Abstract
Given the context of the Physics just explored, it will not be a surprise if time (chrόnos) in Aristotle’s analytic of time turns out to be not a being qua itself but an attribute of motion, an interval.
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Notes
- 1.
Interpreting Physics iv 11 is difficult, and the literature is divided on interpretation. I agree with Shoemaker 1969, Sorabji 1983, Hussey 1981 that time for Aristotle requires perception of kinêsis. Roark (2011, 56) claims that readers of Aristotle in this camp have not defended why Aristotle would hold this view here in the Treatise on Time but nowhere else. My defense is twofold: (1) I read the Treatise on Time as highly contextualized and parallel in structure to Aristotle’s foregoing arguments about the terms of kinêsis. Time, like the infinite, place, and void is not considered a being qua itself in Aristotle’s philosophy of nature here in the Physics. In short, this is an account of time relevant to an inquiry into the being of natural beings, i.e., an account of time taken. Recall, the Treatise on Time may have been the end of Aristotle’s initial work on nature; (2) It is not the case that Aristotle does not at least assume this view in other works of his natural philosophy. I will look to some of these works in the final chapter.
- 2.
Already, in the very idea of “the time taken,” there is a nod to the fact that time requires a “taker.” Otherwise, time cannot be “taken.” This seems a foreshadowing of the subsequent arguments about time and the soul in Physics iv 14.
- 3.
Namely, while there is literature discussing the difference between the two Greek times, chrόnos and kairos (see for example Moutsopoulos 2010; Smith 1969), thus an acknowledgment that there was more than one sense of temporality for the Greeks, there has been no sustained discussion about the fact that chrόnos itself seems to be a homonym—naming two different senses of time.
- 4.
Ultimately, I agree with Roark that the before and after is non-temporal in Aristotle’s account, thus with Coope that the business of numbering the before and after entails counting “nows,” implying that “now” too is non-temporal; but, I will depart from Coope insofar as she argues that, “… there must be some other continuum, prior to time, on which the now depends for its existence” and that the other continuum is change, and instead propose that the other continuum—in line with the greater context of Aristotle’s Physics—is a “this,” the self-subsistent existing natural beings, “the matter” undergoing the change.
- 5.
Coope (2005, 17) also mentions the similarity in structure between the beginning of Aristotle’s Treatise on Time and the way he began his account of place (209a2) and his account of the infinite (iii 4–5), but adds in n. 1 that while puzzles about the infinite are answered by Aristotle (iii 8), he wrongly claims that he has solved all of the puzzles about place at 212b22–23. Coope refers her reader to Ross (1936, 564).
- 6.
Roark (2011, 53) supports the theory that Physics iv 11 begins Aristotle’s analytic of time, in Roark’s words, “Aristotle’s positive account of time.”
- 7.
I offer a reading of Physics 11 despite that the order of arguments is challenging to understand in a coherent way (see for example Hussey (1983, 145) on the strange arrangement of the section).
- 8.
Ἑχόμενον δὲ τῶν εἰρημένων ἐστὶν ἐπελθεῖν περὶ χρόνου· πρῶτον δὲ καλῶς ἔχει διαπορῆσαι περὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ διὰ τῶν ἐξωτερικῶν λόγων, πότερον τῶν ὄντων ἐστὶν ἢ τῶν μὴ ὄντων, εἶτα τίς ἡ φύσις αὐτοῦ.
- 9.
Coope (2005, 17) adds Aristotle’s subsequent question, “What is time’s relation to the present, or ‘now’?” to the puzzles.
- 10.
Aristotle will argue in Physics 11 that time is continuous. Since the essence of continuity for Aristotle is that something is a whole with parts, that these parts are touching, and that there is the potential for infinite divisibility of the whole, it makes sense that he begins with this assumption. But, if his Treatise on Time is an investigation in the same vein as his previous queries into the terms of kinêsis, i.e., in the form of APo ii 1, 89b24–5, and beginning with endoxa in the order of explanation and proceeding to demonstrate that the term of motion is not a self-subsistent being itself, this assumption seems impetuous. If Aristotle’s puzzles are not just rhetorical, how can we assume something is continuous when we have not yet established whether or not it exists? Indeed, in her reply to Miller (1974, 139–141), Coope (2005, 20) raises a similar point when she says that Miller’s suggestion that the puzzles of time could have been solved if Aristotle had said, “to be is to be surrounded by time” would not work because assuming that being is surrounded by time is to already assume that time exists, and whether or not time exists is the question Aristotle poses. Yet, Coope does not raise this same issue with regard to Aristotle’s assumption that time is a whole composed of parts, i.e., is continuous.
