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PHIL106

23.04.2021

Infinite Divisibility

Which branch of knowledge comes to your mind first when you hear infinite

divisibility? Infinite divisibility has been a topic in various fields of study such as philosophy,

physics or mathematics in different ways. In this paper, I will focus on philosophy and

particularly, a passage (316a19) from Aristotle which is on his treatise On Generation and

Corruption. On this passage Aristotle argues the cases which follow from the assumption that

a body is divisible through and through. As I examine this small passage, I will reconstruct his

arguments by clearly expressing his premises and conclusions. Finally I will show that his

arguments’ conclusion is that it is not possible that a body can be divided through and

through. Note that in this paper, I will only examine and reconstruct the passage and I will not

take Aristotle’s another word on infinite indivisibility into consideration.

Firstly, Aristotle maintains that if a body is by nature divisible through and through,

then nothing impossible will have resulted. Since the practical examination of the assumption

that something is divisible through and through, he indicates that if this is the case, then

necessarily the outcome should be something possible in nature. This is a very simple

conditional sentence which is consistent logically and this is our first premise in the argument.

Aristotle continues to examine and argues that, then, if a body is divided through and

through, in the end, either magnitude will remain or magnitude will not remain. This is the

second premise. This is a dilemma and this dilemma is necessarily true because two horns of
the dilemma are negations of each other and either one or the other must be true since

logically there is not a possible third case. At this point, as might be expected, Aristotle

continues with examining the two horns of the dilemma.

We have two premises. I put them aside for now. To check the outcome of the first

horn of dilemma, we form a new argument. As the first premise of this argument, Aristotle

says that if a magnitude remains (after we divided a body through and through), then this

means that there is something undivided. This is not possible because our initial assumption

was that a body is through and through (and it is presupposed that whenever we have

something undivided we divide them). In a sense, this premise is like “If something is divided

through and through, then there is something undivided”. This is a contradiction. The fact that

this is a contradiction is our second premise in this sub-argument. Simply, this means we have

a conclusion for our sub-argument. It is “it is not the case that when a body is divided through

and through, a magnitude remains”. Hence, Aristotle swallows the first horn of the dilemma.

To check the second horn of dilemma, here, we form another argument. Aristotle

argues that if a magnitude does not remain, after we divide a body through and through, then

either body will consists of points or it will be absolutely nothing. This is the first premise of

our second sub-argument and here, again, we have a dilemma. This dilemma is not as

logically definite as the first dilemma but for the sake of argument, I will not go further and I

will examine and explain the argument in the way Aristotle presented it. Similarly, to check

the horns of dilemma we will see new arguments.

Now we are forming the first sub-argument of our second sub-argument. The first

premise is “if the final result is absolutely nothing (when we divide a body through and

through and a magnitude does not remain), then this means that body comes into being out of

nothing and body exists as a composite of nothing therefore body will be nothing but an
appearance”. For this argument, Aristotle does not give any other explicit premise but right

after saying this, he talks about the second horn of dilemma implying that the consequent of

this conditional cannot be true, therefore, the conclusion of this sub-argument is “it is not the

case that the final result is absolutely nothing when we divide a body through and through and

a magnitude does not remain”. I assume that he did not need to explain further because the

idea that body existing as a composite of nothing naturally contradicts the initial assumption

of the argument because it is presupposed that a body is a material entity which is composed

of things. In anyway, here, Aristotle swallows the first horn of the the second sub-argument of

the second sub-argument of the main argument.

Finally, we have another argument to check the second horn. The first premise of this

sub-argument is “if the body consists of points (when we divide a body through and through

and a magnitude does not remain), then it will not possess any magnitude. At this point, it is

crucial to mention that it is a presupposition that points do not have magnitudes. Just like in

the case of the first horn, Aristotle does not give another explicit premise for this argument

either. I assume that he did not need, again, because he did not need to repeat that a body has

a magnitude because it is already presupposed in the argument. As a result, Aristotle swallows

the second horn, too.

Therefore, Aristotle swallows both horns of dilemma “When we divide a body through

and through and magnitude does not remain, then either body will consists of points or it will

be absolutely nothing”. These assumptions were under the second horn of “When a body is

divided either magnitude will remain or magnitude will not remain.” and hence, Aristotle

swallows the second horn of this dilemma, too.

I have shown previously that Aristotle swallows the first horn of dilemma “either

magnitude will remain or magnitude will not remain” because it logically leads to a
contradiction and now I have shown that he swallowed second horn. This means that we reach

impossible conclusions both when we assume that magnitude remains and when we assume

magnitude does not remain after a body is divided through and through. This is our third

premise for the main argument.

Recall the first two premises of Aristotle’s main argument. The first premise was that

“If a body is divided through and through, then nothing impossible will have resulted. The

second premise was “If we divide a body either magnitude will remain or magnitude will not

remain. Now, the third premise is “Both when we assume that magnitude remains and when

we assume that magnitude remains, something impossible is concluded”. Therefore, all these

premises will give us the conclusion “It is not the case that a body is divided through and

through”.

References

Aristotle. (350 BC). On Generation and Corruption.

*Since I worked on the passage that is given to us directly, I do not know the further

information about the exact reference such as who translated the text or where the text is

taken from.