Download Physics Book I Study Guide Part 1 of 1 File

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
ARISTOTLE – PHYSICS BOOK I
STUDY GUIDE
PROFESSOR JULIE YOO
Chapter 7
The prior chapters were devoted to criticizing other philosophical accounts of change. This
chapter finally presents the account of change that Aristotle endorses.
a.
The chapter begins with a distinction between simple and complex ways that “one thing
comes to be from another thing, and one sort of thing from another sort of thing” (189b
33, emphasis added). This gives us three things to consider. What are they?
1)
2)
3)
b. Which are simple, which is complex?
c. Which survive the process of change, which do not?
d. Aristotle says “there are different senses of ‘coming to be’” (190a 33). What are they?
e. In 190b 1 – 4, Aristotle introduces the term ‘substratum.’ This is not the same as
substance. The rest of the chapter attempts to characterize the relation between
substratum and substance. What is the relation?
f. In 190b 5-9, Aristotle states FIVE ways things can change. State the ways and give an
example of your own that illustrates each.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
g. There is a difference between what Aristotle calls (primary) substance and substratum.
What is the difference? See 189a 11 – 191b 34.
Chapter 8
At the beginning of chapter 8 of Book I of the Physics, Aristotle claims, “We will now proceed
to show that the difficulty of the early thinkers, as well as our own, is solved in this way alone.”
(191a 24- 25)
a. Identify the earlier philosopher Aristotle has in mind.
b. What was ‘the difficulty’?
c. What is Aristotle’s solution?1 (Pay close attention to Aristotle’s example of the
doctor.)
d. What is ‘this distinction’ (191b 10) that Aristotle believes was missed by the earlier
philosopher, leading that philosopher to make an error in his approach to change?2
e. What is the importance of making qualifications in our talk of coming to be? (see
191 b 10 – end of the chapter)
1
The “insofar as” expression is also translated as qua, and is best illustrated with examples: Of a statue made of
marble, you may say that it is beautiful qua work of art, not qua lump of marble; or of Shakespeare, you may say
that he was brilliant qua writer, not qua mathematician; or of a human zygote, you may say that it is a human being
qua genetic code, but not a human being qua conscious person.
2
Aristotle uses the term “coincidentally” in a technical way, not in the way we mean as unlikely events occurring
together. For Aristotle, the term means something like “within the range of pre and post-change qualities.” Thus,
being ripe and unripe are coincident; ripe and green are not coincident. These are qualities that can be IN a subject,
and thus concern alternations, or qualified coming into being. When it comes to unqualified coming into being,
Aristotle gives us how an animal can come into being and thus come to be a dog. Now, there is no opposite to being
a dog, but there is the privation of the form of dog, which can function as the “coincident” to being a dog.