- 11.
Coope (2005, 81) cites Generation and Corruption (338b9–11) to argue that Aristotle elsewhere posits “a pretemporal order that is both infinite and (in the relevant sense) linear,” and she believes that Aristotle could have used this notion in the Physics to provide a temporal basis for the before and after, thus defending “his assumption about time’s linearity.” I will discuss shortly that Aristotle did not need a temporal basis for the before and after in his account of time in the Physics and that in fact before and after are not inherently temporal concepts.
- 12.
In the Timaeus 37d–38c, Plato defines time (chrόnos) as a type of number: as the number according to which the universe, or Living Creature, moves (ποιεῖ μένοντος αἰῶνος ἐν ἑνὶ κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν ἰοῦσαν αἰώνιον εἰκόνα, τοῦτον ὃν δὴ χρόνον ὠνομάκαμεν) (37d) and as that which “imitates eternity and circles according to number” (κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν κυκλουμένου γέγονεν εἴδη) (38a). Later, he affirms that there are numbers of time (38c). So, he appears to be inconsistent regarding the relationship between time and number. The universe, or “Living Creature” has a mostly eternal nature, but cannot be fully eternal due to the fact that it was created. That which comes into being must also perish from being. So, it is said to have been modeled after eternity; yet, it is truly sempiternal. As such, despite having been generated, it will be for all time. As Helena Keizer (Keizer 1999, 88) points out, Aristotle seems to be referring to the Timaeus 38c1–3 in De Caelo i 10, 280a28–32. Here, Aristotle questions the idea that something can be both generated and existing for all time. In short, Aristotle calls into question the whole notion of creation. Cf. also Physics viii 1 251b15–20 where Aristotle challenges Plato’s claim that time was created.
- 13.
Keizer (1999, 90) highlights the sense in which aion cannot be endless, i.e., it is “a completeness which is an end (telos) in all its fullness.”
- 14.
Plato makes the connection between motion and time already in the Timaeus when he concludes that these things becoming in the world of sense do so in time. Time (chrόnos) is the circling number, which imitates eternity (aion) (ἀλλὰ χρόνου ταῦτα αἰῶνα μιμουμένου καὶ κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν κυκλουμένου γέγονεν εἴδη) (38a).
- 15.
Though some have argued that aion is timeless (cf. Sorabji 1983, 126 n. 122 where he mentions von Leyden 1964; Keizer 1999, 89), Sorabji (1983, 126–127) appeals to De caelo i 9, 279a12–b3 to argue that Aristotle does not mean “timelessness” when he writes aion; but, rather, “everlasting duration.” This is not to say, as Sorabji concludes, that Aristotle considers “possessers of this sort of aion” to be in time. Instead, Sorabji notes the “special sense” of time that Aristotle presents in the Physics.
- 16.
Aristotle will of course famously broach this topic in Physics viii, but one could argue that, in the spirit of many of Aristotle’s treatises, the topics of the last book are preparatory to a subsequent topic of study. On this reading, Aristotle prepares us for the de Caelo at the end of the Physics.
- 17.
Sorabji (1983, 126) has noted that it does not seem that infinity can be a number. When this conclusion is then accepted as a premise here, since time is going to end up being a number (arithmos) for Aristotle, the idea that time could be both a number and infinite is self-contradictory.
- 18.
“Attributes” is not a perfect translation of τῶν ὑπαρχόντων, literally “posessions.”
- 19.
ὁ δὲ χρόνος οὐ δοκεῖ συγκεῖσθαι ἐκ τῶν νῦν. ἔτι δὲ τὸ νῦν, ὃ φαίνεται διορίζειν τὸ παρελθὸν καὶ τὸ μέλλον, πότερον ἓν καὶ ταὐτὸν ἀεὶ διαμένει ἢ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἰδεῖν. εἰ μὲν γὰρ αἰεὶ ἕτερον καὶ ἕτερον, μηδὲν δ’ ἐστὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο μέρος ἅμα (ὃ μὴ περιέχει, τὸ δὲ περιέχεται, ὥσπερ ὁ ἐλάττων χρόνος ὑπὸ τοῦ πλείονος), τὸ δὲ νῦν μὴ ὂν πρότερον δὲ ὂν ἀνάγκη ἐφθάρθαι ποτέ, καὶ τὰ νῦν ἅμα μὲν ἀλλήλοις οὐκ ἔσται, ἐφθάρθαι δὲ ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ τὸ πρότερον. ἐν αὑτῷ μὲν οὖν ἐφθάρθαι οὐχ οἷόν τε διὰ τὸ εἶναι τότε, ἐν ἄλλῳ δὲ νῦν ἐφθάρθαι τὸ πρότερον νῦν οὐκ ἐνδέχεται. ἔστω γὰρ ἀδύνατον ἐχόμενα εἶναι ἀλλήλων τὰ νῦν, ὥσπερ στιγμὴν στιγμῆς. εἴπερ οὖν ἐν τῷ ἐφεξῆς οὐκ ἔφθαρται ἀλλ’ ἐν ἄλλῳ, ἐν τοῖς μεταξὺ [τοῖς] νῦν ἀπείροις οὖσιν ἅμα ἂν εἴη· τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδ’ αἰεὶ τὸ αὐτὸ διαμένειν δυνατόν· οὐδενὸς γὰρ διαιρετοῦ πεπερασμένου ἓν πέρας ἔστιν, οὔτε ἂν ἐφ’ ἓν ᾖ συνεχὲς οὔτε ἂν ἐπὶ πλείω· τὸ δὲ νῦν πέρας ἐστίν, καὶ χρόνον ἔστι λαβεῖν πεπερασμένον. ἔτι εἰ τὸ ἅμα εἶναι κατὰ χρόνον καὶ μήτε πρότερον μήτε ὕστερον τὸ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ εἶναι καὶ ἑνὶ [τῷ] νῦν ἐστιν, εἰ τά τε πρότερον καὶ τὰ ὕστερον ἐν τῷ νῦν τῳδί ἐστιν, ἅμα ἂν εἴη τὰ ἔτος γενόμενα μυριοστὸν τοῖς γενομένοις τήμερον, καὶ οὔτε πρότερον οὔτε ὕστερον οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἄλλου.
- 20.
According to Ross (1936, 596), this is a reference to Plato’s Timaeus 37c–39e, specifically 39d1. This is also reported by Eudemus, Theophrastus, and Alexander (Simplicius 1895, 108), specifically 39C (Simplicius 1895, 111).
- 21.
According to Hussey (1983, 141) this is a reference to Pythagorean DK 58 B 33 or Aetius I.21, 1. According to Ross (1936, 596), Simplicius attributes it to Pythagoreans by way of a misreading of Archytas by Iamblichus “diasteima teis tou pantos phuseos.” According to Simplicius (1895, 108), this is something attributed the Pythagoreans, who may have misinterpreted what some Stoics reported to be Archytus’s definition of time, “time was an interval in the nature of the whole.” Ross clarifies that the “some Stoics” mentioned by Simplicius was Iamblichus.
- 22.
ὥσπερ οὖν εἰ μὴ ἦν ἕτερον τὸ νῦν ἀλλὰ ταὐτὸ καὶ ἕν, οὐκ ἂν ἦν χρόνος, οὕτως καὶ ἐπεὶ λανθάνει ἕτερον ὄν, οὐ δοκεῖ εἶναι τὸ μεταξὺ χρόνος.
- 23.
Hussey (1983, 142) claims that, “Aristotle is arguing here from the phenomenology of time and change,” which he notes to be good dialectical method and apparently “carefully non-committal” about whether time is a “content-noun” or a “mass-term.” If Hussey intends the difference between “content-noun” and “mass-term” to be analogous to Aristotle’s differentiation between “time taken” and “infinite time,” respectively, which I suspect he does, I disagree that this ambiguity continues in Chap. 11; rather, it is relegated to Chap. 10.
- 24.
εἰ δὴ τὸ μὴ οἴεσθαι εἶναι χρόνον τότε συμβαίνει ἡμῖν, ὅταν μὴ ὁρίσωμεν μηδεμίαν μεταβολήν, ἀλλ' ἐν ἑνὶ καὶ ἀδιαιρέτῳ φαίνηται ἡ ψυχὴ μένειν, ὅταν δ' αἰσθώμεθα καὶ ὁρίσωμεν, τότε φαμὲν γεγονέναι χρόνον, φανερὸν ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ κινήσεως καὶ μεταβολῆς.
- 25.
ἅμα γὰρ κινήσεως αἰσθανόμεθα καὶ χρόνου· καὶ γὰρ ἐὰν ᾖ σκότος καὶ μηδὲν διὰ τοῦ σώματος πάσχωμεν, κίνησις δέ τις ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ ἐνῇ, εὐθὺς ἅμα δοκεῖ τις γεγονέναι καὶ χρόνος. ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ ὅταν γε χρόνος δοκῇ γεγονέναι τις, ἅμα καὶ κίνησίς τις δοκεῖ γεγονέναι. ὥστε ἤτοι κίνησις ἢ τῆς κινήσεώς τί ἐστιν ὁ χρόνος. ἐπεὶ οὖν οὐ κίνησις, ἀνάγκη τῆς κινήσεώς τι εἶναι αὐτόν.
- 26.
ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ κινούμενον κινεῖται ἔκ τινος εἴς τι καὶ πᾶν μέγεθος συνεχές, ἀκολουθεῖ τῷ μεγέθει ἡ κίνησις· διὰ γὰρ τὸ τὸ μέγεθος εἶναι συνεχὲς καὶ ἡ κίνησίς ἐστιν συνεχής, διὰ δὲ τὴν κίνησιν ὁ χρόνος· ὅση γὰρ ἡ κίνησις, τοσοῦτος καὶ ὁ χρόνος αἰεὶ δοκεῖ γεγονέναι.
- 27.
My reading here has benefitted greatly from Roark’s account of the “before” and “after” as non-temporal (Roark 2011, 95–119). Roark argues against the majority view that Aristotle’s definition of time is circular because it uses seemingly temporal terms, i.e., “before” and “after” in the definition (Cf. Annas 1975; Owen 1975; Ross 1936 for the alternative view). But, as helpful as Roark’s account is, it does not seem necessary to accept Roark’s hylomorphic reading of Aristotle’s Treatise on Time to understand Aristotle to intend an underlying material continuum to provide non-temporal “relata” expressed in the relation “before” and “after.” Roark argues that priority and posteriority are already present in Aristotle’s account of kinêsis (Roark 2011, 95). I agree, but they are present only insofar as there is a natural being undergoing kinêsis.
- 28.
ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸν χρόνον γε γνωρίζομεν, ὅταν ὁρίσωμεν τὴν κίνησιν, τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ὁρίζοντες· καὶ τότε φαμὲν γεγονέναι χρόνον, ὅταν τοῦ προτέρου καὶ ὑστέρου ἐν τῇ κινήσει αἴσθησιν λάβωμεν. ὁρίζομεν δὲ τῷ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο ὑπολαβεῖν αὐτά καὶ μεταξύ τι αὐτῶν ἕτερον· ὅταν γὰρ ἕτερα τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ μέσου νοήσωμεν, καὶ δύο εἴπῃ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ νῦν, τὸ μὲν πρότερον τὸ δ’ ὕστερον, τότε καὶ τοῦτό φαμεν εἶναι χρόνον· τὸ γὰρ ὁριζόμενον τῷ νῦν χρόνος εἶναι δοκεῖ· καὶ ὑποκείσθω.
- 29.
Hardie and Gaye translate ἡ ψυχὴ, “mind” in the ROT. To be more precise, I have amended the translation so that ἡ ψυχὴ is rendered “soul.”
- 30.
Heinemann’s analysis of this passage (2012, 6) is helpful here: “The ‘earlier and later’ in change is that, by being which in passing change is. Yet, what it is to be earlier and later in change is something else, and is not the same thing as change. We become acquainted with time when we mark off the change, that is, when we mark it off by what is earlier and later. We say that time has passed when we get a perception of the earlier and later in change.”
- 31.
Looking at language used: Aristotle is here referring to thinking or judging for the first time, Aristotle tells that when we judge a difference between this (thing here) “now” and this (thing here) “now,” we mark time. However, it is the soul (ἡ ψυχὴ), not specified to be either perceptive or intellective, which discriminates the nows—the before and after—as two. De motu 700b18–20 uses different language (κριτικὰ instead of νοήσωμεν) to conclude that perception is capable of exercising judgment: “For imagination and sensation cover the same ground as the mind (since they all exercise judgment) (though they differ in certain aspects as has been defined elsewhere” (De anima iii). This early language about perception, marking, and apprehension of time by soul, generally, suggests that time may be apprehended by the sensitive soul as well. Again, we will return to this possibility in the next chapter.
- 32.
The “we perceive” given here in English but not found in the Greek is a carryover from the “we perceive” αