movement one <movement> is prior and one is posterior, it is
clear that both in the prior movement and in the second one we come
to awareness of time. For if time is introduced along with awareness 25
of the movement, it is clear that both in the prior movement and in
the second one time will be apprehended along with it. So the prior
 20 Translation

and the posterior belong to time too. For as matters stand with
movement, so they must stand with time; for movement and time
correspond to one another. But movement is not the same as the prior
30 and the posterior; for in substrate the prior and posterior in move-
ment is nothing other than movement, but in <respect of> aspect it
is one thing for movement to be movement and another for it to be
prior and posterior <movement>. At any rate, the prior and the
718,1 posterior exist not only in movement but also in certain other things,
for instance number. For the one is prior to the two, and the preamble
is prior to the narrative, and the letters prior to the syllables. So
saying ‘movement in respect of place’ is not the same as <saying> ‘the
prior and the posterior’.
5 We come to awareness of time not simply whenever we become
aware of movement – for it is not the case that if I simply note
alteration or locomotion I immediately become aware of time too
along with it; rather: whenever I become aware of the prior and the
posterior in movement, then, along with this sort of awareness, the
awareness of time is immediately introduced. For, he says [cf.
219a25-9], whenever we become aware of the prior and the posterior,
10 then we say that what is between is time. For when we get to be
aware of the beginning of the movement and of its end, we say that
what is between is time. Consequently, he says, if it is just when we
number34 the movement and say that one <stage> of it is prior and
another one second, that we also say that time is, time seems to be
the number of movement in accordance with the prior and the
posterior. Time is not the number of every movement (for it is not the
15 number of alteration or growth);35 instead, it is the number of <move-
ment> with respect to place, and not of all <such> but of regular
<movement with respect to place>. For time measures all move-
ment,36 but primarily <it measures> the regular <kind>, and through
that it measures the others too. For day and hour and month and year
are measured by the period of the sphere of the fixed stars, and
thereby time measures all movement. Hence it is of that sort of
20 movement that time is number. So, he says [cf. 219b1-2], it is not
movement but the number of movement that is time. That time is
this he also shows by a syllogism, as follows: every more and less is
discriminated by number; a certain sort of more and less is discrimi-
 Translation 21

nated by time (movement is this sort); ergo time is a certain sort of

number.
But since number is in two senses, on the one hand as number that
numbers and on the other hand as number that is numbered (since
pint and bushel are also in two senses, on the one hand that which
measures and on the other hand that which is measured37), which 25
sort of number do we say time is: that which measures or that which
is measured? Well, he says that it is not the one that measures but
the one that is measured.38 For if number in the first sense is in our
soul, and time is external to us, it follows that time is not the
<number> that numbers, but the <number> that is numbered.

219a13 for the time [that has passed is always thought to be] 30
as great as the movement

If time is apprehended along with movement, it is reasonable that as

matters stand with movement, so matters stand with time. So if the 719,1
movement is large the time too must be large, and if small, small.
Although he said earlier [218b15-17] that we call ‘faster’ the large
movement <that takes place> in a small time, so that movement is
large and time is small, he is not now saying the opposite. For it was
not with reference to the movement that produces time39 that he was 5
speaking in those passages, but to just any movement, whereas here
it is with reference to the movement that produces time that <he
says> that as the movement that occurs is greater or lesser, so,
necessarily, the time that occurs is greater or lesser too.

219a14 The distinction of prior and posterior holds primarily,

then, in place; and there in virtue of position.

The prior, he says, and the posterior is primarily in place, and by 10

means of place it is also in movement. He calls ‘place’ the magnitude
over which the movement occurs. For things in locomotion are moved
over magnitude. But in the case of place, he says, the prior and the
posterior is by way of the position of the parts. For magnitudes are
composed of parts having position. In saying there in virtue of 15
position, he has not stated the antithesis <to it>.40 Instead, he did
 22 Translation

say that in movement too there is the prior and the posterior corre-
sponding to the magnitude41 [219a17-18]; but he did not say in what
way the prior and the posterior <are> in movement – but by his
silence he left it to us to understand that it is not through position.
For movement does not consist of parts having position. For <in
movement> what is prior does not remain for what is after to arrive
20 – it is in passage, rather, that the prior and posterior occur. But by
correspondence with those belonging to magnitude – I mean the prior
and posterior – they occur in movement too, he says: because the
movement that takes place over the first part of the magnitude is
first, and that which takes place over the second part is second. That
he said ‘place’ as a substitute for ‘magnitude’, he made clear too from
what he went on to say. For he says since the prior and the
25 posterior are in magnitude [219a16], here using in magnitude
to express what he expressed above using in place, <hence> saying
in effect: ‘the prior and the posterior occur primarily in place, i.e. in
magnitude’.
But why do we say that movement gets the prior and the posterior
720,1 from magnitude and not the opposite, that magnitude has them from
movement? For magnitude too has the prior and the posterior
through movement, as is clear from the following: if two objects are
moved along the same straight line, one starting from one end, the
5 other from the other, they will not each occupy the same part of the
magnitude first; instead, for each of the moving objects the part of the
magnitude that is first is the one from which it started its movement.
One can also see this in things that are naturally in movement. For
if the stone is carried downwards and fire upwards through the same
10 air, the part of the air that is first for one is last for the other. So for
each the prior and posterior is determined on the basis of movement.
So how is it that Aristotle says that the prior and the posterior occur
primarily in magnitude? Well, I say that being in general, for move-
ment, is based on magnitude, since if the magnitude is taken away
the movement too must be taken away, whereas it is not the case that
if the movement is taken away the magnitude is taken away. Just as
the movement has being because of the magnitude, so, obviously,
15 what belongs to movement will have being too because of the magni-
tude. But the prior and posterior belong to <movement>. So these too
 Translation 23

have being because of magnitude. So that, presumably, is why he

says that the prior and the posterior occur first in magnitude.

219a18 But also in time the distinction of prior and posterior 20

must hold

Since, he says, time not only corresponds to movement, but move-

ment also to time, it makes sense – given that in movement there is
the prior and posterior – that in time too there should be the prior
and the posterior.

219a19 The prior and the posterior42 is whatever it is by being

which movement is 25

The prior and the posterior, he says, which is found in movement and
in time, in respect of substrate (for that is what he means by
whatever it is by being which43) is nothing other than movement,
but in respect of definition and meaning they are different. Just as
the way up and the way down are, in respect of substrate, a ladder, 30
but in respect of definition are different and are not a ladder: in the 721,1
same way the prior as such is not movement, since <if it were> it
would not have also occurred in other things that are not movement,
e.g. in numbers. Although we do not observe the prior and the
posterior in the absence of movement (for in arithmetical calculation
it is when we make a transition from this to this <number> that we
say that one is prior and one posterior; for unless we do make a 5
transition from this <one> to this <one>, we are unaware of prior
and posterior), still the prior and the posterior are different from
movement. For the prior and posterior, in so far as both are
movement do not differ at all, but they do differ in that the one is
prior and the other is posterior. So they are something other <than
movement> and are not movement, but are a sort of attribute of
movement. But if we consider the prior and the posterior not with 10
reference to the parts themselves of the movement, but with
reference to the limits and the stage-by-stage-arrivals,44 the point
will be clearer, <i.e.> that both are in their substrate the move-
ment although they are different from <the movement>, just as the
 24 Translation

points too <are different> from the line, and the surface from the
solid.

219a25 we determine them by taking them in as other and

15 other, and <something> between as different from them

In determining the prior and the posterior in movement, he says, we

come to awareness of time. For the prior and posterior being in the
same <substrate>, as has been said, whenever we determine this,
and say that there is one now at which the movement began and a
different one at which it has ceased: that which is between these,
20 being other than the extremes, is what we say is time, just as that
which is between the stage-by-stage-arrivals, the one that is prior
and the one that is posterior, is what we say is movement. For just
as what is determined by points is a line, and what is determined by
stages is movement: just so, what is determined by nows is time.

219a29 for what is determined by the now is thought to be time

25 – we may assume this

Since time does not consist of nows (for no two nows are next <to each
other>), but is determined by them, with what is between being – not
nows, but – time, he therefore says we may assume in the meantime
722,1 that what is between any two nows is time. For he will show in the
following discussions [Phys. VI, 231a21-232a22] that no magni-
tude consists of partless items: a line does not <consist> of points,
nor a movement of stage-by-stage-arrivals, nor a time of nows, nor
yet a plane of non-planes (I mean: surfaces <do not consist> of
5 lines), nor a depth of non-depths (I mean: a solid does not consist
of surfaces).

219a31 or as the same but in relation to something prior and

posterior

If, he says, we do not perceive two nows, or if we perceive a single one

but not as occurring in something that is posterior and prior, it does
not seem to us that time has gone by. Even if the now is single but
 Translation 25

we note it moving and coming to be once in something and once in 10

something else, we are thereby aware of time. Thus when he says in
relation to something prior and posterior, either this means
‘coming to be in something prior and in something posterior’ (for this
interval, in whose different parts in turn the now comes to be, is
time), or <he is speaking of> when we treat the same now as halted
and yet as having taken on two descriptions, that of ‘end’ and that of
‘beginning’, so that it is end in relation to something prior and 15
beginning <in relation to something> posterior. For these <some-
things>, of which the same now is both end and beginning, are times.
For in general whatever is determined by the now is time. So, he
says, whether we perceive two nows, or <perceive> one taking on
another and another description (for it should make no difference
whether the prior now and the posterior one are other and other
numerically, or whether it is numerically the same but occurs in its 20
flux in one thing at one point and in another at another) – in each of
these two45 cases awareness of time is generated in us; whereas if we
regard the now as in all respects one, both in substrate and in
description, we then fail to receive awareness of time just like the
sleepers in Sardinia. The reason, he says [219a32-3], why time seems
not to have elapsed is that movement, also, <seems not to have
occurred>. For <there seems to have been> no continuance, either,46 25
and all movement involves continuance.

219b1 For time is just this: number of movement in respect of

prior and posterior.

He defines time by saying what it is. It is number of movement not

<in the sense of> numbering it; instead, the numbered prior and
posterior of movement is time. 30

219b2 Hence time is not movement; rather, it is the way in 723,1

which movement has number.47

rather, it is the way in which movement has number means:

‘rather, it is the way in which movement is numbered’. For time is
what it is about movement that has been numbered, not in so far as 5
 26 Translation

it is movement, but in so far as it has been numbered according to

prior and posterior.48

219b3 An indication of this: we discriminate the more and less

by number, but more and less movement by time.

That time is number of movement – numbered <number>, of course,

not numbering <number> (as will be shown next) he proves in the
10 third figure49 as follows: every sort of more and less is discriminated
by number; a certain sort of more and less is discriminated by time –
for we discriminate more and less movement by time; therefore time
is a sort of number.

219b5 Since number is said in two ways – for we call number

both what is numbered, and what is numerable, and that with
which we number.

15 Since he said that time is number of movement, and since number

<is said> in several ways, he lists the number of ways and <explains>
in which sense time is number of movement. Having said that
number is said in two ways, he seems to speak of three senses: what
is numbered, and what is numerable, and that with which we
20 number. However, we say that he has put forward the first two
under the heading of a single sense, except that one, i.e. what is
numbered, refers to the actual, and the other, what is numerable, to
the potential. Or: in order to show more clearly what what is
numbered means, he introduced what is numerable <in the sense
of> the very object which is measured; e.g. the ten horses or ten dogs.
So, since number is said in two ways, we assert that time is number
in the sense of what is numbered.
25 It is worth raising this difficulty: given that we say that time is
continuous, how do we say, on the contrary, that it is number? For
number is discrete quantity, and it is impossible for the same things
to be both continuous and discrete. Well, we assert that if time were
number that numbers,50 it would <indeed> be impossible for it to be
724,1 continuous; however, since it is not numbering but numbered <num-
ber>, there is no reason why it should not be continuous in one
 Translation 27

respect and number in another. Insofar as it is measure of continuous

movement, it is continuous; but insofar as it has the prior and the
posterior, it is number. It is not impossible, nor for that matter
unfamiliar, to apply number to continuous entities too. E.g. we say 5
that the piece of wood is ten cubits and the road ten stades although
they are continuous; but because they have the potential to be
divided by us into parts we therefore also predicate some number of
them. So in those cases, continuous is predicated by nature, but
number by convention and on the basis of our conception.
Again, it is worth pressing the question how he can assert that 10
time is number not as measuring but as measured, although it is
nothing other than time that measures movement. (At any rate, he
asserts that time is measure of movement [220b14-15].) So, my
response to this is that even though time is said to measure move-
ment, still <time> itself is measured too, by the soul. Primarily, it is
measured, and through being measured it itself measures too; 15
whereas the number that only measures and in no way is measured
must be only discrete and in no way continuous. Thus even if time is
said to measure movement, this has no absurd consequence for the
argument.
And in any case, there is an <acceptable> sense in which it is said
that time measures. To illustrate: if one of two equal pieces of wood
lying side by side with each other gets measured, one would say that 20
the measured one itself also measures the one lying alongside; for
whatever the size of the one, that is the size of the other. In this way,
then, we say that time too measures movement, because they are
together with, and stretch alongside, each other. So, necessarily,
whatever the size of the one, that is the size of the other.51

19b9 And just as movement is always other <and other>, so too

is time

That time is number of movement alone and not of anything else, he 25

also shows as follows: just as movement is always different and
different (he says), so too time, being the latter’s number, is always
different and different; whereas with all other things, <since> they
are always the same, their number too is always the same.52 So if
 28 Translation

30 time is always other and other, and time is the number of a sort of
continuance, time would be number of movement alone.

219b10 All time that is together is the same; for the now is the
same whatever it was, although its being is different53

All time that is together, taken anywhere <in the world>, is one and
725,1 the same. For it measures the prior and the posterior of every
movement (not of alteration as such or of growth as such, however54);
but the prior and posterior of movements that occur together are the
same, so that the time too is the same. However, it is not correct to
go on and say this of movement too, for movements that are together
5 are not the same; rather, some differ not only in number but also in
form, and others, although the same in form, e.g. a plurality of
locomotions, are still not the same in number. Yet time everywhere
is one and the same in number. So from this consideration too it is
clear that time is not movement but number of movement.
That time everywhere is one and the same he proves on the basis
10 of the now. The now, he says, in respect of its own nature is every-
where one, but it differs in description. For it is taken in one way
when taken as prior, and in another way when <taken> as posterior;
yet as prior it is one and the same everywhere, and so also as
posterior. So if the now is what generates time, and <the now> is one
and the same everywhere, clearly time too that is together will be
15 everywhere one, both in nature and in number.

219b12 The now in one way is the same, in another it is not the
same.

Earlier [218a8-30] he was puzzling about the now – is the prior one
the same as the posterior one, or different? – and then he was
engaged in proving that each alternative is absurd. (For if it is the
20 same, everything must be at the same time; and if it is not the same,
since it is not in the nature of the prior <now> to stay until the
posterior one arrives, it must presumably have perished – either in
itself or in another now: but each is impossible.) Since the cause of
this paralogism was, above all, the incompleteness55 of the division,
 Translation 29

he therefore now sets forth what the division left out – <which is
that> the prior now is neither straightforwardly the same as nor
straightforwardly different from the posterior now, but in a way is
the same and in a way not the same. In the earlier passage he 25
declines <to consider> this <option> so as to conceal the paralogism,
but here he puts it <in front of us> so as to solve that difficulty. I.e.,
the prior now is the same in essence as the posterior, but not the
same in aspect. For its being prior is one thing and its being posterior
is another, just as (he says [219b20-21]) the sophists too claim that
there is one Coriscus in the Lyceum and another in the market-place, 30
and thus far they are right; since the same thing’s being here is not 726,1
the same as <its being> there. So too for the now: if (this is one
alternative) one lays down that it is one in number and the same, and
that by its flow time is generated, it will not follow that what
happened before is the same as what happened now. For even if they
happen in the same now, it is not in the same state (since what 5
happened in Coriscus when he was in the Lyceum and when in the
market-place is not the same or together; e.g. here he was warming
up, and there he was cooling down, or the like). So if numerically one
and the same now were to be substrate none of the absurdities
mentioned will follow, since it is not by being the same in aspect that
it is substrate. If (this is the other alternative) the prior now were
even of the same essence as the posterior now but not the same in 10
number – which is closer to the truth – a fortiori none of those
<absurdities> will follow.56 But as for how matters stand concerning
the now’s coming into being and perishing, he will explain in the
subsequent books [Phys. VIII, 217b16-20; cf. Metaph. XI, 1060b17-
19]57 that it and very many other items are and are not non-tempo-
rally,58 neither being brought to being through becoming, nor to
non-being through perishing.
The now in one way is the same, in another it is not the 15
same [219b12-13]. Having said ‘The now is the same whatever it
was, although its being is different’ – on the basis of which <posi-
tion>, as I said, he solves the stated difficulty, he now explains in
what way it is both the same and not the same now. Insofar, he says,
as it is taken in another and another, the prior and the posterior is
different and different. It is taken in another and another portion of 20
 30 Translation

the movement, and this, he says [219b16], turns out to be the basis
of its indeed being now.59 For the now is without parts, and being
without parts it cannot be in several <things> together; rather, when
it is in this it is not in that. So it was rightly said that because of
always being taken in another and another, not only in this way does
it have <its> being as now (for one cannot say that it is in this and in
25 this together60), but also in this way the prior is different from the
posterior <one> – for its being in this is one thing, and its being in
this is another. So in this way the prior now is different from the
posterior <one>. But whatever it is by being which it is, is the
same, he says, i.e. <it is the same> in substrate.61
Next, with aim of proving this he added: for movement, as was
30 said, corresponds to magnitude, and time, as we maintain, to
movement. And62 similarly <there corresponds> to the point
the body in locomotion, by which we cognize the movement
and the prior and the posterior involved in it [219b15-18]. For
727,1 he said earlier [219a11-19] that movement corresponds to magni-
tude, and time too movement. For it is because the prior and the
posterior, and the continuous as well, are in magnitude that the prior
and posterior, and continuity, turn out to be in movement too: and,
because of movement, in time too – with the difference that the prior
and the posterior in magnitude means <prior and posterior> in
5 position, since one can make a beginning from whichever part <one
pleases>, but in the cases of movement and time this is not so. For in
them it is not possible for what is prior to get to be posterior nor,
conversely, what is posterior, prior.
So, he says, just as these correspond to each other, so too <there is
correspondence> between what so to speak generates and produces
them. He has shown this by saying: And similarly <there corre-
sponds> to the point the body in locomotion, by which we
10 cognize the movement. For the point is productive of magnitude,
i.e. the point generates the line as it flows, and the line is the primary
magnitude, and the body in locomotion is productive of the move-
ment.63 For the body in locomotion is cause of the occurrence of the
movement from Athens to Thebes, whether it is a man or whatever;
and the cause of the occurrence of the movement from the Ram to the
15 Bull64 is perhaps the sun or some other star that is moved in this way.
 Translation 31

And by this the movement is also cognized.65 Uncognizable in itself,

it is cognized as belonging to that which is in motion. E.g. we cognize
the completion of the heaven’s movement from the same to the same
– its revolution – by nothing other than the heaven itself. For by 20
seeing the same part of it appear twice at the same part of the
horizon, we thereby cognize that a movement of a given quantity has
come about. The now, too, is productive cause of time, since its
flowing generates time. So if as the point stands to the magnitude
and the moving body to the movement, so the now stands to time; and
if the point being one and the same generates magnitude (for it is not
by the juxtaposition of a plurality of points that the line is generated, 25
but by the flowing of one point), and likewise the moving body, being
one, generates the movement: it surely follows that the now, too,
being one, generates time. For time is not generated by many nows
lying side by side (since it is not constituted from nows), but by the
flowing of one. For it is by the same now’s being taken as prior and
posterior that time has being. So: just as the moving object is the
same whatever it is by being which <it is>; (i.e. it is a stone or a man 30
or a star or something else), but through being taken in another and
another it is different (since, as I said, for Socrates to be at home is
one thing, and <for him to be> in the market-place another): so the
now too is identical in substrate and in essence, the prior with the 728,1
posterior, yet precisely through being prior and posterior it is differ-
ent in description. To clarify things by an illustration so as to explain
how we call <something> the same in substrate but different in
description, he mentioned what the sophists say. They seize on the
point that for Coriscus to be in the Lyceum is one thing and in the 5
market-place another, and carry this difference – which is <merely>
incidental and descriptive – over to the substrate. They say: if for
Coriscus it is one thing to be in the Lyceum and another in the
market-place, it follows that Coriscus himself is a different <Coriscus>
from himself. But if something is different in description and inciden-
tally, it need not be the case that it is therefore different in substrate 10
too. For one and the same ladder is other and other in description, since
its being a mode of ascent is one thing, of descent another. So in this way
the now too is both the same and different: different in description
when taken as prior and posterior, but identical in substrate.
 32 Translation

15 219b22 But the now corresponds to the body in locomotion, as

time corresponds to the movement

Having said that ‘movement corresponds to magnitude, and time to

movement, and similarly there corresponds to the point the body in
locomotion’, and having interjected the sophists’ argument in be-
tween, in the present passage he supplies the missing part <of the
20 analogy>, i.e. that the now corresponds to the body in locomotion. For
it is because the body in locomotion is taken in a certain prior and
posterior, and its transitional stages get numbered, that the now has
its subsistence. That the now corresponds to the body in locomotion
he explained when he said: For it is by means of the body in
locomotion that we cognize the prior and posterior involved
in movement [219b23-4]. For just as, for every time and every
movement, time accompanies movement and extends alongside it, so
25 too the now <tracks> the body in locomotion. For as the body in
locomotion is to the movement, so, analogously, the now is to the
time: from which it follows alternando that as the movement is to the
time, so the body in locomotion is to the now. So: if the body in
locomotion is one and the same whatever it is – whether a point or a
stone or whatever it is – but differs in description through coming to
30 be in another and another, the same kind of result will certainly hold
for the now as well.

219b25 it is insofar as the prior and posterior is numerable that

we get the now

Having said ‘For it is by the body in locomotion that we cognize the

729,1 prior and posterior involved in movement’ [219b23-4], he added: it is
insofar as the prior and posterior is numerable that we get
the now, implying by these words too that the now corresponds to
the body in locomotion. For if the prior and the posterior in movement
corresponds to the body in locomotion, and the prior and posterior in
5 movement is the now (since insofar as the prior and posterior in
movement is numerable, we get the now), the now will correspond to
the body in locomotion.
 Translation 33

219b26 Hence in these also that, whatever it is, by being which

it is now is the same (for it is the prior and posterior in
movement), but its being is different: for it is insofar as the prior
and posterior is numerable that we get the now.

In this way he now draws the intended conclusion – namely, that the 10
now is the same in substrate but other and other in description.
(Hence in these also is instead of ‘<Hence> in the case of the
nows’.) Just as the point too that is generative of the line is one
and the same in substrate, and likewise the body in locomotion that
is generative of the movement, so it is with the now that is generative
of time. That, whatever it is, by being which it is now – i.e. whatever 15
it is that is there at the level of substrate, and is now – is one and the
same. He then follows up with what <this>66 is. <It is>, he says, the
prior and posterior in movement. For the prior and posterior in
movement are the same in substrate, since so too is the body in
locomotion. But its being is different: i.e. <it is different> in
description. For the prior and posterior in movement, if not taken as 20
numbered nor yet as prior and posterior, is the substrate of the nows;
yet precisely this, whenever it is taken as prior and posterior and as
occurring in accordance with the movement’s different <stages>,67 is
– then – other and other in description. For it is one thing for the prior
itself to be, and another thing for the posterior.68

219b28 And this is what is <most> cognizable; for movement is 25

cognised because of that which moves, and locomotion because
of the body in locomotion. For the body in locomotion is a this,
but the movement is not.

He added this since his aim throughout has been to show the simi-
larity of the now to the body in locomotion, and also because it is
useful in itself for the study of time. It makes sense, he says, that the 730,1
now is what is most cognizable about time, since the now is the only
thing about time that is in existence. Movement too, being uncogniz-
able in itself, is cognized by means of the body in locomotion, and the
now corresponds to the body in locomotion; and as the body in
locomotion is to movement, so the now is to time. So it makes sense 5
 34 Translation

that we also cognize time through the now, since we <cognize>

movement through what is in motion. And that locomotion is cogni-
zable because of the body in locomotion he showed by saying: For the
body in locomotion is a this, but the movement is not. For the
body in motion is a substance and is there in existence, whereas
movement is not there in existence but has its being in coming to be,
10 since being, for movement, is in the passage of what moves. And
besides: if the thing in motion is a substance, and the movement is
an actuality, and in many cases substances are clearer to grasp than
actualities, it is to be expected that movement should be cognizable
through the object in motion.
Having said: for movement is cognized because of that
which moves, he added: and locomotion because of the body in
locomotion, either <so as to> make the same point in parallel
15 fashion, or rather because he is passing from what is more general
and less clear to what is more specific and clearer. For in the case of
alteration too, the alteration is knowable because of what is being
altered, and similarly with growth and diminution; but with locomo-
tion the motion is known by means of the moving body, this being the
most perspicuous case of all.

219b31 Thus the now in one way is69 the same, in another it is
20 not the same; so too for the body in locomotion.

This serves as conclusion of the preceding discussion. What he proved

above he now asserts by way of conclusion. As the body in locomotion
is the same in substrate but different in aspect and description, so too
it is with the now.

25 219b33 Clearly, too, if there were no time, there would be no

now, and vice versa

Having shown that time is number of the prior and posterior that is
in movement, i.e. the now (since the now is the prior and posterior
that is in movement), he has excellent reason to deduce that it is
30 impossible for there to be one without the other. For if as the body in
locomotion is to the locomotion, so too the now is to time, and <if>
 Translation 35

there cannot be a thing in locomotion without locomotion, nor loco-

motion without something in locomotion, evidently time and the now 731,1
too must be thus related: i.e. if one of them is posited the other is
introduced too, and if one is taken away the other is taken away along
with it. For this is how the point and the line are related too: they
introduce each other and take <each other> away.

220a1 Just as the body in locomotion and its motion are to- 5
gether, so too are the number of the body in locomotion and the
number of its motion. For the number of the locomotion is time,
while the now corresponds to the body in locomotion, being like
the unit of number.

He speaks of the now as number of the object in locomotion, and of

time as number of the locomotion. So just as the object in locomotion
and the locomotion are, or are not,70 together, so it is too with the 10
number of the object in locomotion and that of the locomotion, i.e.
with the now and time: they are, or are not, together. But after saying
for the number of the locomotion is time, he should have added:
‘and the now is the number of the object in locomotion’; but <instead>
he said the now corresponds to the body in locomotion, and
thereby in fact made his language more unclear. <To explain> in
what way the now is number of the object in locomotion, he added:
being like the unit of number. For just as in the case of number 15
the unit by being taken again and again produces the number of the
objects being numbered, it itself being indivisible, so too the now,
being indivisible and <functioning> as a unit by being taken again
and again, produces time. Therefore just as time which is being
generated from the now measures the movement, so too the now
measures the object in motion,71 and time is the number of the
movement, and the now <is the number> of the object in locomotion. 20
He has already said in what way time is number of the locomotion:
<time> has its being not as numbering it, but in <the locomotion’s>
being numbered. But <time> does number it: not insofar as it is
locomotion, but insofar as the prior and the posterior <are> in it. For
time is not number of the movement itself: rather, it is the interval
between the prior and posterior in it. And the now is number of the 25
 36 Translation

object in locomotion not insofar as <the object> is in locomotion, but

insofar as <the object in locomotion> is taken in a given prior and
posterior. For the nows are what the taking of the prior and posterior
accords with as it72 occurs. For the now in accordance with which73
the sun has come to be in the Ram, and again the now in accordance
with which it has come to be in the Bull, would be the number of the
30 sun itself as it comes to be in a given prior and posterior, comparable
to units found in number. For just as it is the unit by which we
number number or the numerable as such whatever it is (with the
unit <we number> the ten horses and the ten stones; for we number
732,1 each by counting up unit by unit), so too it is by the now that we
number the object in locomotion, numbering its prior and posterior
on the basis of which it continually comes to be at different places
at different moments. For example, the sun comes to be in the Ram
prior to the Bull, and in the Bull posterior to the Ram, and in the
Bull prior to the Twins, and in the Twins posterior to the former;
and so on.

5 220a4 Time, then, is both made continuous by the now and

divided in virtue of the now.

<He says> that the now is cause, for time, of both continuity and
division, just as the object undergoing movement is for movement,
and the point for the line. For here too the same analogy is again
10 observed, except that the point when taken potentially is cause of the
line’s continuity (that being continuous whose parts touch at a com-
mon boundary [Phys. V, 227a10-13; VI, 231a22]), and when taken
potentially it is one; whereas if it is taken actually it both becomes
cause of division of the line and is no longer one but two, with each of
the two bounding one of the parts obtained by division. For <the
point> is one by its own nature, and division comes about in accord-
15 ance with that. For that which divides, insofar as it divides, must be
one and without dimension. For this reason, that which is three-di-
mensional is divided by a surface, this being without the dimension
of depth in respect of which the division takes place; and the surface
is divided by a line, this being without the dimension of width (since
the division is of a width); and the line <is divided> by a point, this
 Translation 37

being in every respect without dimension. But when the point on the
line is taken in actuality and divides it, it generates two points which 20
are the division-ward boundaries of the two parts. Similarly, the
object undergoing movement, too, is cause of both continuity and
division for the movement. For it is because the object undergoing
movement moves continuously and without break that the move-
ment has the property of continuity; whereas if the object in locomo-
tion interrupts it in the middle by halting, then it becomes a cause of
division too for the movement. However, in the domain of coming to 25
be and perishing, it is possible for the object undergoing movement
to come to a halt in very actuality; for example, it is possible for the
man walking from Athens to Thebes to halt in the middle and then
finish the rest <of his journey>: in this way the object undergoing
movement cut the movement from Athens to Thebes by halting. But
in the domain of the heavenly bodies, the object in motion is cause
solely of continuity for the movement; <it is cause> of division never 30
in actuality but only in thought. Similarly, the now is cause of both
continuity and division for time – but of continuity alone in every
case, whereas <it is cause> of division solely in thought. For if it is 733,1
not possible for the first movement, that of which time is primarily
the measure, to come to a halt or be interrupted by rest, it is clear
that it is not possible for time, either, to be cut in actuality; instead,
we say that the now is cause of division in time only in thought. For
by this we divide days into hours, and months into days, and years 5
into months. The impossibility of time’s being divided in actuality is
also clear from the following: <on that supposition> movement too
must come to a halt; but there is a demonstration showing that any
two successive movements are always in every case separated by
halting and rest, and that it is not possible for movements made two
by <actual> division to be in continuous succession [cf. Phys. VIII,
262a12-263a3]. But if that is so, it follows that the two times that 10
measure the two movements will have something between them that
is not time.74 But whatever is between two nows is time. So there will
be a time when there was no time: which is absurd. So it is not
possible for time ever to be divided in actuality; but, as we said, only
in thought is it divided by the now.
 38 Translation

15 220a6 For here too there is a correspondence with the locomo-

tion and the object in locomotion.

Just as time and the now necessitate that time both is continuous
because of the now and is divided in virtue of the now, so this same
<conclusion> follows both for locomotion and for the object in locomo-
tion, <i.e.> that the movement both is continuous because of the
object in locomotion and is divided in accordance with it.75 And in
20 similar fashion the same follows for the point and the line, as we have
already said.

220a6 For movement too or locomotion is made one by the object

in locomotion, because it is one – and not <one> whatever it is
by being which (for <that> might intermit) – but <one> in
description.

Having said that movement or locomotion is made one by the

25 object in locomotion he followed up <by explaining> in what way
it is one on account of the object in locomotion: because the object in
locomotion is one, he says, – and not one whatever it is by being
which (for in that case it might intermit) – but <one> in
description. I.e., if the object in locomotion is one, and not only
<one> in substrate (for whatever it is by being which signifies
this), but also in description, then the movement is one.76 Since the
moving object, which in itself is one, can also interrupt its motion, in
30 that way the object in locomotion would be one, yet the movement
would no longer be one and continuous but would be two movements
arising from division. But <the object> is taken as one in description
734,1 too, i.e. as moving (for if it intermits it will no longer be one in
description, but two, since its being as a moving object is one thing
and as an object at rest another) – if, then, it is taken as one in
description too, then the movement is one and continuous, and this
<attribute> belongs to <the movement> on account of the object in
5 locomotion. In this way the point too makes the line one and the now
<makes> the time one, on condition that the point is one and the now
<is one> both in substrate and in description. For if the point is
subject of two descriptions, and is end of this line and beginning of
 Translation 39

that, then the lines are two, and the point is cause not of continuity
but of division; but if it is one in description, i.e. is taken only as
common boundary of both the parts,77 then the line is one and 10
continuous, and the point is cause of this. It is the same with time
and the now.

220a8 And this determines the movement as prior and posterior.

Having said that ‘movement and locomotion are one through the
object in locomotion’ and having explained in what way they are one,
<i.e.> that <it is> whenever the object in locomotion is taken as one
both in substrate and in description, he now states the way in which 15
it is cause of division in movement: whenever the object in locomotion
halts and then starts moving again, the earlier movement gets its
end and the second one its beginning, and the movements are two,
not one. So in this way, the object in locomotion is cause of division
too.

220a9 This corresponds in a way to the point.

We have already said in what way the point is cause of both continu- 20
ity and division for the line. But he added in a way because in the
case of magnitudes the point does divide the line in actuality,
whereas the now never divides time in actuality, as we said (and also
in the celestial domain the object in locomotion does not <divide> the
movement except for thought, as we have already said). So on this 25
account <the cases> would differ from each other, and he would be
entitled to add in a way for this reason too. Aristotle himself,
however, has provided the exegesis of why he added in a way by
following up with: for the point too both holds together and
demarcates78 the length – for it is beginning of this and end of
that. But when you take it in this way, using the one point as
two, it must stand still79 if the same point is to be both begin- 30
ning and end. The now, on the other hand, since the body in
locomotion is moving, is always different [220a10-14]. For in the 735,1
case of the point and the magnitude, the same point taken twice and
numbered, as beginning and end, and staying (for that is how it is
 40 Translation

taken twice), comes to be end of one line and beginning of the other,
and in this way it numbers80 the magnitudes and marks them off. But
5 the now does not <behave> like this, for the prior now does not stay
for the posterior one. Instead: because <the now> corresponds to the
object in locomotion – and the object in locomotion (through its
coming to be in different places at different moments) cannot stay, so
that it is not possible that it be taken as the same <thing> twice – the
now (consequently) likewise does not stay (and is not taken twice
together81), as happens with the point.82 However, nothing prevents
it, though one and the same, from being subject of two descriptions.
10 For the now that demarcates the day from the night is end of the one
and beginning of the other, whenever (as I said) it is taken as dividing
these times in thought, not in actuality.

220a14 Hence time is not number in the way in which there is

<number> of the same point because it is beginning and end,
15 but rather as the extremities of the same <line> are a number.

What has been stated, he says, implies that when we call time
number (it is called number because its prior and posterior – which
are nows – are numbered), we do not speak of it, or of the nows in it,
as number in the way in which we call the point number when we
20 take the same one twice, i.e. as having the description ‘end’ and the
<description> ‘beginning’. For the point, since it has position and
stays put and subsists in an object that has position and stays put,
can be taken twice, for it will not escape our taking; but the now
cannot be taken twice, both as beginning and as end. For because
25 time, in which it subsists, has its being in becoming and in flowing,
the same now cannot be taken twice, both as beginning and as end.
For by doing that we would halt time. For if it is the end of this time
and the beginning of that, time has been divided and the times and
the movements are two: but it will be proved [Phys. VIII, 262a12-
263a3; cf. V, 228a20-b1] that two movements cannot be continuous:
30 in all cases they are interrupted by rest. So if it is impossible for this
to happen with time, it is also therefore impossible for the same now
to be taken twice. In that way, then, it is impossible for nows, or the
736,1 time marked off by them, to be number; however, it is possible in the
 Translation 41

way extremes of the bounded line <are number>. For the extremes
of the line are two points lying in opposite directions, by which it is
limited in each direction: and these have number. For the extremes
of the bounded line are two, yet not two in the manner of the same
point taken twice (I mean both as beginning and as end83), but with 5
each being subject of one description, that of ‘limit’. So in this way
the now, too, is number: not as the same item taken twice, but as
other and other and <occurring> in another and another part of time.
(For it is in this way too that the <points> on the line are two: as being
in another and another <part> of the line.) But <the now> is other
and other not in respect of substrate (in this respect it was shown to 10
be the same), but because that which is the same is taken in another
and another, and as prior and posterior, just as the <Coriscus> in the
market place is one Coriscus and the one in the Lyceum another, but
the same in substrate.

220a16 and not as the parts <of the line are a number>, both
for the reason given (i.e. one will be treating the mid-point as
two, so that in consequence <time> will stand still), and further 15
because obviously neither is time part of movement84

Having shown that time, i.e. the nows by which time is numbered,
cannot be number in the same way as the same point taken twice
both as end and as beginning – whereas <it is number> in the way
the ends of the bounded line are <number> – he shows that it is also
not number in the way the parts of the line are: i.e. if one were to 20
divide the line either in actuality or in thought, and say that it is
number as having two parts. So in this way too it is not possible to
say that time is number, <i.e.> by its having the nows by which it is
numbered as parts. For it is impossible, he says, for nows to be parts
of time. The first reason is what has already been stated: i.e. if the
prior and the posterior now are parts of time, then, since they are
divided from each other, the one now occurring at sunrise, as it might 25
be, and the other at sunset, there will be something in between that
divides them; so again one will be treating this item as two just
as we treat as two the point at which the division of the line occurs –
as the end of one of the parts of the line and as the beginning of the
 42 Translation

other, or (in a word) as terminating two lines but with the end-points
30 in each case having their own description.85 So again it will result
that time is divided in actuality.86 So both for that reason (he says) it
is impossible for nows to be parts of time, and also because nows
737,1 cannot be parts of it any more than points can be <parts> of the line,
it being impossible for partless entities to be parts of what is divisible
into parts.87 The parts of the line are lines; similarly, then, the parts
of time too are times.
Where he should have said ‘and further it is obvious that neither
are the nows part of time’, his words are } neither is time part of
5 movement, meaning by time the nows. The nows cannot be parts
either of the movement of which time is the number or of time itself,
for the reasons stated. However, there is also the point that time
itself cannot be a part of movement; for the ten (hê dekas) itself, too,
which numbers the ten (deka) horses is not part of the ten horses, nor
is the bushel (I mean the measure itself) part of the grain that is
10 measured by it. But we can also interpret ‘movement’ <here> as
meaning not the movement of the heaven (or, speaking generally, the
<type of> magnitude of which time is said to be the measure88), but
the very flow of the now from which time <derives>. And since time
is said to be number, and the number of time is in virtue of the nows,
he said ‘time’ instead of ‘the nows’, and ‘movement (of the now)’
instead of ‘time’.89

15 220a21 In so far then as the now is a limit, it is not time but is

incidental to it; but in so far as it numbers <it is time>;90 for
limits belong only to that of which they are limits, but the
number of these91 horses, ten (hê dekas), occurs elsewhere too.

The now is both a limit of something, and now. Insofar as it is a limit,

20 he says, it is not time but is incidental to time, just as the point is to
the line (for the limit is incidental to that of which it is limit).
However, taken as limit it is not in fact now, but the substrate of92
the now. For the now does not consist in being the limit of time, but
in being numbered according to prior and posterior. Consequently,
25 but is incidental can be understood as ‘but the now is incidentally
related to this which is taken as limit’; whereas it is insofar as it is
 Translation 43

numbered, being taken again and again and <taken> as prior and
posterior, that it is time. For the interval between repeatedly taken
nows is time.93
This is how he shows that when the now is taken as limit, it is not
time: limits are only in those entities of which they are limits, and
they are limits of them alone, not of other things, whereas time one 30
and the same is common to all things and is everywhere the same.
Hence the nows are not time insofar as they are limits. For time is in
every movement, since it can measure every movement. For just as
the same number is in all things, not just in things of the same kind
but also in heterogeneous things (for one and the same <number> ten 738,1
[dekas] is in the ten [deka] horses and ten asses and ten pieces of
wood and however many other collections of ten [dekades] there
might be, and although as ten [deka] they are not the same,94 <if we
consider them> as <instances of the number> ten [dekas], it is one
<and the same> for all the cases), in this way, the nows too, being
taken as number, are both time and one and the same <time>
everywhere; but in substrate they are limits of movement. That is 5
why taken as limits they are not the same everywhere, for different
movements have different limits.
He seems also to be showing by means of these considerations that
time is number not of some particular specified movement, but of all
movement without distinction insofar as it is movement, even if <the
movements> differ in species – for they are numerable just the same.
At any rate with movements that take place simultaneously [kata 10
t’auto] and have their beginnings and their ends together, the prior
and the posterior in them, insofar as it is limit, is not the same in all
of them (for some limits are of growth and others are of alteration
and others are of locomotion). But insofar as the prior and the
posterior in them is numerable, it is one and the same in all of them,
and the interval between is one and the same time, capable of
measuring all <the movements>. It is because of this that although
many objects are together moving, and the movement of each is 15
measured by time, still it is not the case that there are many times.
This is because time has its role of numbering the prior and posterior
in movement not insofar as <the movement> is locomotion or insofar
as it is alteration or growth or diminution, but simply in so far as it
 44 Translation

is movement. For, as he said, <time> does not regard them as limits

20 but simply insofar as they are the prior and the posterior of move-
ment; and with movements that occur together, the prior and the
posterior are one and the same,95 just as the many tens (dekades),
even if heterogeneous in their substrates and at a distance from
each other, have one and the same <number> ten (dekas) as their
measure.
25 With reference to this passage Alexander asks: ‘What is <the
meaning of> but in so far as it numbers?’96 For time, he says, was
not <number> as numbering, but as numbered. He says that either
the text is mistaken in giving it numbers rather than ‘it is num-
bered’, or (he says) ‘the nows are numbered in the movement, but
they number time. For it is in virtue of the nows that the division of
time occurs.’ Indeed, in what comes next, too, <Aristotle> seems to be
30 treating the now as number that numbers. For he says: the number
of these horses, ten, occurs elsewhere too. It is number as
numbering which can be elsewhere too, not number as numbered.97
Certainly, since time’s being consists in movement’s being numbered,
and movement is numbered in accordance with the prior and poste-
rior in it – which prior and posterior, when taken as prior and
739,1 posterior and not simply as limits of this or that movement, turns out
to be now – it is clear that movement is numbered in accordance with
the nows. Since, then, time is not the nows, but is what is marked off
and contained by the nows, and, as has already been stated, the
division of time is in accordance with them, they would indeed have
5 being as numbering time. So they are, on the one hand, numbered –
insofar as they are observed <occurring> in movement – and, on the
other hand, they number time.

220a24 It is clear, then, that time is number of movement in

respect of the prior and posterior, and is continuous since it is
an attribute of what is continuous.

He brings to a logical conclusion what has been said at length, at the

same time defining time on the basis of what has been demonstrated.
It was a good idea to add the phrase in respect of the prior and
10 posterior, in case someone should take it that time is number of
 Translation 45

movement in the sense of having its being in numbering that: for time
is not number of movement itself, but of the prior and posterior in
movement; for if it is taken as number of movement simply, it will
not number the prior and posterior at all, as when I say that the
number five is measure of the five movements just as it is of the five 15
horses or human beings. This sort of number is of movement, but it
is not time, since it is the number not of the prior and posterior in
movements but of the movements themselves.
He adds and is continuous, because <time> is number of con-
tinuous, not of divided, movement. For it is through the movement’s
being numbered in accordance with the prior and posterior, <it
being> continuous <movement> that time subsists as a continuous 20
reality, extending along with the continuity of the movement. For
because the movement never breaks off, the prior and posterior in it
likewise does not break off; and because this does not break off, time
does not, either. For this is time: number of the prior and posterior
in movement. Hence time too is continuous.

220a27 The smallest number, without qualification,98 is two; 25

but a number qualified in a given way is in a way <smallest>
and in a way not

Having said that time is number of movement, and having said that
movement corresponds to magnitude and time to movement, so that,
the magnitude being continuous, the movement must be continuous 740,1
too, and because of it the time, he might have raised the difficulty of
how time can be both continuous and number. For these are contrar-
ies of each other. Time is continuous, but number is not continuous:
so time is not number. For if time is number, and the continuous is 5
not number, it follows that time is not continuous. So one must assert
one or other of two positions: either that time is not continuous or
that it is not number. But time must be continuous. So time is not
number.
It is this difficulty that he solves in the present passage. Since
number is twofold – the number with which we number, which is the
one in the soul, and the number that itself is numbered, the number- 10
ing number is in no way continuous, for it has its being in our soul;
 46 Translation

so if the soul is not a magnitude, obviously it is not continuous; for

every magnitude is continuous.99 Therefore the number in it is not
continuous either. However, number that is numbered – i.e. <the
kind of number> that time is – is in one way continuous and in
another way number. Insofar as it has the prior and the posterior it
15 is number, whereas insofar as it is in a continuous substrate it itself
is continuous too. By way of parallel, (he says), the smallest number
of lines is two, so that insofar as the two lines participate in number
they both are numbered and have the minimum in the domain of
numbers, <i.e.> two, whereas insofar as they are lines they no longer
20 have a minimum, since every line is infinitely divisible. That is how
it is with time too: insofar as it is numbered by days and nights and
the other segments of time it is number, whereas insofar as this
number has its being in movement, the movement being continuous,
it too must be continuous. So it is not at all impossible for the
self-same <time> to be both continuous and number. But given that
25 number admits of large and small, whereas the continuous for a line
admits of long and short, and for a surface broad and narrow, the
number in the soul, not being continuous, only admits of large and
small and not of long and short; whereas the number that is num-
bered admits qua number of large and small – for we say ‘a large
<number of > days’ and ‘a large <amount of> time’ – whereas qua
30 continuous it also admits of long and short – for we say ‘in a short
time’ and ‘in a long <time>’ [cf. 220a32-5].
But, he says, fast and slow are not in time. For fast and slow are
simply in movement. Of movements, one is faster and another
slower; but since time is number of uniform movement, it is appro-
priate that it does not have faster and slower.
35 Next he says that present time is one and the same, whereas past
741,1 time is other than future time.100 He means present <time> in the
broad sense, for example } [brief lacuna probably containing a
phrase such as ‘the present day’]. For while today is one and the
same, yesterday is other in relation to tomorrow, since their nows too
are other. For the now from which yesterday began is other than the
5 now from which tomorrow will begin, and similarly with the nows at
which each ceases.
The nows being different, then, the times contained by the nows
 Translation 47

are different too. For if time were the number that numbers,101 it
would be one and the same (for the number in the soul, being one and
the same, e.g. ten (hê dekas) numbers the ten (deka) horses or the ten
human beings, and so on), whereas the ten (hê dekas) in the horses
is another <ten> besides the ten in human beings or in stones, since 10
the substrates are other.102 But since time is numbered, i.e. not
numbering, number, past time is not the same as future time, nor are
these the same as present time; instead they are other than each
other, as has been stated. But are they in no way the same as each
other? Well, his position is what he has already said: that they are
the same in kind, but not in aspect and description [cf. 219b12-15]. 15
In the way it is possible for the same movement to occur again and
again, and many times over return from the same to the same, and
these movements are the same in kind but not the same in number
– in that way, it is possible for the times to be the same: spring, and
again spring, and so on for the other <seasons>. These too are not the 20
same in number, but are the same in kind.
Next [221a15ff.] he states that not only does time measure move-
ment, but time is also reciprocally measured by movement. For we
say that a large103 movement has occurred, measuring it by the time,
<i.e.> because the time <was> large, and conversely that a large time
<has passed>, measuring it by the movement, <i.e.> because a large
movement has occurred. In the same way, not only is the amphora 25
measured by the wine, but the wine, too, by the amphora. For we say
that the amphora is large when we measure it by this-much wine,
and conversely we say that the wine is this-much when we measure
it by the amphora; and we apply the term ‘bushel’ to this-much grain
by the measure, and similarly we <say> that the measure is a bushel,
determining it and measuring it by this-much grain. 30
But perhaps the measure is only what measures the grain or the
wine, and is not also reciprocally measured by it. For even if the wine
measures the amphora and the grain the bushel, still they <do so>
having been previously measured by another measure, so that that
which measures principally is the measure. And if by means of the 742,1
wine and the grain we do measure the amphora or the bushel, all the
same we do so treating them as still indeterminate and as not yet
functioning as measures. Hence even if these are measured immedi-
 48 Translation

ately by the grain and the wine, still that is when the latter have
already been determined and measured by measures. Thus the meas-
5 ure is that which measures principally and primarily.
However, I say that even if this bushel here is measured by the
grain already measured by another bushel, still in simple terms and,
as it were, in keeping with the first proposal, the bushel [sc. the one
here] has been determined by this amount of grain, and this amount
of grain has been measured by the [sc. prior] bushel.104 But with time
one cannot say this. For it is not the case that first the movement is
10 measured by the time and then it reciprocally measures the time.
Instead, they are apprehended together with each other, like rela-
tives. So just as together and by the same token the father owes being
father to the son, and the son owes being son to the father, and
similarly with the right and the left – just so are time and movement
15 determined by each other. For if time is number, it obviously falls into
the class of relatives, since number is of what is numerable. But
movement is what is numerable by time. Thus it is both the case that
movement owes its being this-much to time (since time is number of
it), and the case that the time’s being this-much comes from no other
source but movement. For if <movement> were not, time too would
20 not be, just as, if time (by which I mean number of movement) were
not, movement too would not be; for movement is something numer-
able. By ‘number’ I mean not simply the number that is measured by
us, but the number that is present in things. As with the ten stones:
even if no one is there to number them and say that they are ten, still
being ten holds of them just as much; and in the same way I say of
time too, by which I mean the number of movement, that even if no
25 one is there to measure the movements, it belongs to them just the
same to be of such and such quantities. For the revolution of the sun
occurring ten times over from the same to the same is just as much
a tenfold occurrence even if no one is there to count it. This is the sort
of number of movement that time is.
30 The smallest number in a way is and in a way is not105 With
these words he introduces the solution (as if for an already acknow-
ledged difficulty), without having posed the difficulty. The meaning
of the <text> in front of us is as follows. Since time is continuous, and
he has said that time is number of movement, and in the continuous
 Translation 49

there is no minimum as it is infinitely divisible, whereas in <the

domain of> number there is, namely two (hê duas) – and these 743,1
<attributes>, which are contraries, seem to belong to time which is
one and the same (because time is both continuous and number) – he
states in what way these attributes hold of it. He says that in a
certain respect number has a smallest, and in a certain respect it
does not. In respect of the substrate number does not have a smallest
because it is number of continuous entities such as lines or move- 5
ments; but in respect of definition, and insofar as it is number, it does
have a smallest. For in respect of number the smallest is one or
two (ho heis ê duo106) [220a31-2].
The point is not that one (hê monas) is a number; rather, the
statement has been made hypothetically: if we thought that one is a
number, one would be the smallest number. (According to one ac-
count at least, two is not a number either. For if number is the 10
plurality that consists of ones, then two is indeed a number; but that
two is a number is refuted by the following line of argument: every
number when multiplied by itself is greater than when added to
itself, e.g. three multiplied by itself makes nine, whereas added to
itself it makes six, and so on for all cases; but two, when added to,
and when multiplied by, itself, makes the same (since twice two is 15
four, and two plus two is four). So in this way, two is not a number,
and the smallest number is three.107)

220b3 it is not fast and slow – for nor is any number with which
we number fast and slow

He seems to be saying that time does not admit of fast and slow 20
because this is also true of the number by which we number time, i.e.
the number in the soul. But, since things in the world are not
determined by our thought, that is not what he asserts. Instead, ‘the
number with which we number’ is what he is calling the number that
has been numbered on the basis of which there is time: I mean the
movement that has been numbered. For it is by means of this 25
<movement> that we number time. For whatever the amount of the
movement, that (we say) is the amount of time too. So since this [sc.
the movement] does not admit of fast and slow,108 time too will not
 50 Translation

admit of fast and slow. However, it is also possible to take nor is }

number with which we number as meaning the number in the
soul. For since we determine time by the number in the soul, given
30 that this does not admit of fast and slow it makes sense that what we
determine by means of it does not admit of them either. For the
number in the soul does admit of large and small, and time too admits
of large and small.
How, then, given that the number in the soul does not admit of
long and short, is it that time admits of long and short? My answer
744,1 is that it is through the substrate that time admits of long and short.
Since it is number of something continuous, namely movement; and
movement is continuous because the magnitude where the move-
ment occurs is continuous; and long and short hold of the magnitude:
it makes sense that long and short hold both of movement and of
5 time. It is because of the substrate, then, that long and short belong
to time, and not in so far as it is number.

220b5 And so109 the same <time> is everywhere together. But

prior <time> and posterior <time> are not the same110

The same <time> everywhere is the present. For the stretch of

time present is one, whereas the prior stretch is not the same as the
10 posterior one, as the limits of each are different.

220b8 Time is not number with which we number, but <num-

ber> that is numbered

For if time were number by which we number, past time and future
time would be one, since the number in the soul is one. But as things
15 are, <time> is not numbering but numbered <number>, so that past
and future time are other and other. For numbering <number> is the
same, but the items numbered are not the same.

220b12 Further, as a movement can be one and the same again

and again

20 <He says> that one can speak of any given time as one and the same
 Translation 51

– in kind, of course – just as many movements can be the same in

kind.

220b14 Not only do we measure the movement by the time

<He says> that not only does time measure movement, but move-
ment also measures time; and we have said in what way [cf.
741,21ff.].

220b19 just as we <cognize> the number <of some group> by 25

means of what is counted, e.g. the number of the horses by
means of the one horse111

Just as (he says) we cognize the number of horses, e.g. ten horses,
by the ten that is in them, and again we cognize this <ten> by means
of the number of horses, so it is with time and movement: they can 745,1
measure each other.

220b24 And this result makes sense. For movement corre-

sponds to magnitude, and time to movement, because they are
5
quanta and continuous and divisible.

To prove that time and movement are measured reciprocally, he

makes the point that movement corresponds to magnitude, and time
to movement. For if what is true of magnitude is also true of move-
ment, and what is true of movement is also true of time, it is clear
that when there is much movement there must also be much time, 10
and conversely that when there is much time <there must> also be
much movement. For just as movement and time correspond to each
other in respect of continuous and divisible, etc., so they also corre-
spond in respect of much and little and long and short. Hence each is
a measure of the other. For if one is much or little, or long or short, 15
etc., the other must be so too.

220b32 Since112 time is measure of movement and of being

moved
 52 Translation

Different <scholars> identify the aim of this passage differently.

20 Alexander says that <Aristotle> proposes to show here in what way
time is said to measure movement, and generally in what way
movement is said to be in time, and in what way anything else (in a
word) is said to be in time. However, others say that the aim of the
passage is to show that time measures not only movement but also
rest. Their evidence for this is the fact that in conclusion Aristotle
25 says ‘since time is measure of movement, it will also be measure of
rest’ [221b7-8]. But it would be closer to the truth to say that
Aristotle’s aim concerns not <just> one of these <questions>, but all
of them: in what way movement is measured by time; in what way
things are said to be in time; and <the point> that time is measure
30 not only of movement but also of rest.
That being the aim of the discussion, he first asks in what way
time is measure of movement. <This point> gives rise to an under-
standable difficulty. The measure is supposed to be homogeneous
with the object in motion.113 For we measure number by means of the
746,1 unit: <e.g.> we measure the group of ten horses by the one horse, and
the piece of wood by its part. So if time is not homogeneous with
movement (since it has been shown that time is not movement), in
what way do we say that movement is measured by time? Well, he
5 says that if movement measures time }114 through measuring a
certain movement by means of which one measures out the rest <of
the movement>. E.g., perhaps it defines an hour-long movement, and
by means of this it measures the day, and by means of the day, the
year. For ‘year’ is what we call so many revolutions <of the sphere of
the fixed stars>. For ‘measure’ is said in two ways: there is measure
that is set apart115 and there is measure that is classified along with
<the item measured> and is the same in kind. One can measure the
piece of wood by means of the cubit,116 and one can also do so by as it
10 were removing a portion of it and by means of this measuring out the
rest. The cubit would be the measure set apart, and the portion would
be <a measure> that is the same in kind and classified along with
<what is measured>; and so it is with every measure. For instance,
the pint pot would be a measure set apart, and a fortiori so would be
the pint in the soul that also determines the external pint.117 How-
15 ever, if the pint of wine measured <off> measures all the rest <of the
 Translation 53

wine>, it would be a measure that is classified along with <it>. As it

is in these cases, then, so it is with time: time is a measure set apart,
and the part of movement by which the rest is measured is a measure
classified along with.
So what is the part of movement that is primarily determined by
time to be measure of all the movement118 }119 time does not measure
primarily? So if it does indeed measure a certain movement primar- 20
ily, on account of what does it not <have this relation to> all <the
movement>? Just how does it determine some movement by which it
measures the rest, given that all the movement is single and continu-
ous? Well, I say that just as one might with one’s hand measure and
mark off the ten thousandth part of a schoinos,120 and then with that
measure the rest of the schoinos, so it is with time. For the marked 25
off part is <determined> by convention, not by nature, which is why
different people choose different measures for hours and months and
years.121 So once a part of the movement has been marked off, and
has been given primary determination by [i.e. in terms of] time (I
mean, by the number of the prior and the posterior of the movement-
part), through this all the rest of the movement is measured as by a
measure closer <in nature> to it. So it is this movement that time
primarily measures and determines, and by means of it <measures> 30
the whole of the rest of the movement. This, then, is how movement
is measured by time; and in this way, he says [221a5-7], movement 747,1
is also said to be in time, <i.e.> because its being is measured by time.
But movement is measured by time not insofar as it is everlasting,122
but because any given part of it is bounded; qua everlasting it is not
measured by <time>. In fact, he says [221a9-11] that what is in time
is twofold:123 (1) that which co-exists with time, and is when time is;
and (2) that which has a certain time by which one can measure its 5
being is said to be in time. Just so, that which is in number is twofold,
he says (221a11-13]: <it means> (a) that which is either a part or an
attribute of number (e.g. we say that the unit is in number as being
part of number, and we say that the odd and even are in number as
attributes of number; and these are together with number, since as
long as there is number there are these too); so that is one way in 10
which we say that something is in number. According to the other
way, (b) something is said to be in number if it is what has a certain
 54 Translation

number: e.g. we say that the ten horses are in number, i.e. there is a
number of them. Since, then, that which is in number is two-fold, that
which is in time is twofold too, as time too is a sort of number. When
15 we say that the now is in time we mean that it is so as part in a
whole,124 just as the unit is in number; but when we say that the prior
and posterior are in time, we mean that they are so as attributes [cf.
221a11-16]. These are together with time, since nows and the prior
and the posterior are together with time. Again, we say that things
20 are in time in that a given time is measure of their being, just as we
said that the second sense of ‘<being> in number’ is having a certain
number: e.g. the ten horses have the number ten.
At any rate the latter is the strict way of <being> in time, since
what is together with time is surely not in time in the strict way. For
if what is together with time is in time, then since the soul and all
divine beings are together with time (when time is, they are too)
25 these things too would be in time. Thus just as it is not the case that
what is together with movement is in movement, nor that what is
together with place is in place [cf. 221a20-1] (for instance, all incor-
poreal beings – I mean, angels and God: for it is not the case that
movement or place existed when these beings did not; yet nonethe-
less these beings are neither in movement nor in place): so too
‘together with time’ is not ‘in time’. For if what is together with
30 something is in it, then since, he says [221a21-3], the celestial system
is when the millet-seed is, the celestial system would be in the
millet-seed. So it is also not the case that what is when time also is,
is in time, just as it is not the case that what is when the millet-seed
is, is in the millet-seed. Accordingly, it is not universally the case that
what is when time is, is in time. For being in something in the strict
way means being contained by it [cf. Phys. III, 210a24; 221a28-30].
35 So <what> is in time in the strict way is that which has a certain time
by which it can be measured, <125just as what is in number in the
strict way is that which has a certain number by which it can be
748,1 measured>, e.g. ten or some other <number>. But if this is <what it
is to be> in time, then for anything that is in time a greater time must
be assigned, just as for that which is in this way in number a greater
number must be assigned. It is, he says, for this reason, <i.e.>
because what is in time in the strict way is what has a time greater
 Translation 55

than itself, that we say that all things grow old through time, and 5
that time makes all things perish, whereas we do not say that they
come into being through time [221a31-b2].
One might reasonably ask how it is that he asserts that we say
that time is cause of perishing and not of coming to be. For we do say
that things come to be in time:

‘Long and innumerable time’, says <the poet>, ‘brings all 10

That’s hidden to birth’126
and: ‘Time makes me know something’.127

How does he simply say that all things are made to perish by time?
After all, he himself said in the first discourse that everything that 15
perishes is made to perish by its contrary [Phys. I, 192a21-2];128 but
time is not contrary to anything. For time is a sort of quantity, but
nothing is contrary to quantity; and <time> is together with all
things that are, but nothing is together with its contrary. I say, then,
in response to this: first, he did not actually say ‘we by no means say
that things come into being through time’, but, instead, that we say
that they perish rather than come to be (for, he says, time in itself 20
is the cause rather of perishing). Secondly, what causes the
coming to be of each thing is definite and evident, e.g. the progenitor
of the animal and the teacher of the learner’s knowledge. So it is
because we are able to attribute the coming to be to some definite
cause that no one says that time generated, but instead that the 25
father generated, nor that time taught, but instead that the teacher
did. But with perishing and forgetfulness, when we cannot show any
definite cause we attribute the causality to time – since when we
have an obvious cause of the perishing, e.g. if the house is destroyed
by fire, we call the fire, not time, cause of the destruction, and the
shipwreck cause of the death, and we often say that illness is cause 30
of forgetfulness, and toil of aging. So with perishing too, when the
cause is definite, we assign the causation to it and not to time. So it
is clear from this why we assign causation to time more for what
perishes than for what comes to be.
If the entities in time are those for which there is a time greater
than theirs, reason suggests that everlasting ones and those that are 35
 56 Translation

749,1 throughout all time, are not in time; for there is no time greater than
theirs. An indication of this, he says [221b5-7], is that time does not
affect them. For if what is in time is affected by time, it follows that
what is not affected by time is not in time; and what is throughout
5 all time is not affected by time. So such entities are not in time.
But since time is measure of movement and of being moved
[220b32-221a1] Having said: of movement he has added: and of
being moved. By being moved he either means what further on he
speaks of as movement and its being [221a5], so that he says being
10 moved is the being of movement; or, having mentioned movement, he
added and being moved so as to draw us to the precise thought of
its continuance. For ‘movement’ also signifies the very form of move-
ment, whereas ‘being moved’ signifies precisely its continuance, of
which time is measure. Thus being moved explains of movement.

221a4 and movement’s being in time is its being measured by

15 time, both it and its being

<Commentators> say that the conjunction ‘and’ (kai) is superfluous,

on the ground that the apodosis of the subordinate clause But since
time is measure of movement and of being moved [220b32-
221a1] is: movement’s being in time is its being measured by
time, both it and its being. Others say that the apodosis is given
20 in <the clause>: it is clear that for other things too being in time
is this [221a7-8]. I.e. since, as he says, time is measure of movement,
and movement’s being in time is its being measured by time, it is
clear that for other things too being in time is this. But on this
<construal> the conjunction ‘and/but’ (de) in the <phrase> and/but
25 it is clear that129 is superfluous. Yet others say that the apodosis
comes much later, <in the sentence> ‘But since time is measure of
movement, it is measure of rest too’ [221b7].130 That is why, according
to them, he repeated But since <time> is <measure of move-
ment> [221b7]: he did so in order to preserve the sequence <of
thought> given the length of the passage in between. We for our part
say that he has given an apodosis that acknowledges all these
<items>, so that the sequence is: ‘But since time is measure of
30 movement and of moving: movement’s being in time is its being
 Translation 57

measured by time, and for other things too this is being in time, <i.e.>
being measured by it; and if time is measure of movement it is also
measure of rest.’131 In what way it is measure of rest we shall find out
when we get to the passage.
being measured by time, both it and its being.132 In the case 750,1
of composite entities, being X is one thing and what it is to be X is
another, e.g. being animal and what it is to be animal are different,
for ‘animal’ signifies the composite, and ‘what it is to be animal’
<signifies> the form.133 But with simple entities being X and what it
is to be X are the same. Anyway, being soul and what it is to be soul 5
are the same, as are being angel and what it is to be angel. For this
reason, then, being movement and what it is to be movement are also
the same, as movement is something simple.

221a9 To be in time is one of two things

By this he means either: ‘in time’ is two-fold, or: ‘in time’ being said 10
in two ways, only one of them is strictly <being> in time. For he
proposes two significations for ‘in time’, and selects just one as true
while refuting the other. ‘In time’, he says, either <applies to> what
is there together with time (this is what he will object to, <the
objection being> not that none of the entities that are in time is
together with time, but that <being> together with time is not in all
cases <being> in time, as we shall show in due course) – anyway, to 15
resume: he says, ‘in time’ <applies> either to what co-exists with time
or to what is contained by time (just as we say that some things are
in number because they are contained by number). The latter is the
strict <use of> ‘in time’. But this strict ‘in time’ he again divides into
two: <something is in time> either as a part or attribute of time, or
as measured by time (e.g. we say that the Trojan war happened in 20
time because it occupied ten years). For ‘<what is> in number’ too, to
which he likens the strict ‘<what is> in time’, is itself two-fold,
denoting either a part and attribute of number, like the unit and the
odd and the even, or <what is> numbered by number, as when we say
that the ten horses are in number. Notice that one signification of
strict ‘in time’ pertains to things whose subsistence is <based on> 25
time. For the part of time and the attribute – I mean the now and the
 58 Translation

prior and the posterior, subsist with time. For there is no time at all
in which there is not the now and the prior and the posterior, just as
the unit and either the odd or the even subsist along with every case
of number. What is strictly in something is so either as part in a
751,1 whole or as <inherent> in a substrate. It is in the latter way that the
attribute is in that of which it is attribute. For the odd and the even
are in number as in a substrate, just as the prior and posterior are in
time as in a substrate. Thus I was right in saying that he asserts not
that everything that co-subsists with time is not in time, but that
5 being in time is not co-subsisting with time. For a certain class of
what co-subsists with time is in time: the part and the attribute of
<time>, as I said. And he himself, at least, asserts that the movement
of which time is measure, I mean that of the <sphere of the> fixed
<stars>, is in time. For he says: ‘And for movement to be in time is
10 for it to be measured by time, both it and its being’ [221a4-5]. That it
is the movement of the <sphere of the> fixed <stars> that he here
says is in time is clear from what precedes. For, he says, since time
is measure of movement and of moving, for movement to be in time
is for it to be measured by time. But time is measure of no other
movement than that of the <sphere of the> fixed <stars>.134 Hence he
is also saying that the movement of <the sphere of the> fixed <stars>
15 is in time, even though it gives subsistence to time. Thus the point is
not that everything that co-subsists with time is not in time; rather,
it is that not just everything that co-subsists with time is in time. For
of course the point, too, co-subsists with the line, and the surface with
the body (the line and the body being bounded ones, obviously), yet
even so the point is in the line and the surface in the body. In this
20 way, then, although time and movement co-subsist with each
other, it is possible to say both that time is in movement as in a
substrate, and that movement is in time as numerable objects are
in number. For time is something numerable, and time is number.
For, likewise, many things that are co-subsistent with place are
said to be in place; for each of the spheres and <each> of the total
25 masses of the elements is co-subsistent with its own place, yet
even so is in place; and each of the moving bodies, I mean the
celestial ones, is co-subsistent with its own movement, and yet is
in movement. In this way, then, the movement of the whole too,
 Translation 59

being co-subsistent with time, will be in time, as numbered things

are in number.

221a19 Plainly, too, to be in time is not to be when time is 30

Notice that he does not say that ‘that which is when time is, is not in
time’, but: to be in time is not to be then when time too is. For 752,1
being in movement, too, is not being together with movement.

221a21 For if ‘to be in something’ is to mean this, then all things

will be in anything whatever: even the heaven in a millet-seed.

He shows that <being> in time is not being then when time is. For 5
<being> in time is <being> in something; <but suppose135> on the
contrary that <being> in time is being then when <time> itself is: it
follows that being in something is being then when it is. But if this
is <what being> in something is, and if this is distinctive of <being>
in something, namely being then when it is, i.e. co-existing and being
together with <it>, it is clear that the proposition will convert and 10
that whatever co-subsists with something and is then when it, too,
is, will be in it. Hence since when the millet-seed is, then the heaven
too is, the heaven will be in the millet-seed. And since the amphora
is then when the sea too is, the sea will be in the amphora. Conse-
quently, if these <results> are impossible, <being> in something is 15
not being co-existent with it. And let no one find fault with the
conversion136 on the ground that we converted a universal affirmative
proposition with itself. For in the first place it must be understood
that unless we use the conversion, we should not deduce the absurd-
ity of the heaven’s being in the millet-seed (for no one will grant this;
<it will be granted>, rather, that anything that is in X must also be
then when X is, but not that what co-subsists with X is thereby also 20
in it; hence the heaven, being when the millet-seed also is, will not
be logically bound to be in the millet-seed). But given the conversion,
the conclusion follows. For if <being> in X is being then when X too
is, then obviously that which is when something else is, is in it. But
in that case, the heaven must be in the millet-seed. But we necessar- 25
ily converted the universal proposition with itself, since for any given
 60 Translation

item, what is definitive of being it is convertible with it.137 For if what

it is to be man is what it is to be rational mortal animal, then, too,
what it is to be rational mortal animal is what it is to be man. In this
30 way, then, since it is supposed that what is distinctive and definitive
of <being> in something is being then when that thing too is in which
it is said to be, the converse, reasonably enough, will also <hold>, and
that which is co-existent with something will be in it.

753,1 221a23 But this is incidental, whereas the other is necessarily

involved; for that which is in time there is, <necessarily>, a
given time when it is

It is an incidental fact that the heaven is when the millet-seed also

5 is, i.e. that they co-exist with each other. For it is possible that when
one of them, e.g. the heaven, is, the other – the millet-seed – is not.
Co-existence with each other belongs to them – I mean the heaven
and the millet-seed – incidentally, whereas for something that is in
time it is a necessary consequence that there is a given time when it
too is. So if some items that are in a given thing co-exist with it of
10 necessity, whereas some of its co-existents do not co-exist with it of
necessity, it follows that not everything that co-exists with a given
thing is in that very thing, and also that <being> in something is not
being then when it is, I mean co-existing with it.

221a26 Since what is in time is so in the same way as what is

in number,138 a time greater than anything in time can be
assigned.

15 For everything that is in number, there is some greater number; so

that for what is in time too there is some greater time.

221a30 A thing, then, is affected in a way by time

For if for everything that is in time one can assign a larger time, it
makes sense that they are all affected by time and made to age by it,
20 for they all run past and pass away.
 Translation 61

221b1 For time in itself is cause rather of perishing, since it is

number of movement, and movement shifts away what is cur-
rently given.

Since time is number of movement, and all movement shifts <things>

away from something, it makes sense that time is cause of perishing
rather than of coming to be.

221b5 An indication of this is that none <of them> is affected 754,1

by time

It is, he says, an indication that everlasting things are not in time

that none <of them> is made to age by time. For if things in time are
made to age by time, and everlasting things are not made to age by
time, it follows that everlasting things are not in time. 5

221b7 Since time is measure of movement, it is139 measure of

rest too incidentally.

We said earlier that it is his aim to show that time is measure not
only of movement, but also of rest. And this makes sense, since every 10
sort of cognition grasps not only forms but also privations. For the
eye knows not only light but also darkness; but it knows light per se,
and darkness by the negation of light. Similarly in other cases: the
straight-edge discriminates the straight and the bent; but it discrimi-
nates the straight per se by conforming to it, and the bent by the 15
negation of the straight. For in not conforming it discriminates – not
directly nor affirmatively, but by denial and negatively. In this way,
then, time is number not only of movement but also of rest: of
movement through <movement> itself, by measuring its continu-
ance140 and as it were being continuated along with it, but of rest, he
says, incidentally; it would have been stricter to say ‘through 20
something else’. For it is by measuring movement – since in the
period when one thing is moving another thing can be at rest – that
time that measures the movement thereby measures the rest too. For
we speak of rest as lasting a day or a year because <the object> was
at rest for as much time as some other <object> took to carry out a
 62 Translation

25 movement, the continuance being observed not in the rest <itself>

but through something else. For it is because something else comes
to be in continuance that rest too is said to have continuance.
We were right to say that time measures rest not incidentally but
through something else, namely by measuring movement. For if it
measured the rest incidentally while measuring the movement per
30 se, the rest would have had to be incidental to the movement (since
it was earlier explained [535,2ff.] that this is how it is with things to
which something belongs incidentally);141 but as things are, rest is
755,1 not incidental to movement; hence <time> does not measure rest
incidentally. Yet it does not measure it per se either; so all that is left
is that it does so through something else. For by measuring move-
ment <time> measures rest too.
Time, he says, not only measures movement and rest, but it also
5 measures incidentally the moving and resting objects themselves: I
mean the substances themselves. For because it measures their
movement and rest, it may be said to measure them too incidentally,
since it is incidental to the moving object that it is man or heaven or
anything else.
And if time is measure of movement and rest, all entities that
neither move nor are at rest are not measured by time: for example
10 the centres and poles,142 and also souls and angels and suchlike. For
these are exempt from movement and rest; nor, then, will they be
measured by time. Consequently, they will not be in time either,
anyway if the things said to be in time are those measured by time
in respect of their being in movement or at rest. <Entities> such as
<the above> are not measured by time, since they are neither moving
15 nor at rest. It follows that they are not in time either.
Having said which beings are in time, and which are not in time,
he proceeds to show for non-beings, too, which of them would be in
time, and which would not. He says, then, that all non-beings that
are found in the domain of the impossible, along with their contradic-
tories, are said not to be in time; instead, they are everlasting beings
20 or <everlasting> non-beings. E.g., that the diagonal of the square is
commensurate with the side is one of the impossibles. Consequently,
that is said to be not in time, since one cannot assign a time greater
than <that of> its non-obtaining. Since, then, the non-being of that is
 Translation 63

not in time, the being that is contradictory to it – I mean, the

diameter’s being incommensurate with the side – would also not be
in time; for one cannot assign a time greater than <that of> its 25
obtaining. For it is always the case. So, among non-beings, the
impossible is not in time, for its contradictory – I mean, of course, the
necessary – is also not in time; instead, the obtaining of the one is
everlasting as is the non-obtaining of the other. But, among non-be-
ings, <take> all the ones that can sometimes be and sometimes
not-be: those are your ones that are in time. Of these there is a triple 30
distinction: of things that contingently are not, some have already
come to be and are not, such as Homer; others are going to be and are
not yet, such as the future occurrence of an eclipse or some other
thing that is going to be; and some things have already come to be
and will be again, as e.g. the sunrise has both come to be and will be
again.143 So everything that is-not in those ways is in time, since one
can assign a time greater than <that of> their non-being in virtue of 35
(kata)144 the time during which (kata) they were.
I say then in general, for both beings and non-beings, that what- 756,1
ever is necessary or impossible is not in time (for the former always
are, and the latter always are not); whereas whatever beings and
non-beings are contingently so, are, or are-not, in time: the beings
because there is a certain time that exceeds <that of> their being <in
virtue of the time> during which they are not, and the non-beings
because there is a certain time that exceeds <that of> their non-being 5
<in virtue of the time> during which they are.145
Since time is measure of movement, it is measure of rest too
incidentally [221b7-8]: note that many texts do not have inciden-
tally, and Alexander does not mention it either.

221b9 For whereas what is in movement necessarily moves, 10

this is not so for what is in time. For time is not movement

Since someone might have raised the question how time is measure
of rest (for if time is number of movement, and not only movement is
in time but also rest, it would seem that rest too is in movement,
given that rest is in time and time is in movement), he says that 15
whereas what is in movement necessarily moves, there is not a
 64 Translation

parallel necessity for what is in time to be moving. If time were the

same as movement, it would be necessary that what is in time moves
as an immediate consequence. But as things are, it is not necessary
that what is present in X is thereby also in that to which X is
20 incidental. For it is not the case that what is present in the sweet
must also be present in the honey (since the sweet is incidental to the
honey), nor that what is present in white must also be in white-lead
pigment. Similarly, it is also not the case that what is in time must
also be in movement <just> because time is incidental to movement.
At all events, that which is in a day need not also be in the circling of
the heaven <just> because <a day> is measure of the revolution of
25 the heaven. For it is possible to be at rest in a day, and presumably
what is at rest is not in movement. In this way, then, it is neither
absurd nor impossible that rest as well as movement is in time.

221b12 Not everything that is at rest,146 but that which lacks

movement and is of a nature to move

He stated that ‘that which is at rest too’ has the possibility of being
757,1 in number of movement [221b11-12]. <So now>, to block someone
from saying: ‘Since the centre and the poles of the universe are at
rest, are they too therefore in time?’ he says that he did not state that
if something is immobile it can be in time. What rests is not the
immobile, but that which is of a nature to move but is not moving.
5 Although the poles and the centres are immovable they are not at
rest, for they are not of a nature to move; hence they are not in time
either. For what is at rest is in time <and> the immovable is not, and
what is at rest is what is of a nature to move but is not moving.

221b14 To be in number means that there is a certain number

10 of the thing

Since he said ‘what is at rest, too, has the possibility of being in

number of movement’, he states again in what sense some things are
said to be in number. It is that there is a certain number of them; in
other words, they have been numbered: either according to the
plurality of the substrates, as when we say that the ten horses are in
 Translation 65

number, or <on account of> their having their being itself numbered, 15
as when we say that the Trojan war went by in a certain number of
time (for it occupied ten years). So since this is <what it is> to be in
number, and time is a sort of number, for a thing to be in time would
be for it to have a certain time that numbers its being. E.g. we speak
of the Trojan war as having come about in a certain time, and
likewise of Homer, because there has come about147 a certain part of 20
time in which they existed. So in this way rest too is said to be in time,
<i.e.> through there being a certain time in which rest has being.

221b16 But time will measure what moves and what is at rest,
the one qua moving, the other qua at rest

<He says this> because time also measures things such as men or
horses and in general everything, <but> not as such. For it is not as 25
man that the man is measured by time, but insofar as he has a
certain continuance in respect of his being. So <time> measures
things’ movement or rest as such; and incidentally it measures
things’ existences148 themselves as well, through the fact that the
moving or resting object is a man or <is> white or whatever else.149

221b20 Thus none of the things that neither move nor are at 758,1
rest are in time; for to be in time is to be measured in respect of
time, while time is measure of movement and rest.

That what is neither moving nor at rest is not in time he establishes

by employing the following sort of syllogism in the second figure:150 5
to be in time is to be measured by time;151 things that are not moving
nor at rest are not measured by time; therefore things that are
neither moving nor at rest are not in time (Q.E.D.) Aristotle pro-
pounds first the conclusion of this syllogism, by saying Thus none
of the things that neither move nor are at rest is in time. Of 10
the two premisses, he propounded the major and affirmative one that
says that what is in time is measured by time; but <as for> the minor
and negative one that speaks of what is neither moving nor at rest –
he did not propound <this proposition> itself; however, he has pro-
pounded the one that makes it true and from which it is deduced.
 66 Translation

15 This is and time is measure of movement and rest, which we

must understand as supplemented by ‘only’. That time is measure of
movement and rest he showed earlier. But if time is measure only of
movement and rest, it is true that none of the things that neither
move nor are at rest is measured by time. For this is deduced through
20 conversion by negation according to the second <type> of hypotheti-
cal <argument>:152 if things measured by time either move or are at
rest, then whatever neither moves nor is at rest is not measured by
time. <The consequent> is the second and negative premiss of the
syllogism from which it was deduced that what is neither moving nor
at rest is not in time.

221b23 Plainly, then, neither will all of what is-not be in time.

25 Having said which beings are in time, i.e. all that move and are at
rest, and which are not, i.e. the things to which the <predicates>
contradictory to these <apply>, he now wants to prove this very
result for non-beings too, i.e. that whichever non-beings are imposs-
759,1 ible are not in time, and whichever are-not contingently are in time.

221b25 For in general, if time is measure of movement in itself

5 That impossibles are not in time he also shows by the following

<steps>: if time is measure of movement per se and of other things
incidentally, i.e. of the objects which are substrates of the move-
ment or the rest, and to be in time is to be measured by time, it follows
that whatever neither moves nor is at rest is not measured by time:
10 but impossibles fit that description, because they are immovably in
the <domain of> non-being; therefore they are not measured by time.
Consequently, they are not even incidentally in time. For the sub-
stances that are measured incidentally by time are all those that
either move or are at rest. Consequently, all those that possess
neither movement nor rest would not be measured by time even
15 incidentally. Nor, therefore, would they be incidentally in time.

221b31 Of the non-beings that time contains, some were, e,g.

Homer once upon a time, some will be, e.g. something in the
 Translation 67

future, <depending on> the direction in which it contains them;

and if it contains them in both directions, they both were and
will be.

<Here he states> that of all non-beings that are in time – ones which 20
are also contained by time, i.e.153 ones such that there is a time
greater than <that of> their non-being – some were and are no longer,
some will be and are not yet, and some both were and will be again.
With things that are past, time contains their non-being in accord-
ance with the past time during which they existed, whereas with
things that are future what contains <their non-being> is the future
time during which they will be.154 Thus <there is> time greater than 25
<that of> of their non-being: in the case of things which have already
occurred, the past <time> during which they existed is greater than
ever-occurring time in which they are not;155 and in the case of future
things, the future time in which they will be is greater than the time
in which they are not; while in the case of things that have occurred
and will be again, a time greater <than that> of their non-being
would contain them156 in either direction – the ones which have 30
already happened <would be contained>157 in virtue of the past 760,1
<time> during which they were, and the ones that will be in virtue of
the future time during which they will be. if in both directions,
both: i.e. if time contains their non-being both ways, both towards
the past and towards the future, then both, i.e. they both were before
and will be again.

222a2 Whichever <non-beings> it does not contain at all,158 5

neither were nor are nor will be.

I.e., the non-beings whose non-being time in no way contains, neither

in virtue of the past nor in virtue of the future, neither were before
nor are now nor will be hereafter. Which these are he signified by 10
saying <that they are> those whose contradictories always are,
such as the diagonal’s being incommensurate with the side. In other
words,159 given that this is always the case and is so of necessity, its
contradictory, i.e. the diagonal’s being commensurate with the side,
never is and it is impossible for it to be. So just as the diagonal’s being
incommensurate with the side is not in time because it is not con-
 68 Translation

15 tained by time in either direction but is the case through the whole
of time, so its opposite, which never obtains, does not have its
non-being in time because its non-obtaining stretches out along with
all time.

222a10 The now is what makes time continuous, as has been

said.

He now sets out to give separate consideration to the temporal terms,

20 <asking> what each signifies: for example, what is now, what is some
time,160 what is just-now, what is recently, what is long ago, what is
suddenly? He first discusses now, and says that now is in two senses,
instantaneous and broad. He first discusses the instantaneous now,
and says what he also said before: that the now, being one and the
25 same, is cause of both continuity and division of time. For when it is
taken as common boundary of both times, the past and the future, it
makes continuous by means of itself the different parts of time. For
he himself says in Book V, when defining the continuous, that
<something> is continuous if its parts are in contact at a common
boundary [227a10-17]. So if the now is the common boundary of the
761,1 parts of time, it would be what makes time continuous.
So: whenever it is taken as one both in substrate and in description
– I mean, as one common boundary – then it becomes what makes
time continuous; whereas when it is taken as one in substrate but not
5 one in description, <i.e.> as the end of one <part of time> and
beginning of the other, then it becomes a division of time. It is just as
with lines and their points. When in thought I take some point on the
line, if I take it simply as boundary of both the lines (so also the centre
of the circle is a common boundary of all the straight lines drawn
from it to the circumference), then the point is what makes the line
10 continuous; but when the point in question becomes subject of two
descriptions, e.g. if we think of the line as being cut, and the point is
end of one <part> and beginning of the other, then it divides the line.
So it is with the now too: if it is taken as having one description, that
of ‘common boundary’, it becomes what makes time continuous,
whereas when it is taken as having two descriptions it becomes what
15 divides time. But the now differs from the point in that the point can
 Translation 69

also be taken in actuality,161 whereas the now cannot. For the now
does not stay, but is always in flux.
Now in the broad sense is the vicinity of the instantaneous now.
E.g. ‘When did he come?’ ‘Now’, we say, because the time <of his
coming> is close to the instantaneous now; and similarly for the
future we say ‘He’ll come now’ because he will come today. But of 20
what happened long ago or will be in the distant future we do not say
that it happened or is going to be now. E.g. we do not say that the
events at Troy happened now, because much time has intervened;
nor do we say that what is going to be <only> after much time is going
to be now.
Some-time signifies a determinate time connected with the pre- 25
sent instantaneous now.162 It is said in respect of the past and in
respect of the future, and in both cases involves the present now as
one boundary. E.g. ‘When did the Trojan war happen?’ – we might
say ‘A thousand years ago’;163 and ‘When will the eclipse happen?’ –
we say (for some number n) ‘After n months’. So some-time (to pote)
is a particular determinate time connected with the present now, and
<is> when (hote) the thing happened. If that is what some-time is (a 30
particular determinate time, either past or future, connected with
the present instantaneous now), and there is no time that we actually
specify that is not some-time (whether we specify it on the side of the
past or on the side of the future), reason suggests that every time is
bounded. He therefore164 says: ‘Will time give out or not?’, and he says
that it will not give out [222a29-30; cf. 222b6-7]. For if some-time is 35
in each case given determination165 by two nows, and every now is
both beginning and end, time will never give out and it will always 762,1
be possible to specify <another> some-time. Hence time will never
give out.166 However, someone who does not regard time as everlast-
ing would not concede that every now is subject to the two
descriptions ‘beginning’ and ‘end’, but <would say> that there will be
a now that will be an end and not also a beginning.167 So <Aristotle> 5
establishes that time will not give out on the basis of movement.168 If
there is always movement, he says, necessarily there is always time
[222a29-30]. That there is always movement he tries to show in the
eighth book of this treatise; but he <actually> shows anything but
this, as we have demonstrated in our lectures on that book.169
 70 Translation

10 Just-now (êdê), he says, is what is close to the present instantane-

ous now, being either part of past time or of future <time>, since it is
said of both directions. E.g. when people ask ‘When is your walk?’ I
reply using ‘just-now’ because <the action> is not far removed from
the present now. In the case of the past we say “I’ve just-now walked’,
15 but no one says ‘just-now’ with reference to distant times; e.g. one
would not say that Troy has just-now been taken, nor that things
which are going to happen a long time ahead are just-now about to
happen. So what is the difference between just-now and now in the
broad sense? Well, I say that either the identical meaning is ex-
pressed by both words, or, if what is expressed is not identical and
the difference is of any importance, they will differ in respect of
20 quantity, in that the broad now is closer to the instantaneous now
than just-now is.
Recently, too, is close to now, but part of the past only, not of the
future. ‘When did he come?’ “Recently’ we say, because the time
<when he came> is close to the present now. By contrast, no Greek
applies ‘recently’ to the future – no one says ‘I shall recently wash
25 myself’; ‘I shall recently walk’ – but only to the past.
Long ago, he says, is what is far from the present. ‘The Trojan war
happened long ago’, <we say>, because it is at a great temporal
distance from the present.
Suddenly, he says, is said of what changes in a time too small to
perceive; e.g. we say that a storm has arisen suddenly when the
30 environment changes in a <very> short time, and because of the
shortness we are not aware of the change. ‘He has died suddenly’
because the critical moment was so brief that we were not aware of
the changeover from being to non-being; it was as if we saw <the
transition> from being to non-being immediately.

763,1 222a13 but not as obvious as it is with the point which stays put

The now is not as obvious <in its role of> both dividing time and
making it continuous as the point is <in its role of> making continu-
ous and dividing the line. The reason is that the point can stay put,
5 i.e. it can be taken in actuality, whereas the now, far from stopping,
is in flux.
 Translation 71

222a14 But it divides potentially

He says potentially in place of in thought. Hence the division of

time is in thought. For the now does not divide time potentially
either, since <in that case> it would also divide it in actuality. As
things are, time is one and continuous, being divisible only in 10
thought.

222a14 and in so far as this is true of it, the now is always

different

I.e. in so far as it divides. For insofar as it divides it is subject of two

descriptions, that of ‘end’ and that of ‘beginning’ (since its being end
of the past is one thing, and its being beginning of the future
another), whereas insofar as it makes the past and the future con- 15
tinuous it is one and the same not only in substrate but also in
description, for it is regarded as common boundary of both. Bring to
mind, if you will, two ants that have travelled from the two ends of
the line and both terminate their movement at one and the same
point: the point at which the movements have been terminated is a 20
sort of common boundary and terminus of both movements. This
illustrates the way in which the now, if we do not take it in simple
terms as having two descriptions170 but as having a single one, that
of ‘boundary <of past and future>’, is what makes time continuous.

222a15 just as with mathematical lines, in so far as what is

always the same point is, if we divide in thought, always
different and different, whereas in so far as it is one it is the
same in every way171 25

I.e., <it is> just as in mathematics: suppose that in thought we take

a certain point on the line, this being always a single one (it is single 764,1
through being taken in thought and not in actuality) – when we take
it as dividing the line, we take it as different and different in
description, whereas when <we take it> as not dividing it but as
having one and the same description in relation to both parts of the 5
line, it becomes one not only in substrate but also in description. Just
 72 Translation

so, then, when we take the now in thought: if we regard it as having

two descriptions it becomes a division of time, but if as having one
description <it becomes> what makes for continuity.
10 (In some <copies> there is also this wording: insofar as it is one,
to that extent the point is always the same,172 i.e. so far as the
point is one not only in substrate but also in description, the point
being one in that way becomes what makes for continuity of the line:
whereas if we divide in thought it is always different and
different: i.e. we make this one point different and different in
description when we divide the line in thought.)
whereas in so far as it is one, it is the same in every way
15 [222a17]. This recapitulates what was said before: that when we take
it as one in every way, it has the same description and makes the line
continuous. For the division and the synthesis173 are the same
thing and in virtue of the same thing [222a19-20]. For with the
point taken in thought, the division and the synthesis are the same
in substrate. For it is the same thing that, according to a different
and different conception, is thought either as divided or as united.
20 and in virtue of the same: i.e. in virtue of one and the same point,
since it is this [sc. the point] that through itself either unifies or
divides the line, being taken differently and differently.

222a21 <Now has> another <sense> when the time <thus

referred to> is near the former.

I.e., the broad now is a certain time near the instantaneous now, both
in the direction of past time and in that of future time; but neither
25 what happened long ago, e.g. the events at Troy, nor what will be in
the distant future, e.g. a cataclysm (if there is going to be one), is said
to have happened or to happen now (even though the time <stretch-
ing> to them is continuous), because they are not close to the instan-
taneous now.174

222a24 Some-time is time determined in relation to the former

now

Some-time, he says, is a time determined by two nows, the present

 Translation 73

one and the one in which the thing has happened or will be. E.g. 30
‘When was Troy taken?’ ‘A thousand years ago’, we say, determining 765,1
this time at both ends by the long ago now when Troy was taken and
by the present one. Similarly, we say that there will be an eclipse
after a given amount of time, again determining the time at both
ends by the present now and by the future one at which the eclipse
will be. In saying determined in relation to the former now he 5
prompts us to supply ‘and in relation to the later one’, since the
former now is prior to a posterior one; but prior and posterior vary in
how they are understood: with the some-time of the past, the now at
which the thing happened is prior whereas the present is posterior,
but with <that of> the future it is the reverse: the present now is prior
whereas the future one at which the thing will be is posterior.175 10

222a27 So there will be a particular quantity of time from

this176 to that <event>

For if some-time must be characterized by limitation in relation to

the now (I mean the present one), it follows that there belongs to this
time177 a particular determinate quantity measured from the present
to that <some-time>. So it was correctly said that some time is a
determinate time [cf. 222a24-5].

222a28 But if there is no time that is not a some-time, every 15

time would be bounded.178

For if ‘some-time’ is said about every time (for every time is in the
past and the future, and some-time is in these), and some-time is
characterized by limitation, then every time, too, is characterized by
limitation. On this basis he also raises the difficulty: if every time is
characterized by limitation, will time fail or not? For the fact that
every <time> is bounded will make it seem that <time> too gives out. 20
On the contrary: although every specified time is bounded, still if
movement (time being its number) is everlasting, <time> too must be
everlasting. So is it (he says) numerically one and the same time or
one only in kind? And he says that as it is with movement, so it is
with time. If <movement> is numerically one and the same, so is
 74 Translation

25 time, and if it is one only in kind, time too is one only in kind. He
brings out the answer as if it depends on a supposition, but the truth
is obvious: time is one only in kind, not numerically, because the
same is true also of movement.179

222a33 Since the now is end and beginning of time

766,1 If the now is end of the past and beginning of the future, it would be
in the same situation as the circle is in relation to convex and concave.
Its line in respect of one and the same substrate is both convex and
concave according to different aspects. So if the now is like this, and
<being> one and the same is both beginning and end – beginning of
5 one thing and end of another – time will never fail, since any given
limit of time will be the beginning of another time. (For it is impossi-
ble that one and the same now be beginning and end of the same time,
since in that case opposites would obtain together and in the same
respect.) So if this is how it is with the now,180 time will always be at
a beginning; hence it will not give out.

10 222b7 Just-now <refers to> the part of future time that is near
the present indivisible now [and to the part of past time which
is near the present now]

<He says> that just-now <refers to> a part of either past or future
time that is near the instantaneous now. Of something that is distant
from it, one does not say ‘just-now’.

15 222b12 Recently too <refers to> a certain part of past time181

We have already said how these differ from each other: the broad
now, and just-now, and recently. Long ago too <refers to> part of past
20 time, but that which is far from the instantaneous now, not what is
near it.

222b14 Suddenly <refers to> what has departed from its former
condition in a time imperceptible because of its smallness.
 Translation 75

For when (a) a change occurs from something to something and (b)
because the time is so short we are not aware of its <taking place>,
we say that such a thing changed suddenly: e.g. a spark smouldering 25
away imperceptibly among the dry sticks makes the whole forest go
up in a blaze. Because we do not notice the change <going on> far
within, we say that the forest has caught fire suddenly.

222b16 but it is the nature of all change to shift things from 767,1
their former condition

Since he said [222b15] ‘shifted from its former condition’ when he

should have said ‘changed from’, he therefore adds here ‘I said
“shifted from its former condition” because every change shifts things
from their former condition’.

222b16 It is in time that all things come into being and pass
away

Having already said it earlier [221a30-b2], he now states more 5

articulately how it is that everything is said to pass away because of
time. He reports that while some among the ancients used to call
time the wisest of all things, the Pythagorean Paron (<Aristotle>
says) shed a truer [222b19] light on it when he said that time is the
stupidest because time tends to generate forgetfulness. For if time is
a sort of change or at any rate an attribute of change, and every 10
change by nature shifts things from their former condition, it makes
sense that time should be cause of shifting-from rather than of
coming to be. True as it is that shifting from a given form is accom-
panied by coming to be of another form, this is so incidentally. For
change qua change simply shifts <a thing> away from something; the
shift from a given form is incidentally accompanied by <coming to be
of> another form because of the efficient cause that uses the change 15
as its instrument, but the change considered in itself brings about
nothing but a shift from the pre-existing form.182 In itself, then,
change is cause of perishing, and incidentally of coming to be.

222b22 A sufficient indication of this is that nothing comes into

 76 Translation

20 being without itself somehow undergoing movement and doing

something [but a thing perishes even without undergoing move-
ment at all].

It is, he says, sufficient evidence that time is in itself cause rather

of perishing and of coming into being <only> incidentally, that for
every coming into being there is a determinate efficient cause, e.g.
human of human, house-builder of house, and so on. The point is: it
25 is impossible for anything to come into being without its undergoing
movement and changing, and everything that undergoes movement
is moved by some motive cause; hence whatever comes into being
comes into being through the agency of some cause – I mean through
the agency of that which induces movement and change. (And be-
cause what is coming into being undergoes movement, and every
movement is measured in respect of time, time is said incidentally to
be cause of coming into being.) Consequently, in every case of coming
into being one can see the cause since that which comes to be
30 necessarily always undergoes movement, whereas in some cases of
768,1 perishing one cannot see any efficient cause other than time alone.
For a house might fall apart through dilapidation due solely to time,
and so too a cloak and things of that sort will perish even though, far
from there occurring any apparent movement in their vicinity, they
are under fixed and stable conditions; so that we have no other
5 apparent cause apart from time to which to assign the causation of
their perishing. It is in response to ordinary parlance and to there not
being any obvious cause to which to assign the causation of the
perishing, that Aristotle says the above, since he himself has imme-
diately added that time is not primarily cause of any perishing, in the
words: still, even this change is not the product of time; in-
stead, this change too occurs in time incidentally [222b25-7].
10 So what is the efficient cause of the perishing? We say that it is not
the nature of matter to sustain the forms forever; and it is not its
nature to sustain them forever because it has the potentialities of all
of them, and it must be actual in respect of every potentiality in it if
it is not going to have its potentialities in vain. So that is why it is
such as not to be able to support one and the same form forever: so
15 that it may be actual in respect of the other potentialities too. This,
then, in the first place, is what causes perishing; and, besides, there
 Translation 77

is <the principle> that things that come into being have limited
potentiality.183 For just as there is a determinate measure of growth
such that the nature <of a thing> stops on reaching it, so too each
entity has its determinate measure of existence such that things
perish when they reach it. Thus the efficient cause of things’ perish-
ing is that none of them has infinite potentiality. 20

222b30 These distinctions having been drawn, it is evident

that, necessarily, every change is <in time> and everything that
undergoes movement undergoes movement in time.184

Having discussed the temporal terms, he now sets out some difficul-
ties that belong to the discussion of time – except that first he now
proves what he has just stated, i.e. that all movement is in time. He 25
proves it by this sort of syllogism (A): all movement has the prior and
the posterior [the minor premiss]; the prior and the posterior are in
time [the major premiss]; therefore all movement is in time. Or he
also <proves it> in the third figure185 as follows (B): the prior and the
posterior are in time; the prior and the posterior are in movement;
therefore movement is in time. He proves each of the premisses, the 30
minor [of A] as follows: all movement has faster and slower; the faster 769,1
and the slower have the prior and the posterior (for, we say, the faster
is prior in arriving at the end-point, the slower is posterior); therefore
every movement has the prior and the posterior. (When we say that
all movement has the faster and the slower we are not talking about 5
movement case by particular case, but about the kind movement in
itself.) I mean that the faster and the slower are in the totality of
locomotion as a totality, and within locomotion they are in the
totality of circular locomotion as a totality. For some circular locomo-
tions are of swift velocity, others of slow velocity; and it is the same 10
with the other <kinds of movement>.186 That, then, is how he proves
the minor premiss [of A]. He proves the major premiss [of A] too, as
follows: the prior and the posterior are judged in terms of their degree
of remove from the now (for it is by being closer to the now or further
from it that one item is said to be prior and another posterior); but
degree of remove from the now, he says, is in time – since if the now
is in time, degree of remove from the now will also be in time: for what 15
 78 Translation

is it to be at a remove from the now if not to be at a distance from it

in respect of time? So: if the prior and posterior are judged in terms
of remove from the now, and degree of remove from the now is in time,
it follows that the prior and posterior are in time too.187
The prior and the posterior, he says, are said in opposite ways with
20 respect to past and future time. In the case of past time we apply
‘prior’ to what is further removed from the now, and ‘posterior’ to
what is closer to the now (e.g. we say that the Trojan war was prior
to the Peloponnesian war), whereas in the case of the future it is the
other way round: we apply ‘prior’ to what is closer to the now and
‘posterior’ to what is further from it. E.g. we say that the digestive
process that occurs in the stomach is prior to that which occurs in the
liver.
25 Having said this much he next lays out two difficulties that belong
to the discussion of time. (1) In what way is time related to soul? Is
it the case that if soul were not, time would not be either, or is it
possible for time to be even if soul were removed? And (2) How is it
that time is everywhere, on the earth, in the sea, and in the heaven?
He solves the second difficulty first, by saying: <time is every-
30 where> because time is measure of movement, and these things –
heaven, earth, and sea – are all subject to movement. Since, then,
these are subject to movement and time is number of movement,
obviously these are measured by time. Thus it makes sense that time
is said to be in all these, since whether they are moving or at rest, no
matter what, both their movement and their rest are measured by
time. So just as I say that the day is everywhere188 – not because the
day is a concomitant of the movement or the rest of these things, but
770,1 because the day is the measure of the movement and the rest of all
things – in the same way we say that time too is everywhere. For the
day is a given time. Time has its definition and its being from the first
of the movements, as has been stated at several points.
As for the second difficulty, the question of how time is related to
5 soul – if there is no soul that numbers, is there time or not? – he meets
it as follows. If time is number of movement (number that is num-
bered, not that numbers), and it is absolutely necessary that if that
which numbers were not, then the numbered would not be either (for
these are correlatives, I mean what numbers and what is numbered),
 Translation 79

and that if what is numbered were not, the number would not be
either: it follows of absolute necessity that if soul were not, there
would not be number either. For what does the numbering is nothing 10
other than soul: not all soul, but rational soul. So if soul were
removed, that which numbers would be removed too; and if that
which numbers were removed, the numerable would be removed too;
and if the numerable were removed, the number would be removed
too; and if the number were removed, time would be removed too. So
if the soul were removed, time would be too. But in response to this 15
someone will say: if saying ‘numerable’ and <saying> ‘number’ were
the same, it would indeed be absolutely necessary that if the soul
were removed, the numerable would be removed, and that if the
latter were removed, time too <would be removed>; but as things are,
saying ‘number’ and ‘numerable’ are not the same. So what rules it
out that although time as numerable is removed if soul is removed, 20
still <time> as number is not removed? For the decad of the stones
as something numerable is removed if soul is removed, but as num-
ber it is not. For the decad of the stones has being, even if soul does
not. However (he says) if it is a general truth that with all soul being
removed all movement too would be removed [cf. 223a27], and with
all movement being removed, time too would be removed – at least if 25
time is an attribute of movement – it follows by absolute necessity
that with soul being universally removed, time too would be re-
moved. For with soul removed, not only are the movements that come
about through the agency of soul removed along with it, but so too
are the physical ones such as those of heavy objects and those of light
ones.189 For the cosmos would be no cosmos if the circular movement
is removed, and that is removed if soul is removed. It was therefore 30
rightly said that if soul is removed, time too is removed. Moreover,
this holds not only of all soul without distinction, but of rational
soul too, since if rational soul is not, the non-rational soul too is
not – at any rate if the rational is naturally prior to the non-rational.
Besides, if it has been shown to be an absolute necessity that
before other-moved beings, i.e. bodies,190 there are self-moving 771,1
ones, and that before beings that move in time191 there are ever-
moving ones, and that before all moving things without distinction
there are the immovable causes, i.e. souls: then it is clearly an
 80 Translation

absolute necessity that if these are removed all movement is re-

moved.192

222b31 for the faster and the slower apply to all change

5 I have said in what way he means that the faster and the slower
apply to all change: i.e. not to each one by one, numerically speaking,
but to every change generically speaking, e.g. to locomotion, and
within this to circular movement. However, with things that come
10 into being and pass away, one can also see faster and slower in their
individual changes.

222b33 In the phrase ‘moving faster’ I refer to that which

changes before another into the condition in question, when it
moves over the same interval and with regular movement

By condition in question he means the end-point towards which

15 the movement tends. So what arrives at the end-point prior to
<something else>, moving with uniform movement, is what moves
faster, provided that the interval is the same. He was right to add
when it moves with uniform movement, for if it moves non-uni-
formly, moving now quicker now slower, it would not be possible to
make the distinction.

223a2 e.g. in the case of locomotion, if both things move along

20 the circumference of a circle, or both along a straight line193

The interval must be the same not only in quantity but also in
quality. For if one object moves along a straight line and the other
along a circumference of equal magnitude, the one moving along the
circumference may, although really faster-moving, arrive at the end-
point later. For what moves along the circumference is impeded by
25 the bend. This is shown by horses racing, for they can be seen moving
more slowly on the bend.194 and similarly in all other cases: e.g.
movement along a helix. In terms of speed, a thing does not move in
the same way along the helix as it does along the straight line.
 Translation 81

222b30-1 it is evident that, necessarily, every change is <in 772,1

time> and everything that undergoes movement undergoes
movement in time

Having stated the conclusion he wishes to prove, he does not first

state the premisses by which it is deduced: instead, he first proves
each of them, and then, having proved them, assembles the whole
syllogism [S1]. First he proves its minor premiss, i.e. the one that 5
says ‘the prior and the posterior are in all change’. He proves it by
the following syllogism [S2]: in every movement there is the faster
and the slower; the faster and the slower are prior and posterior;195
therefore the prior and the posterior are in every movement. the
faster and the slower apply to all change is the minor premiss 10
[of S2]. I mean that which changes before another into the
condition in question when it moves over the same interval
and with uniform movement: this is the major <premiss> [of S2].
If the faster is what changes before, obviously the slower is what
changes after.

223a4 But what is prior is in time 15

<This is> the major premiss of the whole syllogism [S1] by which it
is proved that every movement is in time. That prior and posterior
are in time he proves next.

223a5 for we say ‘prior’ and ‘posterior’ with reference to the

remove from the now 20

That the prior and the posterior are in time he proves by means of
the following:

223a6 the now is the boundary of the past and the future

If the now is the boundary of the parts of time, it follows that the now
is in time.
 82 Translation

773,1 223a8 for in that in which the now is, the degree of remove from
the now will also be

Given that the now is in time, he shows how the prior and the
posterior are in time too, as follows. Since (he says) in that in which
the now is, the distancing from the now would also be (for what is at
5 a distance from the now is at a distance from it in respect of time), it
follows that if the prior and posterior are judged by reference to the
degree of remove from the now, and the degree of remove from the
now is in time because so is the now, therefore the prior and the
posterior too will be in time.

223a8 ‘prior’ is used contrariwise with reference to past and to

future time

10 He said that the prior and the posterior are judged by the degree of
remove from the now; but this <formulation> was indeterminate. For
nor can one speak in an unqualified way of what is at a nearer or
further remove from the now, as this gives different results for past
and for future time. For this reason he makes precisely that distinc-
tion [at 223a8-13].

15 223a13 So that since the prior is in time, and every movement

involves a prior

He now concisely brings together the most important premisses of

the syllogism [S1]. In every movement, he says, there is prior and
posterior; prior and posterior are in time; therefore every movement
is in time.

20 223a17 It is also worth considering how time can be related to

the soul

Here he starts to lay out the difficulties mentioned above.

223a17 and why time is thought to be in everything

 Translation 83

This is the second difficulty.

223a18 It is because it is an attribute, or state, of movement 774,1

<This is> the solution of the second difficulty. If, he says, time is a
sort of state or attribute of movement, since it is number of it, and
all these are subject to movement – I mean heaven, earth, sea, and
the rest – it makes sense that time is in them all. 5

223a19 all these things are subject to movement (for they are
all in place)

That all these things are subject to movement, I mean heaven, earth,
sea, and the rest, is clear, he says, from the fact that they are in place
– as if from things’ being in place it immediately follows, with no
restriction, that they are subject to movement too. Of course, he says,
the way in which being in place applies to each of them determines 10
the way in which being subject to movement applies. For what is
potentially in place is potentially subject to movement too, and what
is in place in actuality is subject to movement in actuality.196 Simi-
larly:197 what is in place in terms of its whole self is also subject to
movement in terms of its whole self, and what is in place by parts is
also subject to movement by parts. But this is completely false even
on the basis of the very views held by Aristotle. For certainly the 15
spheres within the sphere of the fixed stars are in place in terms of
their whole selves, but even so they do not move in terms of their
whole selves;198 and the earth is in place in terms of its whole self, but
even so does not move in terms of its whole self. For it alters part by
part, even if an incidental result is that at some point it is all altered.
A parallel: although all its parts undergo coming into being and
perishing, it is not said itself to be perishing in terms of its whole self, 20
but <to be so> part by part; just so, although they all undergo
alteration, it would not be said to alter as a whole, but part by part.
Well, when Aristotle said that place and movement are together,
both in respect of potentiality and in respect of actuality, i.e.
if place is potentially, movement too is potentially, and if in actuality,
movement too is in actuality, he did not add ‘and if the place as a 25
 84 Translation

whole or by parts, so also the movement’, but his interpreters say

that he did, given that being in place is either as a whole or by parts.
Thus if the way things are in place determines the way they are
775,1 subject to movement, given that they are in place as wholes or part
by part they would be subject to movement in those ways. That is
what I say on that point; but the general statement that what is in
place is immediately therefore subject to movement should not be
understood in a way that renders place the unrestricted cause of
5 movement, but as <saying that> being subject to movement unre-
strictedly follows from being in place.199
Next he sets out the second difficulty and solves it.200

223a24 number is either what has been, or what can be, num-
bered

Number, he says, is nothing other than what is numbered, poten-

tially or in actuality. For it has been said that number is in two
senses: <number> that numbers201 and <number> that is numbered;
and it is obvious that each of them is either potentially or in actuality.
10 So here he says of numbered number that it is potentially or in
actuality. Thus if what can be numbered were removed, number too
would be removed; and what can be numbered is removed if that
which numbers, i.e. the soul, is removed.

223a26 but only that by being which time is, i.e. if movement
15 can exist without soul

If soul is removed (he says), time is removed along with it. For it is
not possible for time to be without soul, unless <the same is true of>
the substrate of time, i.e. movement. But in saying if movement can
exist without time he indicates that movement too is removed if
soul is removed.

20 223a28 the prior and posterior occur in movement, and time is

these in so far as they are numerable

Since he said ‘it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul,
 Translation 85

but only that by being which time is’, i.e. the substrate of time (for
just this is signified by ‘by being which’), and movement is the 25
substrate of time, he did not want to argue for precisely this point
again here, namely that movement is substrate to time. For the prior
and posterior, he says, occur in movement, and time is nothing other 776,1
than the prior and posterior that occur in movement in so far as
they are numerable. Thus if time is the prior and the posterior in
movement, with the prior and posterior being in movement as in a
substrate, time too in this way would be in movement.

223a29 One might also raise the question what sort of move- 5
ment is time the number of.

To the aforesaid questions about time he adds some further ones.

First: if time is number of movement, and there are many kinds of
movement – growth, diminution, alteration, coming into being and
perishing – what sort of movement is time number of? He says that 10
it is number of every <sort of> movement in so far as they are
movements. For it is not in so far as growth is growth that time has
the role of its measure, nor in so far as alteration is alteration;
instead, it is in so far as each of these is movement that it is measured
by time. So time functions as measure of every movement. It meas-
ures each of them simply as a distancing. Thus they are measured by 15
time in virtue of what is common in them, not of what is peculiar.
To this question he next adds another one, as follows [223b1-2]:
since it is possible for two movements to occur together (for while one
object is moving in respect of place, another in the same time may be
undergoing alteration, or one may be moving in a circle, another in a
straight line), are there two times, each movement being measured 20
by its own time, or does one and the same time function as measure
of several movements? Well, he says that one and the same time
functions as measure of the movements that take place together. And
there is nothing strange about this. Just as the number in the soul,
which is one and the same, e.g. ten (hê dekas), measures the external
tens (dekades) such as <the ten> of horses and of human beings and
of stones, etc., and just as the pint which is one and the same 25
measures wine and water and all liquids – the reason being that it is
 86 Translation

not qua being of such and such a character that each of them is
measured in this way, but qua being of some quantity or other – so
too time, which is one and the same, functions as measure of several
movements that are equal and occur together. For if the movements
are not equal, but one is greater, another lesser, then in virtue of the
30 fact that one of the times is greater, it is not equal to the other. And
if they are equal but not together, for this reason too they are not
777,1 numerically the same. However, even times that are not together are
the same in kind: e.g. today is the same as tomorrow in kind.202
He now asks [cf. 223b12ff.]: if time is measure of the circular
movement, and things that are measured are each measured by a
5 measure homogeneous with it (for the ten horses are measured by the
single horse and the ten humans by the single human, and similarly
the ten cubit-piece of wood by the cubit-long part of itself), time too,
being numerable, must be numbered by means of a time. So what is
this time whereby all time is numbered? He first makes a start on
the solution to this with what he already said earlier [220b14-16]:
10 that time not only measures movement but movement also measures
time; and that some movements are non-uniform (such as those that
occur in the realm of coming into being and perishing), while others
are uniform (such as the <movements> of the spheres), and of the
latter some are faster, some slower. For while one of them has a
period from the same to the same in thirty years, another in twelve,
15 and another in a year, and others in other intervals, one is faster and
more easily cognized than all the others, namely the movement of the
sphere of the fixed stars, which has its period <back> to the same in
twenty-four hours (I mean the day-night span). So: since the measure
is what is both smallest and most easily cognized, it makes sense that
the time defined by this movement, I mean one day (i.e. the day-night
20 span), should be the homogeneous measure whereby all time is
numbered. For we say that a month is 30 revolutions of the sphere of
the fixed stars, and a year is 365, and in general every <unit of> time
arises through some pluralization203 of the day. First, then, move-
ment defines the smallest measure of time,204 and then by means of
25 this all time gets numbered. And just as we have measured the cubit
into digits,205 different people doing it in different ways – some into
22, some into 24, yet others into 28 – so we have split the day-night
 Translation 87

period into many parts; e.g. in the case of us <Greeks> into 24, which
we have called ‘hours’. Although one can divide these too indefinitely,
we do so with reference to these, just as the half digit or a third or
tenth of a digit is determined by reference to the digit. In the same 30
way, then, the half-hour time-length and the other fractions are
determined by reference to the hour. However, among movement in
general, the one that is shortest and easy to cognize is the revolution
of the sphere of the fixed stars. The measure that consists in this is
the day, and then by means of this various times are measured: week,
month, year, and the other divisions of time.
Because of this, he says [223b21-3], some of the ancients thought 35
that the circular motion of the heaven is time, i.e. because time is 778,1
determined by means of this. For the time-measure is marked off by
means of this, and every other movement is measured by this <move-
ment>, since it measures206 and defines the time that is the
measuring-unit for all movement. So the basis for defining time is
what <those people> believed to be time.
He next shows that the things commonly and customarily said 5
about time fit the theory of time that he has stated [223b23-33].
People say that human affairs are a circle because it is by time that
they are measured and determined as having their beginning and
end: e.g. periods of health and illness, of prosperity and misfortune,
war and peace. These all come round again after each other and take
over from each other as if in a sort of circle. So: since these events are 10
picked out in terms of time, and time seems to be a sort of circle,
people therefore say that the events themselves are a circle; and they
say that time itself is a circle because it is measure of the circular
movement and is measured by the circular movement. Thus, he says,
saying that human affairs form a circle is nothing other than saying 15
that time is a sort of circle; and saying that time is a sort of circle is
nothing other than saying that time is measured by circular motion.
Next: earlier on, when stating that one and the same time has the
function of measuring different movements, he supported the point
by the consideration that also in the case of numbers one and the
same number, e.g. ten (hê dekas), may function as measure of differ-
ent numerables, e.g. ten (deka) horses and ten human beings 20
[223b4-7]. Now, therefore, he wants to show how one and the same
 88 Translation

number measures differences of substance; and at the same time he

provides a criterial rule enabling us to tell when things which have
something predicated commonly of them do share with each other in
just what it is that is predicated and are without difference in that
25 respect, and when they are not without difference in respect of what
is predicated commonly of them.207
Accordingly, he says [224a2ff.] that when things which have one
thing predicated of them differ from each other in the differentiating
respect that what is predicated has within itself,208 then what is
predicated commonly of them is not one and the same; whereas when
the things which have something common predicated of them do not
30 differ from each other in the differentiating respect that belongs to
what is predicated, what is commonly predicated of them is one and
the same. E.g. (he says) figure is predicated of triangle and circle; but
since triangle and circle differ from each other in the differentiating
respect whereby what is predicated is divided – for the differentiae of
figure are bounded by straight lines and bounded by a curved line,
779,1 and in this way triangle differs from circle – for this reason what is
predicated commonly of them is not the same. I.e.: if it is said that
the triangle is (a)209 figure, and so is the circle: still, figure is one
<thing> and another <thing> in the two cases. For bounded by a
curved line is added to figure predicated of the circle, and bounded by
5 rectilinear lines to <figure predicated> of the triangle, thereby mak-
ing one of them (a) figure bounded by straight lines, and the other (a)
<figure> bounded by a curved line; and these are different from each
other. If, however, I take two triangles, the equilateral and the
scalene, figure which is commonly predicated of them is one and the
same for both, because they do not differ from each other in the
differentiating respect that belongs to what is predicated. For the
10 differentiae of figure qua figure are bounded by straight lines and
bounded by a curved line, and the equilateral and the scalene do not
differ from each other in this way, since both are bounded by straight
lines. So, as I said, one and the same figure is predicated of both;
however, it is not also the case that one and the same triangle is
predicated of both, for they differ from each other in the differentiat-
15 ing respect that belongs to what is predicated. Isosceles and scalene
are differentiae of triangle, and by these differentiae the two trian-
 Translation 89

gles differ from each other. So it is not the case that one and the same
triangle is predicated of both. That is the rule.210
In response to the rule one might see a difficulty in what Aristotle
himself everywhere tells us.211 How, <given the rule>, are genera
synonymously predicated of the species, even though the species 20
differ from each other by the differentiating respect belonging to
what is predicated? E.g. animal has <the divisions> rational and
non-rational, yet even so animal is predicated synonymously of man
and of horse; thus one and the same animal is predicated of both. Yet
according to what we have just been saying, if the same animal is not
predicated of man and of horse for the reason that they differ from 25
each other in the differentiating respect belonging to what is predi-
cated, it would not be predicated of them synonymously. So here
perhaps he did not treat the predicated <entities> as genera, nor
simply as more212 universal and remote in definition from each
particular subject213 (which is how it is with things that by a common
term are said to belong in all the <subjects> and to have their being
in many). <Perhaps> instead <he was dealing with> the things that
have a common essence yet belong to each <subject> in a way 30
peculiar <to each>, and have their real existence in the particulars
}214 about animal in me and <animal> in this horse. These are not
really the same; however, things that are said to be predicated as
genera do not have an existential grounding peculiar to them: in-
stead, it is our conception that focuses on something in common in all
<the cases> and considers it as a single something when really and
in itself it is not so at all, as he himself has said. The universal, he
says, is either nothing or it is posterior [DA I, 402b5-8]. Our 35
thought separated (so to speak) this common feature from the
co-existing attributes (e.g. animal from rational and non-rational, 780,1
from mortal and immortal), and in conception focused on it itself
by itself (not that it exists by itself), and gave it a universal name
and focused on it as a sort of single nature. In this way it does
predicate it synonymously of all the others. If, however, you focus
on the animal that is present in each and exists in reality, since 5
this is either rational or non-rational, the <animal> in the horse
would not be the same in essence as the one in me, whereas the
human species that is in Socrates is the same in essence as in Plato,
 90 Translation

because neither of them215 is combined with a differentia that sepa-

rates it from the other.
Here, then, on the <question of> the common essence that has real
10 existence, and has its existence as a whole in each of the particular
cases, he says that those subjects that differ from one another by
some difference that belongs to what is predicated commonly of them
– a difference that belongs to the genus itself – are not the same in
terms of what is predicated; whereas with those that do not differ
from each other by this <type of> difference, what is predicated is one
and the same in essence.216
15 So, then, too with the ten horses and ten asses and stones: since
they do not differ from each other in the differentiating respect that
belongs to what is predicated (i.e. the <ten (hê dekas)> in the horses
is not a different form of ten from the <ten> in the men), therefore
what belongs to them in common and measures them, <i.e.> the
<number> ten (hê dekas), is one and the same, and they do not differ
at all from each other in terms of the form of ten. Consequently, even
20 if they are measured by the ten, and this is one and the same in them
all, it follows that the different <groups> – I mean the ten (deka)
horses and the ten men and the ten stones, etc. – are measured by
what is one and the same. For <they are measured by> the form of
ten (hê dekas), which has its being primarily in soul: which is why it
is regarded as one in respect of the number of its substrate (i.e. the
soul), this being always one and the same.217

25 223a30 of any kind

The solution to the first question [cf. 223a20-30] <is> that time is
number of movement without qualification: not of this or that <move-
ment>, but without qualification of every movement in so far as it is
movement.

223a33 And so it is simply number of continuous movement, not

of any particular kind of it.

30 He was right to add continuous, as time is measure of continuous

movement. However, if <we grant that> movements are distinct and
 Translation 91

plural, e.g. alteration and growth and locomotion, or a multiplicity of

locomotions, time is not suitable for measuring their plurality; 781,1
rather, the numerical unit is. For as the unit, and not time, measures
the ten horses and the ten stones, time does not measure the many
movements as many. Number, that is to say the unit, does that.
However, time does measure each movement in itself, single as each 5
is and continuous, by measuring the prior and the posterior in it.

223b1 But something else as well may have been moved now

From this point on <we have> the second difficulty [cf. 223b1-4],
<which is> that while one thing moves something else may also move
in the same time; hence time is number of each movement. So, he
says, is the time different for each movement, and for the two
movements will there also be two equal times together, or not? His 10
answer is that time that would measure movements that are equal
and occur together, is one.

223b4 for if there were dogs and horses, and seven of each, it
would be the same number

This is an illustration of how the same measure can measure several

objects together, given that they are equal. So just as the seven 15
horses and the seven dogs have one and the same number to measure
them, the <number> seven (hê heptas), so one and the same time can
measure the equal movements.

223b7 yet one may in fact be fast and the other not, and one
may be locomotion and the other alteration

Just as in the example the measured objects were not the same, one 20
lot being horses, the other dogs, while that which measures is one
and the same, so too in the case of time the movements measured by
the same time <may be> different both in the very species of move-
ment and in the fact that one of them is faster, the other slower.
Suppose in the same time, <e.g.> in the course of one day, a horse and
a sheep move at their fastest: the time that measures these move- 25
 92 Translation

ments, unequal in speed as they are, is one and the same – the one
day.

782,1 223b10 and for this reason, while the movements are different
and separate, the time is everywhere the same, because the
number of things that are equal and together is the same

5 Since time can measure movements that occur together and over the
same time, and in the same <time> something may move in earth, in
heaven, and anywhere, it follows that time is everywhere one and the
same, whereas the things measured by it are separate from each
other. For things that are equal in number, too, wherever they are,
have the same number for their measure.

10 223b12 Since there is such a thing as locomotion, and in loco-

motion there is included circular movement and each thing is
numbered by some one thing homogeneous with it

Another difficulty: if each thing is measured by some measure homo-

geneous <with it>, what is the homogeneous measure whereby time
is measured? The sequence of the argument is as follows. Since there
is such a thing as locomotion, and in locomotion there is included
15 circular movement, and each thing is measured by some one, mini-
mal, homogeneous entity, e.g. ten horses by the one horse, a one-hun-
dred cubit piece of wood by the cubit-length piece, the time that is
measure of movement must likewise be measured by something
homogeneous and minimal. Since, then, the circular movement is a
minimal measure of movement, and not only is movement measured
20 by time but also time by movement, it is clear that the time that is
measured by the smallest movement218 will be the homogeneous
measure of the whole of time. And this is the day-night period. By
this are measured week, month, year, and every <period of> time.
and each thing is measured by some one thing homogeneous
with it. For even if each is primarily measured by <something>
25 heterogeneous, all the same it is also measured by <something>
homogeneous, <i.e.> that which is primarily measured by what is
heterogeneous.219
 Translation 93

223b16 this is so [i.e. time is measured by movement as well as

movement by time [223b15-16]] because by the time of the
defined movement is measured the quantity both of movement
and of time220

He states in what way movement and time measure reciprocally. It

is, he says, because the movement primarily defined by time221 is 783,1
measure both of all movement and of time. For the time defined by
this <movement> is measure of every time. So if the movement
defined by time is measure both of movement and of time, it is clear
that time and movement measure reciprocally. 5

223b18 if, then, what is first is the measure of everything

homogeneous with it, regular circular movement is measure
above all else

If, he says, what is first in each domain is measure of what is

homogeneous with it, given that the absolutely first movement is the
uniform circular movement, this would be time’s measure par excel- 10
lence. For by this is defined the primary time that is measure of every
time.

223b19 because the number of this is the most cognizable

There are, he says, two grounds on which the revolution of the sphere
of the fixed stars is shown to be measure of all other movements. The
movement must be both minimal and most easily cognized, and both 15
<conditions> hold of the circular locomotion of the sphere of the fixed
stars. For of all <movements>222 it is far and away both smallest and
most cognizable. <That sphere’s> revolution is the night-day, which
is most easily cognized by everyone. It is uniform but not uniquely
so, since <uniformity> is distinctive of every <celestial> revolution,
whereas being minimal and most easily cognized belongs above all to
that one.

223b21 This is also why time is thought to be the movement of 20

the sphere
 94 Translation

Because, he says, all the other movements are measured by the

revolution of the sphere of the fixed stars in the way that has been
explained, the ancients therefore thought that time is just this: the
revolution of the sphere. Because time is measured by this, they
surmised that time is just this.

25 223b23 This also explains the common saying that human

affairs are a circle

I.e., shared human custom confirms this <conclusion>: that the

circular locomotion is measure both of time and of every movement.
784,1 For that is why people say that human affairs form a circle: it is
because they are measured by time; and <they say> that time is a
circle because it is measure of circular movement.

223b25 and that <there is a circle> in all other things that have
natural movement [and coming into being and passing away]

I.e., with everything else too that comes into being and perishes – plants,
5 animals, metals, and the rest – people say that there is a circle.

223b26 This is because all these things are discriminated by

time

People say (he says) that human affairs form a circle because every-
thing is discriminated by time: i.e. <everything> comes to be in time
and is measured by time, being given its beginning and end by time.
10 Time, he says, is thought to be a circle; so if human affairs are in time
and time is a sort of circle, it follows that human affairs too would be
a sort of circle. But time is thought to be a circle because it is measure
of a certain circle and revolution, and is itself measured by the latter.
So since what measures time is a sort of circle, time too is believed to
be a sort of circle.

15 223b33 for apart from that which measures223 nothing else is

observed in what is measured; the whole is just a plurality of
measures
 Translation 95

That it makes sense to think of time as a circle (given that the

circular locomotion is measure of time) he proves as follows. What is
measured, he says, looks to be nothing but the identical measure
multiplied. E.g. the hundred-cubit piece of wood is nothing but the 20
cubit multiplied, and ten is nothing but one multiplied, with unit as
measure of number. So if the circular locomotion is measure of time,
time likewise would be nothing but many circular locomotions; and
if so, it is an apt saying that time is a circle.

224a2 It is said rightly, too, that the number of the sheep and 25
of the dogs is the same number if the two numbers are equal,
but not the same ten (dekas) or the same tens (deka ta auta)

In the course of showing that time that is together is everywhere one

and the same <and> functions as measure of every movement, he 785,1
used an example taken from numbers: one and the same number, e.g.
seven, measures the seven horses and the seven dogs and in general
all things contained by the equivalent number [cf. 223b4]. Conse-
quently, he now wants to show that this holds good; and at the same
time he gives the rule which I have already mentioned <for deciding> 5
when what is predicated commonly of certain things is one and the
same for all of them, and when it is not one <and the same>. So, he
says, it is true to say that the number of the sheep and horses (<the
number> that measures them) is one and the same if the objects
measured (i.e. the horses and the sheep)224 are equal, even though (he
says) the ten (hê deka) is not the same, meaning now by ‘ten’ (dekas)
the number that is with the substrate. Hence to make the point 10
clearer, he added not } the same tens, i.e. <not the same ten>
animals or unspecified corporeal objects.

224a4 just as the equilateral and the scalene are not the same
triangles

For they do not admit of the same specification of triangle. Similarly, 15

then, the ten horses are not the same <ten> as the ten sheep.
 96 Translation

224a5 yet they are the same figure, because they are both
triangles

Shape is on the one hand bounded by straight lines, and on the other
hand curved,225 <but the equilateral and the scalene do not differ
from each other in this way> since both are bounded by straight lines,
i.e. both triangles admit of the same definition consisting in shape
bounded by straight lines.

20 224a6 For things are called the same <X> if they do not differ
by a differentia of X, but not if they do

He ascends to universal language in giving the rule <for deciding>

which things they are that are the same in terms of what is predi-
cated commonly of them, and which are not the same. They are said
to be the same, then, when they do not differ from each other by some
25 differentia of what is predicated. E.g. isosceles and scalene differ by
a differentia of triangle, which is why they are not the same triangles;
while as figure they do not differ by a differentia of what is predi-
cated, for both are bounded by straight lines. This, then, is why as
figures they are both the same, the equilateral and the scalene, but
as triangles they are not the same: they differ by the differentia of
triangle.

786,1 224a9 but are in one and the same division of it

I.e. they <fall> under the same section of the division. For of figures,
one <division> is bounded by straight lines, the other is curved. Both
the triangles, then, <fall> under bounded by straight lines; and again:
of figures bounded by straight lines, one <division> is triangle, the
5 other is something else. So as figures the isosceles and the scalene
are no different from each other, since both <fall> under the same
section of the division, bounded by straight lines; and as <entities>
bounded by straight lines they are the same, since they <fall>
under the same section of the division of bounded by straight lines,
i.e. under triangle. However, as triangles they are not the same,
since they do not fall under the same section of the division of
 Translation 97

triangle; instead, one falls under one <section>, the other under 10
another.

224a12 the number226 too is the same, for the number of them
does not differ by a differentia of number; but it is not the same
seven (heptas);227 for the things of which <the number> is
asserted differ

Having confirmed the universal rule by reference to the case of the

figures, he now brings it to bear on the issue at hand. So: of the seven 15
(hepta) dogs and seven horses the number commonly predicated is
one and the same, for they do not differ from each other by a
differentia of number; e.g. both <groups> are odd-numbered. Hence
the number that is commonly theirs and available to measure them
is one and the same for both. However, insofar as each is a seven
(heptas) it is not the same seven <that they are>. For a seven (heptas)
is already thought along with the substrates;228 so if the substrates 20
differ from each other, the sevens (heptades) too will differ from each
other. This, then, is how it stands with time in its function of
measuring movements. There is no ground for denying that time in
its function of measuring movements is one and the same <entity>
although the things measured are different.
This page intentionally left blank
 Notes

1. Natural philosophy studies changeable things, and change implies

time; cf. Aristotle, Phys. III, 200b20-1.
2. i.e. the same as he had used in approaching the previous topic, namely
the void (Phys. IV, 213a12ff.).
3. i.e. he proceeds to show this for the now, having shown it for time.
4. In the Gregorian calendar this date is 5 April, 517 AD, when Philoponus
was about 27 years old. I owe the calculation to Adrian Gratwick. Pachon
was a month in the Alexandrian calendar.
5. Aristotle does not say ‘from eternity’, and the present argument does
not depend on it; thus it would work equally well against the view such as
we find in the Timaeus (taken at face value) that time had a beginning. This
was Philoponus’ own view as a Christian. Again, the notion of the now as
‘flowing’ is not in Aristotle’s text. The notion is based in part on the general
association between time and the flux of physical things: see 735,24-5 and
e.g. Damascius ap. Simplicium, in Phys. 798,5-26 (Sorabji (2004), vol. 2,
210). A more precise notion of the flowing now is based on 220a1ff., where
Aristotle presents the relation of the now to time (khronos, i.e. extended
time) as analogous to the relation of an object in locomotion to its
locomotion. Philoponus expounds the passage with an explicit analogy
between the flowing point that generates the line (an idea associated with
Xenocrates; cf. Aristotle, DA I 409a3-5), and the flowing now that gener-
ates time (727,10-26). Simplicius, in Phys. 722.30-4 (Sorabji ibid.) uses
the same analogy.
6. We should understand (c1) as reached by division plus elimination of
the other alternative: ‘either (c1) it is destroyed in something or (c2) it is
destroyed in nothing’. We thus get the five divisions mentioned at line 29.
7. i.e. (a2).
8. The argument comes at Phys. VI, 231a21-b10, esp. b6-10. Philoponus
places it in ‘the last books’ because in the preface to his entire commentary
on the Physics, after listing the subjects to be dealt with as matter, form,
place, time, and movement, he says that the first four are covered ‘in the first
four books’ while movement is covered ‘in the last four books’ (in Phys. I,
2.13-17). Thus books VI and V belong with ‘the last books’.
9. Phys. V, 226b18-227b2, esp. 226b34-227a5. Philoponus’ wording here
100 Notes to pages 6-13

seems to ignore Aristotle’s insistence that if B is ephexes to A, then B is (in

some way) posterior to A, so that ‘– is ephexes to – ’ is an asymmetric relation.
10. Presumably this follows because if the now N1 perishes in a later now
N2 the two nows are together at some point, implying two coincident
time-intervals (one bounded by one and one by the other).
11. i.e. Philoponus’ commentary on the Categories, 35b41ff.
12. Bekker has ‘The now which is not etc.’.
13. Philoponus is alluding to Aristotle’s doctrine that points (nows being
point-like; cf. Phys. VI, 233b33-234a24) are-and-are-not without perishing or
coming to be; Phys. VIII, 217b16-20; Metaph. XI, 1060b17-19.
14. See n. 8.
15. i.e. (a2) at 703,25.
16. i.e. the entire spherical cosmos; cf. Cael. I, 278b19-21.
17. Aristotle simply declares that there would be one time even if (per
impossibile) there were many revolving cosmoi (218b3-5). (Thus he implies
that time is not the revolution of any particular cosmos.) Perhaps this makes
sense at this stage, given that the countability and measurability of time
have not yet entered Aristotle’s discussion (see 219b1ff.). Philoponus, on the
other hand, risks incoherence by bringing in measurement here. He is in no
position to assume that if there were multiple cosmoi there would even so be
a single time in terms of which to compare the speeds of their revolutions; for
although it is intelligence (nous) that counts temporal units (cf. 223a16-29),
the counting is based on perceptible repetitions. Percipients are animals
operating within a given cosmos, and they cannot perceive the revolutions of
any other.
18. In the second figure both premisses have the middle term as predicate.
The middle term in the present example is ‘contains all things’.
19. i.e. the statement that A is in B can be correct in virtue of a sense of
being in that is not in play (and may even be excluded) when we correctly
state that A is in time.
20. In the third figure both premisses have the middle term as subject.
21. kinêsis haplôs: the contrast is with the view that time is something
belonging to movement, 716,4-8.
22. kinêsis haplôs, again. Here the contrast is between movement tout
court, and A’s movement, B’s movement.
23. I have taken hoti at 711,1 as governing all the subsequent clauses
within Vitelli’s parenthesis (710,32-711,4). I have kept the parenthesis but
within it have punctuated differently from Vitelli. Between them, the exam-
ples show (a) that ‘Faster and slower belong to movement’ holds for both
superlunary and sublunary domains, and (b) that it is obvious to anyone, not
only to students of astronomy.
24. khronôi, which occurs in Aristotle: ‘by’ here is instrumental. Unlike
Aristotle (although see 221a9), Philoponus also frequently speaks of move-
ment as ‘measured (or: determined) by time’, e.g. at 745,6.28; 746,4.18.27.
 Notes to pages 14-23 101
For this Philoponus says hupo khronou, a locution suggesting agency. He
probably uses this simply as the passive of ‘time measures (or: determines)
movement’, a locution which does occur in Aristotle, e.g. 220b17 and 221a1-2.
In the context of temporal measurement, hupo khronou might also be
translated ‘under the heading of time’, i.e. ‘in terms of time’. (It is worth
noting that at 767,21, where Philoponus is discussing efficient causes and
using hupo + genitive for that purpose, he refrains from also using it to speak
of things being measured by time, and opts for the dative khronôi; 767,28.)
25. Vitelli prints this as a quotation but not as a lemma.
26. Vitelli prints this as a quotation but not as a lemma.
27. i.e. against identifying time with the celestial revolution.
28. i.e. of the spheres in this cosmos.
29. See n. 18.
30. i.e. are not properties of time.
31. The reference is to Phys. V, 225a1-225b9. Philoponus speaks of the
‘next books’ because he divides the books of the Physics into a first group and
a last group, and V is the first of the last group (see n. 8).
32. apiontas; the sense is not clear, and Vitelli suspects corruption.
33. Reading periêlthen at 715,20.
34. The meaning may vary between ‘pluralize’ and ‘count’.
35. Presumably this means that time is not immediately related to
alteration and growth: we specify the time taken by one of those processes
in terms of celestial locomotions. Relatedly, we do not specify the time of any
process in temporal units based on stages of growth etc. (‘the war lasted for
three seedling-to-sapling stages’), because even for organisms of the same
species such stages differ in temporal length.
36. i.e. ‘All movement is measured (or measurable) in temporal units’.
37. ‘Pint’ and ‘bushel’ originally referred to physical containers of these
volumes.
38. Here, Philoponus uses ‘number’ and ‘measure’ interchangeably. Aris-
totle’s actual question is whether time is the number counted or the number
with which we count (219b5-9). He does not explicitly introduce time-meas-
urement until 220b14.
39. i.e. the movement whose regular repetition determines the basic unit
of time.
40. At 219a15 Aristotle said entautha men dê têi thesei, thus creating the
expectation that the next clause, connected by de, would include something
contrary to en têi thesei.
41. At 719,16 Vitelli, following the codices, prints têi kinêsei; but if
Philoponus wrote this, it was a slip of the pen for tôi megethei: see Aristotle,
219a16-18.
42. Bekker has ‘the prior and the posterior of them in movement’.
43. Aristotle’s wording at 219a19 is ho } pote on kinêsis esti. Philoponus
in his comment abridges this to to ho pote on and explains it as meaning ‘in
102 Notes to pages 23-29

respect of substrate’; cf. 729,10-11 and 775,17-18. See also 726,15-18, with n.
61 below. There are other interpretations of Aristotle’s formula: see Brague
(1982), 97-144 and Coope (2005), 173-7.
44. For the translation cf. Phys. VI, 232a9 and 241a2-4.
45. Reading hekateron instead of heteron at 722,21.
46. The continuance or stretch of a movement is not quite the same as the
time it takes. This is because when Aristotle’s account is fully developed we
see that the time taken by a particular movement is an interval in which
other things are happening too, everywhere in the cosmos. The continuance
of a given movement is an intrinsic aspect of it analogous to the spatial
extendedness of a given body.
47. The ROT has ‘Time is not movement, but only movement in so far as
it admits of enumeration’.
48. By switching from the present ‘is numbered’ to the perfect ‘has been
numbered’ Philoponus perhaps makes the thought more precise: the number is
a definite total. However, what follows is confused: the meaning surely is ‘} not
insofar as it [sc. movement] is movement, but insofar as it is prior and posterior’.
49. See n. 20.
50. i.e. number with which we number (count).
51. Philoponus’ solution to the problem at 723,25ff. emphasized that time
is number that is numbered, not number that numbers (i.e. the number with
which we number). Because Philoponus uses ‘numbers’ and ‘measures’ al-
most interchangeably in much of his discussion, he now has the problem of
724,10ff.: how to reconcile the first solution with the fact that Aristotle
speaks of time as measuring movement.
52. The meaning of the ‘whereas’ clause is not entirely clear. Presumably
‘all other things’ refers to all properties apart from movement. ‘Always the
same’ must mean ‘always the same as long as they exist’.
53. The ROT has: ‘[E]very simultaneous time is the same; for the now is
the same in substratum – though its being is different’. Philoponus does not
use the notion of substratum in his present comments on this passage, but
see n. 61 on 726,27-8 below.
54. See n. 35.
55. Philoponus may be saying that the division was incomplete because
the option now to be considered was a diairetic section which it should have
included; but it seems more likely that he means that the process of division
(demanding ‘Yes’/‘No’ answers at each stage) could not have captured this
option, so that the process (as applied to the present inquiry) was bound to
be incomplete.
56. The first alternative is what Philoponus finds below in Aristotle, not
the one that is ‘closer to the truth’ (I owe this point to a referee).
57. On the reference to ‘books’ in the plural, see n. 8.
58. i.e. without a temporally divisible process of coming to be and passing
away: see n. 13.
 Notes to pages 30-39 103
59. The ROT translates: ‘which is just what its being now was supposed
to mean’.
60. i.e. ‘one cannot say that it is in this together with saying that it is in
this’. Philoponus is talking about successive speech-acts, with ‘this’ referring
to something different in each.
61. The quoted phrase which Philoponus here explains as ‘it is the same
in substrate’ is ho de pote on esti, to auto. He may be misquoting 219b10-11,
where Aristotle’s wording was to nun to auto ho pot’ ên (translated here as
‘the now is the same whatever it was’), or (a smaller misquotation) 219b26,
where the wording is ho men pote on nun esti, to auto.
62. Translating Philoponus’ homoiôs de kai. Bekker has kai homoiôs dê.
63. In Aristotelian physics this is true of unforced movements.
64. Signs of the zodiac.
65. i.e. as well as caused.
66. i.e. that which stands to the now as substrate.
67. Reading kata ta diapheronta at 729,22-3.
68. i.e. in the context of a given movement, every particular now can be
said to be ‘prior and posterior in movement’ (as opposed to ‘in place’). But the
referent of the phrase is guaranteed to be always other and other, since the
empirical cash-value of ‘now’ depends on what occurs now, which is never
the same.
69. In Bekker, aei, ‘always’, ‘in each case’, occurs here.
70. i.e. exist or not-exist.
71. Suppose that the motion is that of a stone: the thought here is not that
the now measures the stone, but that it measures the stone-in-motion, i.e.
what we might describe as ‘the stone-at-P1-now-and-at-P2-now’, where P1
and P2 are positions along the track, and each ‘now’ has a different referent.
Between them the nows determine a measurable temporal interval. The
interval’s actual temporal measure (say, 10 seconds) belongs, of course, to
the movement from P1 to P2; but it equally belongs to the stone-in-motion-
from-P1-to-P2. In this sense, the now (i.e. the prior now and the posterior
now) measures (i.e. makes possible the temporal measurement of) the
stone-in-motion.
72. i.e. the taking.
73. i.e. at which.
74. This is by analogy with the two movements’ having something be-
tween them that is not movement, i.e. rest, the privation of movement.
Between the two times would be privation of time.
75. i.e. the locomotion is divisible in thought at any point where the-
object-in-motion happens to be.
76. The unity of the movement from P1 to P2 is ensured not by the unity
of the substrate of movement, e.g. a stone, but by the fact that the stone in
that motion is describable throughout as ‘moving from P1 to P2’.
77. So that this is its one description.
104 Notes to pages 39-40

78. diorizei; Bekker has horizei.

79. anankê histanai, i.e. the point must be stationary. ROT has a pause
is necessary; but this is more appropriate for interruption of movement,
whereas Aristotle here is concerned merely with lines and points. The
thought as I understand it is: for a point on a line to be taken as end of one
section and beginning of the next (‘taken twice’), it must be stationary in
relation to the line (or no determinate sections are demarcated).
80. i.e. pluralizes.
81. This phrase is puzzling. 735,22-3 suggests that taking a point twice
takes time and involves distinct pointings or acts of reference. Does taking
X twice together mean referring to X twice but simultaneously? If so, taking
X twice together is a logical impossibility whatever X may be; in this respect
there is no difference between the now and the point.
82. Philoponus recognizes the following possibilities:
(1) Dividing a line in actuality, i.e. separating the results so that the locus
of division becomes two points each terminating a distinct line (and analo-
gously for dividing planes and solids).
(2) Physically interrupting a movement or turning the moving object in a
different direction (implying an intervening period of rest).
(3) Dividing something continuous, solely in thought.
Remarks:
(a) (2) applies only to sublunary objects and movements.
(b) Only (3) applies to movements while they are going on.
(c) Only (3) applies to celestial movements (cf. 732,28-30).
(d) Only (3) applies to time.
We also have:
(4) Taking the same item twice, i.e. referring to it and re-referring to it in
the same way (e.g. as ‘this’ each time); cf. 735,7-8.
(5) Referring to an item once and applying to it two descriptions such as
‘ends X’ and ‘begins Y’. (Cf. 735,7-9. Confusingly, however, at 735,19-21
Philoponus glosses (4) in terms of ‘two descriptions’; cf. 734,6-8.)
Remarks:
(e) (1) is incompatible with (4), since the operation in (1) yields two items
to refer to.
(f) (4) (and no doubt also (5)) can be done with points on lines (and with
lines on planes, etc.).
(g) At 735,7 Philoponus says that (4) cannot be done with the object-in-lo-
comotion. Here he is thinking of the object-in-locomotion as a series of
instantaneous stages each analogous to a now. Let ‘O’ stand for the stone,
and ‘LA-B(O)’ for the stone in locomotion from A to B. Then if I refer twice to
LA-B(O) using that very expression, I necessarily refer to different items each
time. Philoponus needs this to prove that (4) cannot be done with the now.
(h) Thus only (5) can be done with the object-in-locomotion understood as
 Notes to pages 41-43 105
in (g): the same instantaneous stage can be described as marking the end of
one section of the movement and the start of the next (cf. (b) above).
(i) Only (5) can be done with the now.
83. Reading kai hôs arkhês legô kai hôs teleutês at 736,4-5.
84. oude morion ho khronos tês kinêseôs (see also 737,4) = 220a19. Bekker
reads: oude morion to nun tou khronou : ‘neither is the now part of time’,
which is close in meaning to what Philoponus says Aristotle ought to have
said there (737,3-4).
85. Thus the lines are not continuous with each other: cf. Phys. V,
227a10-13; VI, 231a22.
86. If nows pluralize time by being parts of it, so that one succeeds another
as afternoon succeeds forenoon, whatever divides them will be something we
have to take twice, thus destroying the continuity of time. How is this
supposed to follow? Perhaps the thought is that the divider is not a now
(since ex hypothesi a now is a part of time, whereas the divider is a mere
boundary); hence it cannot do what only a now can do, namely ensure
temporal continuity (cf. 220a5; 222a10-11); and without continuity the two
parts are merely contiguous: portions of time laid end to end. What was
meant to be the boundary between them is in fact two things: the point that
belongs to one as its end, and the point that belongs to the other as its
beginning.
87. Reading amerê tou meristou at 737,1.
88. Emending tou megethous at 737,10 to to megethos. The phrase then refers
to the temporally measurable aspect of physical movements. Philoponus implies
a contrast with ‘the flow of the now from which time derives’. The latter makes
temporal measure possible, hence has no temporal measure itself.
89. So Philoponus says that Aristotle should have said ‘p’ rather than the
‘q’ that occurs in the text used by Philoponus; then argues, using the
examples of decad and bushel, that ‘q’ is literally true; then reinterprets the
terms in ‘q’ so that it becomes synonymous with ‘p’. He may well be right
about what Aristotle ‘should have said’ (cf. n. 84), and also in not being
satisfied with the literal meaning of ‘q’ since the argument whereby this
yields a truth is forced; but his reinterpretation of q is even more forced.
90. hêi de arithmei. Bekker has hêi d’ arithmei, arithmos, i.e. ‘but insofar
as it numbers, it is number’.
91. ho de arithmos tônde; Bekker reads ho de arithmos ho tônde.
92. i.e. presupposed by.
93. 220a21-2, and Philoponus’ initial comments ad loc. are obscure because
we are not told what it is of which the now is only incidentally limit. But it then
becomes apparent that the limited item is a given movement or phase of
movement. This might have seemed more obvious in Philoponus’ text with its
mention of movement at 220a19. Philoponus may think that Aristotle is refuting
a pair of views about the relation of the now to movement: (a) nows are parts
of movement, and (b) the now is the limit of a movement.
106 Notes to pages 43-48

94. i.e. not the same collection of ten.

95. i.e. the same prior-posterior pair.
96. Alexander Aphrodisiensis ap. Simplicium, in Phys. 729,8-13, from
Alexander’s lost commentary on this part of the Physics.
97. At 219b6-9 Aristotle contrasted number with which we number
(count) with number numbered (counted), and said that time was the latter.
Alexander, followed by Philoponus (cf. 723,28 and 744,14-16), calls the first
member of this pair ‘number that numbers’ (see also Alexander’s On Time,
93,39 [Thêry] in Sharples, 1982). This is confusing because it generates the
thought that when Aristotle says ‘the now numbers’ (220a22), he may mean
‘The now is a number with which we number’ (in which case there could only
be one now, just as there is one ten in the number series) instead of the
innocuous proposition ‘The now is the basis of temporal countability’. Alex-
ander considers emending but then argues (followed here laboriously by
Philoponus) that the innocuous sense is intended.
98. haplôs men: Bekker has ho men haplôs.
99. Philoponus needs the converse, that everything continuous is a mag-
nitude.
100. Philoponus is paraphrasing 220b5-8, where Aristotle explains that
‘the same time is everywhere together’ whereas prior and posterior times are
not the same. Aristotle’s wording implies that the same stretch of time is
everywhere together (i.e. simultaneous movements do not occupy each its
own time); thus this stretch of time is present (or ‘now’) only in the broad
sense of containing the current punctiform now; cf. 222a20-2.
101. i.e. the number with which we number; 219a6-8.
102. Philoponus uses the noun dekas to refer both to the unique abstract
number ten, and to any group of ten, which of course can be one of many
groups of ten. When, as here, he speaks of the dekas ‘in’ the horses and the
different dekas ‘in’ the human beings as substrates, is he simply referring to
the groups of ten, or to some third ontological category? See also 785,9-10,
where he speaks of the dekas of e.g. horses as ‘the number with the sub-
strate’.
103. i.e. long.
104. Philoponus has just discussed the option of applying the complex
formulae ‘measures principally’ and ‘measures secondarily’ vel sim. to distin-
guish, respectively, the container C set up as a standard measure, and some
pre-measured quantity of grain etc. placed in C to test its correctness as the
measure it is supposed to be. (The thought there is that an unmeasured
measure is more truly a measure than something that functions as a
measure only because it has been – and is known to have been – measured.)
Philoponus is now suggesting that the simple terms ‘measures’, and ‘deter-
mines’ be used (respectively) instead of ‘measures principally’ and ‘measures
secondarily’. It is not clear what ‘the first proposal’ (tên prôtên thesin, 7)
refers to.
 Notes to pages 48-53 107
105. 220a27-8, but with some words omitted. Philoponus gives the lemma
in full at 739,25-6.
106. Bekker has hoi duo.
107. Stephen Menn informs me that the first few lines of Nicomachus’
Theologumena arithmeticae state that three is the first number-in-actuality,
but without giving the reason given here by Philoponus.
108. Presumably Philoponus is referring to whatever the repeated move-
ment is on which all time-measurement is based. If the sweep of the
minute-hand on Big Ben is this movement, then by definition this minute-
hand cannot take more or less than an hour to complete a circuit. Thus to
say that this movement does not admit of fast nor slow is to say that it is
necessarily invariant. It is still true, of course, that the minute-hand on Big
Ben moves faster or slower (covers more or less distance in an hour) than
other moving objects.
109. Philoponus has dê; Bekker reads de.
110. Philoponus has proteros } husteros; Bekker reads proteron }
husteron.
111. Vitelli gives the lemma as it appears in Bekker, reading tôi heni
hippôi (cf. 220b22). Philoponus comments as if he read tôi en hippôi, i.e. ‘by
means of the number in horse’, and converted this to the more coherent ‘by
means of the number in the horses’. However, he refers to ‘the one horse’ at
746,1 in a similar context.
112. êpeidê here, epei in Bekker.
113. tôi kinoumenôi; but the argument requires tôi metroumenôi, ‘the
object that is measured’.
114. As Vitelli suspects, there is surely a lacuna at 746,5.
115. i.e. it is no part of the object measured.
116. i.e. a standard measure.
117. It is not clear whether the pint in the soul and the external pint are,
respectively, the original stipulation of what size of container is to be the
standard pint measure, and the standard container (the pint pot); or whether
they are, respectively, the thought-content ‘standard pint’ that governs every
use of a standard container to measure wine etc., and the pint of wine
measured. Ideally, there is a unique physical standard pint. The temporal
analogue of the pint set apart or the pint in the soul is, presumably, an
abstract unit of time measurement, as when we say ‘It is a three day journey’
without reference to any particular days.
118. i.e. ‘What part of movement [or: the movement] is it whose temporal
length is defined as the primary unit of temporal measure for all the
movement (pasês tês kinêseôs)?’ The expression ‘all the movement’ at 19, 20,
and 22 (cf. 30) is ambiguous between ‘all movement in the universe’ and ‘all
of that movement of which the primary unit of temporal measure is a part’,
which refers to a celestial motion. However, ‘given that all the movement is
single and continuous’ (21-2) can only refer to the celestial motion.
108 Notes to pages 53-59

119. Lacuna; the missing word may be ‘which’, referring to movement. If

‘which’ is inserted, and ‘measure’ here taken as synonymous with ‘deter-
mine’, Philoponus is asking, with typical verbosity: ‘Which part of all the
movement is the standard of temporal measurement for any part that is not
the standard of temporal measurement?’
120. Accepting Vitelli’s conjecture of muriostêmorion at 23. A schoinos
was a large unit of land-measurement used in Egypt.
121. It is not clear whether he means that different societies measure e.g.
the same day-long period in terms of different sub-units, or that they deal in
days of different lengths. There were different understandings of the abso-
lute length of a schoinos.
122. That there is movement is an everlasting fact, and some individual
movements are everlasting.
123. Actually, Aristotle starts by saying that it is one of two things, and
then argues to exclude the first.
124. This formulation runs into the difficulty that, standardly in Aris-
totle, parts of time are themselves extended times, hence not nows (see also
750,18-26). But this can be met by pointing out the naturalness of saying
that the unit is part of number (number begins at two to the Greek way of
thinking) without itself being a number or divisible into numbers; the force
of the analogy then supports viewing the now (pro tem.) as a part of time
that is not a time.
125. There is a lacuna at 747,35; I have followed Vitelli’s conjecture on the
missing words.
126. Sophocles, Ajax 646-7.
127. Menander, Georgus fr. 3 of lines 157-67, Koerte (97 Kock).
128. Actually, at 192a21-2 Aristotle says that if A and B are contraries
they make each other perish, whereas Philoponus needs ‘If A makes B
perish, they are contraries’.
129. dêlon de, as in Bekker.
130. i.e., according to these interpreters, the apodosis is ‘it is measure of
rest too’.
131. Thus according to Philoponus the structure is: since p, q & r; and if p, s.
132. Philoponus understands ‘its being’ as ‘its essence’, ‘what it is to be
movement’.
133. See Metaph. VII, chs 6 and 10-11.
134. This makes sense only if it means, in effect: the primary time-unit is
defined by reference to the rotation of that sphere uniquely (cf. 770,2-3). For
Philoponus, this unit-defining relationship between that movement and time
is the primary meaning of ‘time measures movement’. For this relationship
is what makes possible temporal measurement of all other movements.
Here, Philoponus writes as if the primary meaning of ‘Time measures
movement’ is the only one.
135. A referee suggested that at 6 ei should be supplied in the text after palin.
 Notes to pages 59-63 109
136. i.e. of ‘whatever is in X co-exists with X’ to ‘whatever co-exists with
X is in X’.
137. i.e. can be substituted for it.
138. This is from Bekker’s text; the lemma in Vitelli is garbled.
139. Bekker’s text has ‘will be’ instead of ‘is’.
140. i.e. its duration.
141. If B is incidental to A then (as the term indicates) B must co-occur
with A. From the supposition that time per se measures a movement, while
incidentally it measures some object’s rest, Philoponus believes he can
extract the absurdity that the rest would be incidental to movement (in the
same object).
142. Of the celestial spheres.
143. (a) Evidently Philoponus excludes things which always are although
they might not be, or might not have been, and things which never are
although they might be or might have been (where ‘might’ is understood as
ontological contingency, not as epistemic). In the Aristotelian context the
first exclusion is reasonable, since in that context the only explanation of
something’s being always would be that it necessarily exists or obtains. The
second is less reasonable: he overlooks the case of my cloak’s being cut up:
this event is neither necessary nor impossible: but it may never occur,
because the cloak may wear out first (cf. Int. 19a12-16; also Metaph. VI,
1027b8-11, where it is said to be necessary that a given person will die, but
not that he will die through violence or through disease). (b) In this passage
Philoponus counts as contingent all things that are at one time and are not
at another. However, the Aristotelian cosmology recognizes as necessary
some transient events such as particular eclipses and sunrises (their occur-
rence is inevitable given the necessary movements of the spheres responsible
for the changes of moon and sun; cf. GC 337b10-338b5). However, these
points do not affect Philoponus’ present argument.
144. I read kata before ton khronon in 754,35. Cf. 759,23-4 and 759,30-
760,1. Assigning a greater time than that of their non-being consists in
adding to it the time in which they are. This is ambiguous between two
possibilities, and Philoponus’ text here does not make it clear which is
meant. (1) We measure a non-being’s time of non-being from the present to
when it ceased to exist if it is-not through being wholly in the past, and from
the present to when it will begin to exist if it is-not though being wholly in
the future, and then add the period of its being to obtain a period longer than
that of its non-being. If the non-being is something that has occurred and
will recur, we add two periods of being, past and future, to the intervening
period of non-being (which spans the present). Alternative (2) is that we add
the period or periods of X’s being to the entire time in which X is not (i.e. if
it is past, including the time before it existed, and mutatis mutandis if it is
future), thereby arriving at a greater time overall than the time of non-being.
(It is assumed that items in the third category have short individual occur-
110 Notes to pages 63-67

rences by comparison with the intervals between occurrences.) Alternative

(2) commits anyone who accepts the Aristotelian everlastingness of the world
in both directions (but not Philoponus, who held that the world was created
and will come to an end) to the discomfort of recognizing infinities of different
magnitudes, since the entities in question are non-existent for infinite
periods. (For Philoponus’ rejection of infinities of different magnitudes, see
Philoponus contra Aristotelem ap. Simplicium, in Phys. 1179,15-26; Sorabji
(2004), vol. 2, 176). I suspect, however, that alternative (2) in any case fails
to fit the terms of the theory. For Aristotle, the field of things whose
non-being is contained by time is the field of things whose being is wholly in
the past, or wholly in the future, or both (221b31-222a2). Thus for a non-
being whose non-being consists in being wholly past we cannot include in the
calculation the time, infinite or not, before it came to exist or started to
happen, because that was not time when it was past, i.e. had the non-being
of past things; and correspondingly for something that is-not because it is has
not yet begun. With entities of the third class we are likewise only entitled,
for any pair of instances past and future, to consider the finite interval
during which it is true that a wholly past one is past and a wholly future one
future. Furthermore, Philoponus evidently sees the way the non-being of
contingents is in time as analogous to the way in which a team of horses is
in number, so that the former is temporally countable.
145. The full formula is kata ton khronon kath’ hon ouk eisi/eisi (cf.
759,23-4.30-760,1, and see the previous note).
146. Bekker reads: ou gar pan to akinêton êremei. Vitelli has Ou gar pan
to êremoun.
147. The perfects gegonenai and gegenêsthai at 19 suggest ‘past and over’.
148. i.e. durations of existence.
149. Whiteness and the whiteness of a particular substance cannot be
temporally measured as such.
150. See n. 18.
151. Aristotle has khronôi, Philoponus has hupo khronou.
152. This classification goes back to Chrysippus.
153. Reading toutesti at 759,21.
154. i.e. the future time in which they will be makes it the case that their
non-being is temporally contained, i.e. temporally exceeded.
155. i.e. if added in it makes a greater time, and so with the future entities
mentioned at 759,26-8. In the case of the past entities the time of their
non-being is singled out as ‘ever-occurring’, perhaps because the interval
between the present and a past entity is always growing.
156. ‘them’ refers to these non-beings as such.
157. i.e. contained in respect of their non-being.
158. Since the lemma in Vitelli is garbled I have translated here from
Bekker. Philoponus comments as if he understands what he is reading as
tantamount to this.
 Notes to pages 67-73 111
159. The text is slightly uncertain but not so as to affect the philosophical
meaning.
160. The indefinite pote, an adverb like the other terms listed here. The
usual translation would be ‘at some time’, but this will prove awkward below.
161. i.e. by physical division.
162. As the examples just below show, here and at 28-31 Philoponus
means in effect that some-time refers to a time made determinate by its
connection to (i.e. by its finite distance from) the present instant. Pote is a
variable whose values are given by a complex expression such as ‘ten years
ago’, ‘ten years on [sc. from now]’: one part of the expression specifies a length
of time, and the other part links this directionally to the present.
163. Philoponus is speaking from Aristotle’s point of view; from his own,
the answer would make the Trojan war almost contemporary with Plato and
Aristotle!
164. The boundedness of every time motivates the question whether time
comes to an end.
165. peratoutai. This would normally be translated ‘is limited’, but that
suggests that instances of some time are temporal intervals between the
present and the now of some past or future event; whereas in fact they are
temporal locations identified by the lengths plus directions of such intervals.
166. As at Aristotle 222b6, the future tense only has inferential force; i.e.
the ‘not giving out’ applies in both temporal directions.
167. Philoponus himself argues for this elsewhere: see the Arabic para-
phrase of his comments on Physics VIII 251b10-28 in Lettinck, Philoponus
on Aristotle Physics 5-8, London, 1994, 135.
168. Here, Philoponus seems to write as if (1) ‘Every now is both beginning
and end’ and (2) ‘There is always movement’ are independent Aristotelian
grounds for (3) ‘Time will never give out’. However, in Physics VIII Aristotle uses
(3) as a ground for (2), and (1) as the ground for (3) (251b10-28).
169. See Philoponus contra Aristotelem ap. Simplicium, in Phys.1178,7-35
(Sorabji [2004], vol. 2, 179-80), and 1179,15-26 (Sorabji ibid., 176).
170. i.e. the descriptions ‘end of X’ and ‘beginning of Y’ are simple by
comparison with the description ‘common boundary of X and Y’.
171. Both here and in the other reading which Philoponus mentions
below, the wording differs considerably from the Bekker text, but the
meaning is the same.
172. The alternative reading is instead of what has been translated as ‘in
so far as what is always the same point’.
173. Instead of sunthesis Bekker has henôsis (‘unification’). However,
Philoponus speaks of unification at 764,19-20.
174. i.e. the present one.
175. In fact, when Aristotle refers to ‘the former now’ at 222a25, he
evidently means the instantaneous present (the ‘broad’ present being the
latter now).
112 Notes to pages 73-80

176. i.e. the present now, mentioned in the same line.

177. i.e. to a given some-time. E.g. the determinate temporal quantity of
having been a thousand years ago from the present belongs to the ‘when’ of
the Trojan war.
178. This appears as a quotation but not as a lemma in Vitelli.
179. Philoponus is referring to ‘specified time’, i.e. a determinate period
such as a year. Time in this sense is obviously one only in kind, not in
number.
180. Philoponus leaves this as a supposition; see n. 167.
181. To de arti morion ti kai auto tou parelêluthotos khronou. Bekker
reads kai to arti to engus tou parontos nun, to morion tou parelthontos.
182. It may seem that Philoponus (and Aristotle in the original text)
overlooks the way in which Aristotle’s own analysis of movement and change
(‘the actuality of what is potentially F qua potentially F’) foregrounds the
positive terminus ad quem of the subject’s transition (Physics III, 201a9-b15).
However, the same analysis also features the agent of the change: that which
introduces F into the subject (201a19-25; 202a3-12; 202a13-21). (In natural
philosophy one would be studying agents whose nature it is to affect patients
in various ways.) From the point of view, so to speak, of the naturally
F-bearing agent, the only interesting or distinctive thing about the particular
change that is instrumental for producing F in a given subject lies in its being
a shift from some incompatible condition G. Hence if we (a) assume the
specific contribution of the agent and then (b) concentrate on the change by
itself, we see the latter as nothing but a shift from the terminus a quo.
183. Unlike the just mentioned cause of perishing, this explanation links
perishing with having come into being.
184. There is an insignificant divergence from Bekker.
185. See n. 20.
186. Like Aristotle (cf. 222b31-223a4), Philoponus is anxious to avoid
suggesting that every individual movement varies in speed.
187. Philoponus does not offer separate proofs of the premisses of B,
because B has the same major premiss as A, and its minor can be reached by
legitimate conversion from the minor of A.
188. The example is famous from Plato’s Parmenides, 131b3-5.
189. For this contrast of ‘physical’ (phusikos, ‘natural’) versus psychologi-
cal movements cf. 195,24-7; 197,2-5 and 13-22; 378,22-3. See Sorabji (2004),
vol. 2, 44-54.
190. The basis for the doctrine that bodies are always ‘other-moved’ is in
Aristotle, Physics VIII, 255b13-256a3.
191. i.e. whose movements have a temporal beginning and end.
192. Even if Philoponus assumes that only human souls have it in their
nature to measure movements by counting out the temporal units, his
argument seems to allow for the situation in which, although there were no
human souls (whether or not this is a possibility) and therefore no countable
 Notes to pages 80-84 113
temporal numbers, there would still be the temporal numbers themselves,
i.e. things would still have their actual temporal durations and relations of
prior and posterior. Thus the temporal numbers, hence time, are as ‘objec-
tive’ as the decad of stones mentioned at 770,20-3. But, by the argument
Philoponus has just given, if there were no soul whatsoever, there would no
more be stones, or any decad of stones, than there would be time.
193. Printed by Vitelli as a quotation but not as a lemma.
194. Since the comparands are each assumed to be moving at constant
speed, Philoponus somehow regards the horses as moving at the same speed
throughout even though they are slowed down by the bend in the track.
Somehow he identifies their actual speed with what their speed would have
been if, ceteris paribus, they had been running on a completely rectilinear
track. Possibly he takes it that the only real variations in a thing’s speed are
those due to its going faster or slower from within itself (‘its own speed’);
certainly this is how we compare the speeds of different jockey-horse combi-
nations in the same race, where external conditions are supposedly the same
for all. The vagueness of ‘does not move in the same way in terms of speed’,
(771,27) used of the object moving along a helix, may betray uncertainty
about what to say. Perhaps Philoponus on the one hand wants to stop short
of saying that its speed (= its own speed?) is less in that situation than it
would have been if, with the same expenditure of effort etc., it had been
moving along a straight line, but on the other hand is not about to abandon
the definition of ‘slower’ in terms of actually taking more time to cover the
same distance.
195. i.e. are defined by reference to prior and posterior.
196. Philoponus here refers to lines 223a20-1, but he used a text with
topos (‘place’) at 20, where Bekker has khronos (‘time’). At 774,25-6 Philo-
ponus mentions others who also read topos, but who interpreted the lines in
a way that contradicts Aristotelian doctrine. Their interpretation rested on
the mistaken assumption that if property A (e.g. being subject to movement)
is based on property B (e.g. being in place) ‘immediately and with no
restriction’, and B comes in various forms, then B’s being present in some
particular form determines that A is present in precisely the same form (cf.
774,2-5).
197. The next sentence shows that Philoponus does not accept the state-
ment introduced by ‘Similarly’. His point must be that this statement bears
a likeness to the previous one, which he does accept.
198. i.e. each always rotates in the same place.
199. Here Philoponus implies that the opponents are guilty of a fallacious
shift from ‘Immediately and unrestrictedly being F implies being G’ to ‘The
precise way in which x is F unrestrictedly determines that x is G in that same
way’. It is like arguing that since being a non-transparent surface implies
being coloured, being a non-transparent three-sided surface entails being
coloured in three ways.
114 Notes to pages 84-92

200. In Aristotle’s exposition (223a16-18) and in Philoponus’ earlier dis-

cussion (769,25-30), this was listed as the first of two difficulties, although
in each case it was dealt with second.
201. See n. 97.
202. ‘times’ here is the variable for multiples of a given period, i.e. days,
years, etc.
203. poluplasiasmos: this is the technical word for multiplication, but
Philoponus is also thinking of divisions of the day.
204. i.e. the smallest natural unit. At 777,25 and 27 Philoponus uses the
first person plural and aorist tense to indicate that these are man-made
units.
205. The digit was a length of about 2 cm.
206. i.e. establishes as a measure.
207. The criterion is for distinguishing cases where, for generic terms A,
B, and C, ‘A is C and B is C’ entails ‘A and B are the same (kind of) C’ from
cases where the entailment fails.
208. pros heauto: literally, ‘in relation to itself’. The differentiating respect
corresponds to a diairetic question. E.g., given that X is a figure, ‘Is X
bounded by straight lines or by a curve?’ The correct answer gives the
differentia of X qua figure.
209. There is no indefinite article in the Greek.
210. The rule solves the paradox: since each of isosceles triangle and
scalene triangle is the same figure, namely a triangle, the isosceles and the
scalene ought to be the same triangle; but that is absurd. The rule explains
why being the same thing, namely a triangle, does not entail being the same
triangle.
211. Cat. 1a6-12; Top. II, 109b6-7; IV, 127b6-7.
212. ‘more’ only qualifies ‘universal’.
213. The ultimate subjects are particulars.
214. Vitelli, surely correctly, posits a lacuna here (778,31). I think there
may also be something missing after alla in line 29.
215. The reference is probably to the human species in Socrates and the
human species in Plato.
216. Today we might say: although ‘animal’ means the same in (1)
‘Socrates is (an) animal’ as it does in (2) ‘Puss is (an) animal’, the animality-
element in the truth-maker for (1) differs in essence from that in the
truth-maker for (2): it consists in humanity for (1), whereas it consists in
felinity for (2). By contrast, the animality-element in the truth-makers for
(1) and for (3) ‘Plato is (an) animal’ is the same in essence for both.
217. This does not imply that there is only one soul possessed of the form
of ten. The point is that the substrate of this ten is always the one kind of
thing, soul, whereas the tens that it ‘measures’ have as their substrates
things of different kinds: horses, stones, etc.
218. i.e. the smallest repeating natural movement.
 Notes to pages 92-97 115
219. The time-lengths week, month, year, etc. are primarily measured not
by a unit of time but by the rotation of the sphere of the fixed stars. However,
a single rotation of this sphere defines (‘primarily measures’) the temporal
unit in terms of which the other time-lengths are measured. I have trans-
lated hekaston, ‘each’, at 782,24 as if it refers only to the week, the month,
the year, etc., i.e. to continuously recurring periods of time. Thus Philoponus
is not stating here that the point also applies to the time-length of every
particular ‘ordinary’ movement such as Coriscus’ walk through Athens on a
particular occasion.
220. Bekker has hupo after hoti at 223b16. hupo is absent from the lemma
in Vitelli, but Philoponus comments as if it were present (783,2-3). With
hupo the translation is: ‘} because by the movement that is defined in
respect of time is measured the quantity both of movement and of time’. The
philosophical content is the same either way.
221. Or: ‘in terms of time’, i.e., in effect, ‘for the purpose of measuring
time’; see n. 24.
222. i.e. everlastingly recurring movements.
223. to metroun; Bekker reads to metron, ‘the measure’.
224. ‘the objects measured’ refers to the group of horses and the group of
sheep.
225. At 785,17 a lacuna follows peripheres (‘curved’): the missing material
would have been more or less identical with 779,10-11, ou diapherousi } to
skalênon (or: skalênes, as in codex K; a referee suggested that homoioteleuton
with peripheres could account for the lacuna).
226. de; Bekker has dê.
227. heptas. Bekker has dekas, ‘ten’.
228. i.e. along with each group of substrates.
 Bibliography

Aristotle, ed. I. Bekker, Berlin 1834.

Aristotle, ed. W.D. Ross, Oxford Classical Text, Oxford, 1950, reprinted with
corrections 1956-1982.
Aristotle, Revised Oxford Translation, ed. J. Barnes, Princeton, 1984.
Brague, R., Du temps chez Platon et Aristote, Paris, 1982.
Coope, U., Time for Aristotle, Physics IV.10-14, Oxford, 2005.
Lettinck, P., Philoponus on Aristotle Physics 5-8, London, 1994.
Sharples, R.W., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias, on Time’, Phronesis, vol. 27, no.
1 (1982), pp. 58-81.
Sorabji, R.R.K., The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD, vol. 2,
London, 2004.
 English-Greek Glossary
a fortiori: pollôi mallon, pollôi
proteron
academic audiences, for:
akrôamatikos
accompany: parakolouthein
acknowledge beforehand:
prohomologein
admit of: epidekhesthai
analogy: analogia
ant: murmêx
apprehend along with: sunepinoein
arbitrary, random: apoklêrôtikos
argue, argue against: epikheirein
arrive: epigignesthai
articulate: diêrthrômenos
aspect: skhesis
assumption: lêmma
attribute to: anagein epi
attribute: pathos
awareness: sunaisthêsis, ennoia
be present: enistanai
be there, exist, be real:
huparkhein, huphistanai
before: proteron
belong to, hold of, be attribute of,
be data about: huparkhein
bend: kampsis
bound, limit (v.): perainein,
peratoun, perazein
break off, intermit, interrupt:
dialeipein, dialambanein
broad: platikos
bushel: medimnos
classify along with: sunkatatattein
clear away: anakathairesthai
co-exist with: suneinai,
sunhuparkhein
cognition: gnôsis
cognizable: gnôrimos
cognize: gnôrizein
coincide: epharmozein
come round again: anastrephesthai
common feature: koinonia
conception, thought: epinoia
conclude, deduce: sunagein
conclusion, bring to:
sumperainesthai
conjunction: sundesmos
consider, focus on, observe, see:
theôrein
continuance, stretch (temporal):
paratasis
continuate, stretch, along with:
sumparateinesthai
continuity, source of continuity:
sunekheia
contrast: antidiastolê
convention, by: thesei
corporeal mass: sômatôtês
correspond with, follow, be
determined by: akolouthein,
hepesthai
count up: episôreuein
criterial: diakritikos
day-night span: hêmeronuktion
definitive: horistikos
denial, by way of: arnêtikôs
description: logos
determine at both ends:
perihorizein
difficulty: aporia
direct: epiblêtikos
118 English-Greek Glossary
discrete: dihôrizmenos
discriminate: krinein
distancing: diastasis
distinctive: kharaktêristikos
dot apart: diastizein
duration: hôra
essence: ousia
establish, prove: kataskeuazein
exempt: exairein
existence, existential grounding,
reality: huparxis, hupostasis
extend, stretch, along with:
sunekteinesthai,
sumparekteinesthai
extended: diastatos
fail: epileipein
fixed stars, sphere of the: aplanês
flow, be in flux: rhuiskesthai
flowing, passage: rhusis
follow as consequence:
parakolouthein
form: eidos
former: proteron
formulate (an argument):
gumnazein
general (adj.): genikos
genus: genos
give out, fail: hupoleipein
grasp, able to: antilêptikos
halting (n.): stasis
imaginative: phantastikos
immediately in sequence:
ekhomenos
imperceptible: anepaisthêtos
(to be) implemented: sunestêkenai
infinite potentiality, having:
apeirodunamos
instantaneous: akariaios
interval: diastasis
interval: diastêma
introduce along with: suneisagein
just-now: êdê
juxtaposition: parathesis
kind: eidos
know: ginôskein
language: lexis, logos
later: husteron
lectures: skholai
lie alongside: parakeisthai
limit, end (n.): peras
lose (sc. awareness): paraireisthai
meaning: nous
measure out: katametrein,
parametrein
measure reciprocally: antimetrein
millet-seed: kenkhros
non-beings: ta mê onta
non-obtaining: anuparxia
non-rational: alogos
notice, register: ephistanai
notice: sêmaioun
notion: hupolêpsis
object (i.e. purpose): skopos
obtain, occur: huparkhein
obtaining: huparxis
pint: xestês
pluralization: poluplasiasmos
point: sêmeion, stigmê
posterior: husteron
prior: proteron
rational: logikos
real (i.e. genuine): gnêsios
reality: ousia, huparxis
recapitulation: analêpsis
reference: anaphora
regular: tetagmenos
remove (degree of): apostasis
rule: kanôn
segment: tmêma
select: ekkrinein
self-evidence: enargeia
sequence (of thought, argument):
akolouthia, sunekheia
 English-Greek Glossary
set apart: exairein
signifying: dêlôtikos
simple-minded: euêthês
smoulder: huposmukhein
solid (i.e. three-dimensional)
object: sôma
solution: lusis
solve: epiluesthai
some-time: pote
species: eidos
stage-by-stage arrivals: kinêmata
state: hexis
stay for, stay: diamenein
stay on: epidiamenein
subordinate clause: suntaxis
subsist: huphistanai
subsist with: sunhuphistanai
substance: ousia
substrate, subject: hupokeimenon
support, confirm: pistousthai
surmise: huponoein
sustain: stegein
tacitly add something:
proshupakouein
take away along with: sunanairein
119
take away, destroy: anairein
take note (of): noein, ennoein
take on, be subject of:
anadekhesthai
take over from: diadekhesthai
taking note (act of): ennoia
taking: lêpsis
temporal: khronikos
term: prosrhêma
terminate: apoperatoun
text: graphê
thought (of): ennoia
thought: dianoia
together: hama
total mass: holotêtês
transparently weak: euphorêtos
treatise: pragmateia
unclarity: adêlia
unfamiliar: asunêthês
unify: henoun
unit: monas
without break: adiakopôs
wording: lexis
 Greek-English Index
adêlia: unclarity, 712,11ff.
adiakopôs: without break, 732,22
adiaphoros: without difference,
778,24
adiastatos: unextended,
dimensionless, 703,9; 732,16ff.
adunata: impossibles, 758,27
aei: continually, 732,1
aeikinêtos: ever-moving, 771,1
agnôristos: uncognizable, 727,16
agnôstos: uncognizable, 730,3ff.
aïdios: everlasting, 747,1ff.;
748,35; 754,3ff.; 755,28; 762,3;
765,21ff.
aiôn: eternity, 703,24; 704,10
aitia: cause, causality, 748,27;
783,13
aitiasthai: to assign causation,
748,32ff.; 768,4-6
aition: cause, 734,18; 748,7.22ff.;
760,24; 767,17ff.; 768,5ff.15;
771,2; 775,4; (see also
poiêtikon aition)
aitios [sc. khronos]: time as
cause, 753,24; 767,11; 768,7
akariaios: instantaneous, 760,22;
761,17; 761,25ff.; 762,10;
764,23.27; 766,13.19
akhronos: non-temporal, 726,13
akinêtizein: to be immobile, 757,4
akinêtos: immovable, 757,5ff.;
759,10; 771,2
akolouthein: to correspond to,
717,28; 726,32; 728,17ff.; 729,2;
739,27; 745,7.12
akolouthia: sequence (of thought,
argument) 707,3
akolouthos: fitting with, 778,6
akrôamatikos: for academic
audiences, 705,20
alogos: non-rational, 770,32ff.
amerês: partless, 704,23; 722,2;
726,21; 737,1
amesos: immediate, 762,33
anabainein: to ascend, 785,22
anadekhesthai: to take on, be
subject of, 722,18; 735,9; 736,5;
761,10; 762,4; 763,12
anagein epi: to attribute to, 748,24
anairein: to take away, destroy,
720,12ff.; 731,2; 770,12ff.;
775,11ff.
anakathairesthai: to clear away,
709,2
analêpsis: recapitulation, 764,14
analogia: analogy, 732,9
anankazein: to necessitate, 752,21
anaphora: reference, 777,28ff.
anastrephesthai: to come round
again, 778,10
anepaisthêtos: imperceptible,
766,25
angelos: angel, 747,27; 750,5ff.;
755,10
anisotakhês: of unequal velocity,
709,22; 781,25
anômalos: non-uniform (of speed),
771,17; 777,11
anomogenês: heterogeneous, 782,4
antapodidonai: to state the
antithesis, 719,15
antidiastolê: contrast, 705,20
antikeimenos: contradictory,
755,18ff.; 758,26ff.; 760,12.16
antilêptikos: able to grasp, 754,10
antimetrein: to measure
 Greek-English Index
reciprocally, 741,22; 742,10;
745,6; 782,28; 783,5
antistrephein: to convert,
752,10.16.26.31
antistrophê: conversion,
752,15.17.22; 758,19
antithesis: negation, 758,19
anuparxia: non-obtaining,
755,21.28; 760,17
aoristos: indeterminate, 742,2;
773,11
apeikazein: to liken, 750,20
apeirodunamos: having infinite
potentiality, 768,20
aphestanai: to be removed,
762,14; 769,15; 773,11
aphorizein: to identify, mark off,
specify, 738,7; 745,29; 746,23ff.;
778,2
aplanês: of the fixed stars, 709,24;
718,8; 751,8ff.; 774,15;
777,16.21.32; 783,13
apodidonai: to give the apodosis,
749,19ff.
apoklêrôtikos: random, arbitrary,
704,27
apoperatoun: to terminate,
763,19ff.
apophasis: negation, 754,13.15
apophatikos: negative, 754,17;
758,12.22
aporia, aporein: difficulty, to
raise a difficulty, 723,25;
725,17.27; 726,17; 740,2.8;
742,30.31; 745,32; 765,18;
769,29; 770,4; 773,24; 775,5;
779,18; 781,7; 782,12
apostasis: degree of remove,
769,14ff.; 773,6ff.
arnêtikos: in denial mode, 754,16
asômatos: incorporeal, 747,26
asullogistos: invalid, 709,32; 713,9
asunêthês: unfamiliar, 724,4
atelês: incomplete, 725,22
atopos: absurd, 724,18; 725,18;
733,12; 752,18; 756,26; 776,22
autokinêtos: self-moved, 771,1
121
axiôma: axiom, 703,14.22; 706,19;
707,3
bradukinêtos: of slow velocity,
769,9; 777,13
dekas: the number ten, a
collection of ten objects, 737,7;
738,1.22; 741,8; 746,1; 776,23;
778,19; 780,16ff.; 785,9
dêlôtikos: signifying, 733,28
diadekhesthai: to take over from,
778,10
diairein: to divide, 724,7;
732,13ff.; 735,27; 736,20ff.;
761,5ff.; 763,2ff.; 764,2ff.; 786,2
diairesis: division, 703,22.30;
706,16; 708,2; 725,23; 732,7ff.;
736,27; 738,28; 739,19; 764,8ff.
diairetos: divisible, 708,4-10;
742,34; 745,12
diakritikos: criterial, 778,22
dialambanein peri: to examine,
702,12.13
dialambanein: to interrupt,
732,24; 733,2; 735,29
dialeipein: to break off, intermit,
interrupt, 733,29; 734,1;
739,21ff.
diamenein: to stay for, stay,
735,5ff.
dianoia: thought, 743,22; 779,36
diaphora: difference, distinction,
differentiating respect,
differentia, 755,30; 766,17;
778,26ff.; 785,24ff.
diastasis: distancing, interval,
773,4; 776,14
diastatos: extended, having
dimension, 702,24; 703,2;
705,5.7; 732,16
diastêma: interval, 722,12;
731,24; 771,16ff.; 771,20
diastizein: to dot apart, 704,15ff.
diêrthrômenos: articulate, 767,5
diestêkenai: to be at a distance
from, 762,27; 769,16; 773,4
122 Greek-English Index
dihôrizmenos: discrete, 723,26ff.;
724,16
diorizein: to make a distinction,
mark off, 735,4; 773,14
duas hê: the number two, 743,1.9ff.
eidos: form, kind, species, 725,5.6;
738,8; 741,14ff.; 744,21; 749,12;
750,4; 754,10; 765,23ff.; 767,12;
768,11ff.; 777,6.31ff.; 779,19;
780,16; 781,23
ekhomenos: immediately in
sequence, 707,15
ekkrinein: to select, 750,11
ekstasis: shifting-from, 767,3
enantios: contrary, 740,3; 743,1;
748,15ff.; 766,8; 769,19
enargeia: self-evidence, 708,26
endekhomenôs: contingently,
755,30; 756,3; 759,1
endoxa: received opinions, 705,21;
708,24
enhuparkhein: to be present in,
742,22; 780,4
enistanai: to be present, 703,1ff.;
740,35ff.; 761,25ff.; 762,13.23ff.;
744,9; 762,23ff.
ennoein: to take note of, 711,16.17
ennoia: awareness, thought,
taking note, 711,15ff.; 712,19;
714,4ff.; 716,26; 717,21ff.;
722,21ff.; 749,10
epharmozein: to coincide, 704,16
ephexês: next, 703,27; 704,8-25;
707,11
ephistanai: to notice, register,
711,23; 715,20; 716,27
epiblêtikos: direct, 754,16
epidekhesthai: to admit of,
785,14.19
epidiamenein: to stay on,
703,26.27.34; 704,1.4.30
epigignesthai: to arrive, 725,20
epikheirein: to argue, argue
against, 702,15.16; 706,3;
707,15; 708,23
epikheirêma: argument, 712,28
epileipein: to fail, 765,19
epiluesthai: to solve, 708,26;
725,27; 726,17; 740,8; 769,29;
775,5
epinoein: to think, 761,10
epinoia: conception, thought,
733,1ff.; 734,24; 761,6; 763,7ff.;
764,1ff.; 779,33; 780,1
episôreuein: to count up, 731,32
êremein: to be at rest, 755,4ff.;
756,12ff.; 769,33ff.
êremia: rest, 733,2ff.; 735,29;
745,30; 754,9ff.; 749,25.32;
756,12ff.; 768,4; 769,33ff.
eschatos: extreme, 736,1ff.
euêthês: simple-minded, 709,31;
713,11
euphorêtos: transparently weak,
710,12
exairein: to exempt, set apart,
746,11ff.; 755,10; 779,27
existanai: to shift away, 753,14.23
exôterikoi logoi: exoteric
arguments, 705,20
genesis kai phthora: coming into
being and perishing, 732,25;
748,7ff.; 753,23.4; 767,17.21ff.;
777,11ff.; cf. 726,12
genikos: general, 730,15
genos: genus, 771,8; 779,19.27;
780,12
gêraskein: to get old, 754,5
ginôskein: to know, 754,11ff.
gnêsios: real (i.e. genuine), 705,23
gnôrimos: cognizable, 730,2;
777,16.32; 783,5ff.
gnôrizein: to cognize, 727,16ff.;
728,32; 730,6ff.; 744,2.28
gnôsis: cognition, 754,10
graphê: text, 738,26
gumnazein: to formulate (an
argument), 702,32; 703,32;
714,23; 717,9
hama: together, 703,15; 704,1.2;
706,4; 724,33ff.; 725,14;
726,5.24; 731,9ff.; 735,8;
 Greek-English Index
738,8ff.; 747,17.25ff.; 750,12ff.;
752,2; 776,22.28; 777,1
haplôs: simply, straightforwardly,
without distinction or
qualification, speaking
generally, 710,26; 725,24ff.;
742,6; 750,4.6; 761,7; 767,13;
771,2; 780,26ff.
hêlix: helix, 771,27ff.
hêmeronuktion: day-night span,
711,12; 777,17ff.; 782,21; 783,17
henoun: to unify, 764,20
hepesthai: to correspond with,
follow, be determined by,
720,21; 729,3; 730,4; 733,20;
735,5; 743,22; 775,4
heterogenês: heterogeneous, 738,1
heterokinêtos: other-moved,
770,34
hexis: state, 774,2
holotêtês: total mass, 751,25
homalos: uniform (of movement),
740,33; 771,15; 777,12; 783,9
homoeidês: same in kind, 746,11
homogenês: homogeneous, 745,33;
746,2ff.; 737,33
homokhronos: contemporaneous,
synchronous, 708,15; 725,19
hôra: duration, hour, 711,16;
777,16.31
horismos: definition, specification,
720,28; 785,14
horistikos: definitive, 752,19;
778,4
horizein: to determine, mark off,
define, 714,7.13ff.; 721,22ff.;
722,17.28; 727,19; 732,28;
734,23; 735,31; 739,3; 741,29;
742 ,7; 743, 28ff.; 746,6.21ff.;
748,21; 760,28; 761,24; 765,14;
768,17ff.; 770,2; 777,23; 778,1ff.
; 783,1ff.,10
horizôn: horizon, 727,19
horos: boundary, 760,29; 772,24
hote: when, 747,30ff.; 751,32ff.
hulê: matter 768, 11
*huparkhein: to be there, be real,
exist, obtain, occur, belong to,
123
hold of, be attribute of, be data
about, 703,7; 705,26; 712,1;
719,27; 720,15ff.; 742,23ff.;
743,2; 750,12; 756,18ff.; 757,20;
759,24ff.; 760,16; 766,8.13;
771,23; 780,2.12; 786,18
huparxis: existence, obtaining,
existential grounding, 705,27;
730,2; 755,25ff.; 768,18; 779,33
huphistanai: to subsist, be there,
703,2.12; 706,4ff.; 710,19;
712,16; 730,9ff.; 735,22; 739,20;
750,24; 751,15; 780,10
hupokeimenon: substrate,
subject, 704,30; 717,30; 720,27;
721,2; 722,22; 727,33ff.;
729,13ff.; 730,23; 733,27; 736,9;
738,5; 740,15; 741,10; 743,4;
744,1ff.; 751,1ff.,21; 757,13;
761,2ff.; 763,16; 764,6ff.; 766,2;
775,17.23; 779,28; 780,10.23;
786,19ff.; cf. 726,7.9; 775,24ff.
hupoleipein: to give out, fail,
761,35; 762,2ff.; 765,20; 766,6
hupolêpsis: notion, 712,14
huponoein: to surmise, 783,24
huposmukhein: to smoulder,
766,25
hupostasis: reality, existence,
703,14; 779,30; 780,9
hupothesis: supposition, 765,26
hupothêtikos: hypothetical, 758,20
husteron: later, posterior,
703,24.26.32.33.34; 704,4;
717,27; 720,23.26; 722,8.29;
723,5; 725,18.20.24.28.29;
726,10.27; 727,29; 728,31;
729,1.21; 730,27.28;
731,26.27.29; 732,2.4; 735,5.18;
736,11.24; 737,24.26; 738,17.34;
739,7.12; 744,6.9; 746,28;
747,16.18; 750,26.27; 751,3;
765,6.7.9; 768,27.28;
769,11.13.16.18.21.23; 771,23;
772,17.19.21; 773,2.5.7.10.19;
776,1
124 Greek-English Index
idios: peculiar, 776,15.19;
779,29.33
isotakhês: of equal velocity, 709,20
kampsis: bend, 771,24ff.
kanôn: rule, 754,13; 778,22;
779,17; 785,22; 786,14
kat’allo: through something else,
754,20.24ff.
katagêraskein: to grow old, 748,4;
753,19
katametrein: to measure out,
746,5
kataphatikos: affirmative,
709,32; 713,9; 752,16; 754,16;
758,11;
kataskeuazein: to establish,
prove, 703,21.22; 707,3; 723,9;
725,9; 758,4; 762,5; 768,25.30;
769,10; 772,2ff.,16; 784,18
katêgorein: to predicate, 724,7ff.;
778,23ff.; 785,23ff.
kath’auto: through itself, 754,24;
755,1
katholikos: universal (adj.),
779,27; 785,22
katholou: universal, 752,16.26;
779,35; 780,2
kekhôrismenos: remote, 704,25ff.
kenkhros: millet-seed, 747,30ff.;
752,12ff.
kentron: centre, 755,10; 757,1;
761,8
kharaktêristikos: distinctive,
752,8.29
khôrizein: to separate, 779,36;
780,8; 782,7
khronikos: temporal, 768,23;
760,19
kinêmata (pl.): stage-by-stage
arrivals, 721,11.21; 722,2
koinônein: to share, 778,23
koinonia: common feature, 779,35
koinos: common, 712,14; 713,1;
732,11; 734,9; 737,30; 760,25ff.;
763,16ff.; 776,14; 778,5;
778,23ff.; 779,28ff.; 783,27;
786,15ff.
krinein: to discriminate, 718,22ff.;
723,10ff. ; 754,14ff.; 778,11
kurios: principal, strict, 741,33;
742,4; 747,22.34; 748,3;
750,10ff.; 754,20
lêgein: to cease, 741,5
lêmma: assumption, 717, 6
lêpsis: taking, 731,26
lexis: wording, language, text,
707,4; 731,13; 764, 9
logikos: rational, 770,12.32ff.
logos: description, 725,11; 728,3ff.;
729,23; 730,3; 733,28ff.; 741,15;
743,6; 761,2ff.; 762,3; 763,12ff.;
764,5ff.
lusis: solution, 777,8; 780,26
mê onta, ta: non-beings, 755,15ff.;
758,27; 759,20ff.
menein: to stay, 725,20
meristos: divisible into parts,
702,24; 706,1; 737,1
metabainein: to make a
transition, 721,3
metabasis: passage, transitional
stage, 728,21; 730,10
metekhein: to participate in,
740,17
monas: unit, one, 731,15ff.,30ff.;
743,7ff.; 745,33; 749,15;
750,22.28; 781,1ff.
murmêx: ant, 763,17
noein: to take note, 722,10
nous: meaning, 742,32
organon: instrument, 767,15
ouranos: heaven, 709,15-24;
737,10; 752,12ff.,25
ousia: essence, substance, reality,
705,27; 712,7; 725,27; 726,9;
727,33; 730,8ff.; 739,20; 755,5;
759,12; 778,22; 779,29; 780,6ff.
oxukinêtos: of swift velocity,
769,9; 771,23
pantôs: universally, in all cases,
 Greek-English Index
unrestrictedly, 747,33;
750,14.27; 775,3
paradromein: to pass (of time),
715,21
paraireisthai: to lose (sc.
awareness), 711,20ff.
parakeisthai: to lie alongside,
side by side, 724,19; 727,27
parakolouthein: to accompany,
be a consequence of, 702,13;
728,24; 753,8; 767,12;
769,36
paralogismos: paralogism,
725,22.26
paralogizesthai: to commit a
fallacy, 713,7
parametrein: to measure out,
709,29
paratasis: continuance, stretch
(temporal), 722,25; 724,29;
744,8ff.; 749,11f.; 754,18.25ff.;
757,26
parathesis: juxtaposition, 727,24
paratrekhein: to run past, 753,20
parerkhesthai: to pass away,
753,20
paskhein hupo: to be affected by,
749,2ff.; 753,19
pathos: attribute, 716,10; 721,9;
747,7ff.; 750,18ff.; 751,1ff.;
767,10; 770,25; 774,3
perainein: to limit, 765,17ff.
peras: end, limit, 705,4; 722,14ff.;
734,9; 735,20ff.; 736,5; 737,19ff.;
738,5ff.; 739,1; 744,10; 761,10ff.;
763,17ff.; 766,6
peratoun: to bound, limit, 732,13;
736,2; 761,35
perazein: to bound, 736,1ff.; 747,2;
751,18; 761, 33; 768,16
peretteuein: to be superfluous,
749,16.23
periekhein: to contain, 703,15-18;
704,3; 706,17-20; 707,29ff.;
739,3; 741,6; 747,34; 750,16;
759,21ff.
periektikos: capable of containing,
707,29
125
perihorizein: to determine at both
ends, 765,1
phantastikon, to: the imaginative
(part of the soul), 716,19ff.
phtheiresthai: to perish, 703,27;
706,23; 725,21; 748,14ff.; 767,6;
774,2.19ff.
phthora: perishing, 706,23;
768,15ff.; see also genesis kai
phthora
phusikos: physical (contr. with
psychological), 770,28; natural
philosopher, 702,12
pistousthai: to support, confirm,
778,18; 783,27; 786,14
platikos: broad, in a broad sense,
741,1; 761,17; 760,22; 762,16ff.;
764,23
poiêtikon aition: productive
cause, 727,21; 767,15.23; 768,1ff.
pollôi mallon, pollôi proteron: a
fortiori, 726,11; 746,13
pôlos: pole, 755,10; 757,2
poluplasiasmos: pluralization,
777,22
pote: some-time, 761,24ff.;
765,12ff.
pragmateia: treatise, 762,7
prohomologein: to acknowledge
beforehand, 742,31
pros ti, ta: relatives, 742,11.15
proshupakouein: to tacitly add
something to, 758,15; 765,5
prosrhêma: term, 760,19; 768, 23
protasis: premiss, 724,14;
758,10.22; 768,30; 769,10;
772,3ff.,16ff.; 773,17
proteron: before, former, prior,
703,24.26.32.33.34; 704,3.4;
717,27; 720,23.26; 722,8.29;
723,5; 725,18.20.24.27.29;
726,9.26; 727,28; 728,31;
729,1.21; 730,27.28; 731,26.29;
732,2.3; 735,5.17; 736,10.24;
737,24.26; 738,17.34; 739,7.12;
744,6.9; 746,28; 747,16.18;
750,26.27; 751,3; 760,4.9; 764,8;
765,5.6.8.9; 768,26.28;
126 Greek-English Index
769,11.13.16.18.20.21.23;
772,11.13.17.19.21;
773,2.5.7.10.18; 776,1
psukhê: soul, 716,20; 740,10ff.,26;
741,8; 743,22.29ff.; 744,14;
747,24; 750,5; 769,26ff.; 770,5ff.;
771,3; 775,16ff.; 776,23; 780,23ff.
rhuiskesthai: to flow, be in flux,
703,25; 722,20; 727,11
rhusis: flowing, passage, 719,20;
727,22ff.; 735,25; 737,11;
761,17; 763,5
sêmainein: to signify, 749,12;
750,11.24; 760,10; 761,24; 775,24
sêmaioun: to notice, 750,24; 751,32
sêmeion: point, 704,9ff.;
727,11.22ff.; 731,3; 734,4;
735,2.21; 737,1; 761,5ff.;
763,4ff.,18ff.; 764,10
skhêma: figure (syllogistic),
709,33; 713,10; 722,9; 758,5;
768,28; geometric shape,
778,3ff.; 785,26ff.
skhesis: aspect, content, meaning,
717,31; 725,28; 720,29; 726,9;
730,23; 741,15; 766,3
skholai: lectures, 762,9
skopos: object (sc. purpose),
745,19.27ff.
sôma: solid (i.e. three-dimensional
object), 708,13
sômatôtês: corporeal mass, 709,5;
713,6
stasis: halting, 732,24; 733,8
stegein: to sustain, 768,11ff.
sterêsis: privation, 754,11
stigmê: point, 727,10; 728,28;
733,19; 735,1.19; 736,17; 27;
763,3.26; 764,11ff.
sullogismos: syllogism, 718,21;
758,5ff.,22; 768,25; 777,2.16
sumbebêkenai: to be incidental,
716,10; 737,20ff.; 754,29; kata
sumbebêkos: 728,5ff.; 753,6;
754,19ff.; 757,28; 759,11ff.;
767,13.22ff.
sumparateinesthai: to
continuate, stretch along with,
724,22; 754,19; 760,17
sumparekteinesthai: to extend
along with, 739,20
sumperainesthai: to bring to
conclusion, 739,8
sumperasma: conclusion,
730,21ff.; 758,9; 772,2
sumplekein: to combine, 709,33;
780,8
sumplokê: combination, 710,1
sunagein: to conclude, deduce,
710,5; 712,18; 729,10; 730,29;
752,18.23; 758,14ff.
sunanairein: to take away along
with, 711,29; 731,2ff.; 775,16
sunaisthanesthai: to be aware of,
716,27; 766,24ff.
sunaisthêsis: awareness, 711,20
sundesmos: conjunction, 749,16.24
suneinai: to co-exist with, 752,31;
753,7
suneisagein: to introduce along
with, 731,3
sunekheia: continuity, source of
continuity, 727,3; 732,7.21;
739,21; 76024ff.; 764,8;
sequence of argument, 749,27ff.;
782,13
sunekhein: to make continuous,
760,26; 763,2ff.;
sunekhês: continuous, 717,12ff.;
723,25ff.; 724,17; 727,2; 732,23;
739,18ff.; 742,32ff.; 744,1ff.;
745,12; 746,21; 760,28; 763,9;
780,30ff.
sunekteinesthai: to extend
alongside, 728,24
sunepinoein: to apprehend along
with, 711,18; 716,12.20; 718,31;
742,10
sunêtheia: custom, 783,27
sunêthês: customary, 778,5
sungenês: homogeneous with,
777,4.20; 782,12ff.; 783,8
sunhaptein: to be in contact,
connect, 760,29; 761,24ff.
 Greek-English Index
sunhuparkhein: to co-exist with,
747,4; 750,50; 752,15; 753,5ff.;
779,36
sunhuphistanai: to subsist with,
750,26ff.
sunistanai: to be implemented,
702,24
sunkatatattein: to classify along
with, 746,11ff.
sunônumos: synonymous, 779,
19ff.; 780,3
suntaxis: subordinate clause,
749,17
sunthesis: synthesis, 764,18
sunthetos: composite, 750,2ff.
127
takhukinêtos: of swift velocity,
777,13
tetagmenos: regular, 718,16ff.
theios: divine, 747,24
theôrein: to consider, focus on,
see, observe, 739,5; 754,24;
755,18; 767,16; 778,6; 779,33;
780,2ff.
theos: God, 747,27
thesei: by convention, 723,8; 746,24
thesis: position, 719,14.15.18;
735,21ff.
tmêma: cut, division-segment,
703,29.32; 708,2; 740,21
 Subject Index
References are to the nearest preceding page and line number, which appear
in the margins of the translation, and to the notes to the translation.
Alexander of Aphrodisias: 738,25;
745,15; 756,5; n.97
ancients, views of the:
708,20-711,10; 712,5-20;
777,35; 783,20
angels: 747,25; 750,5; 755,10
Brague, L.: n.43
Chrysippus: n.152
contrariety: 748,15
Coope, U.: n.43
date of this commentary: 703,15
exoteric arguments: 705,15-20
God: 747,25
Homer: 755,30; 757,15; 759,15
horse-racing: 771,25
hypothetical argument: 758,20
imaginative part (of the soul):
716,20
Menander: n.127
Menn, S.: n.107
Nicomachus of Gerasa: n.107
number
smallest: 739,25; 743,5-15
two senses of: 718,20-5; 722,25;
723,20; 724,1; 731,20; 739,5;
741,10; 744,10-15; 775,5
Paron: 767,5
Philoponus
Christianity of: n.5
commentary on the Categories:
705,20
lectures on Physics VIII: 762,5
on infinities: n.144
Plato: n.188
poles and centre (of the universe):
757,1-5
Sardinia, sleepers in: 715,15-20;
722,20
Saturn (the planet): 710,30
schoinos (unit of land
measurement): 746,20
Sharples, R.W.: n.97
sophistic argument: 725,25-30;
728,1
Sophocles: n.126
soul, rational and non-rational:
770,30
syllogism, figures of: 709,30; 5;
713,10; 723,5; 758,5; 768,25
Timaeus: n.5
Trojan war: 705,10, 708,15; 750,15;
757,15; 761,20.25; 762,15.25;
764,25; 765,1
Xenocrates: n.5
zodiac, signs of: 727,10-15; 731,25;
732,1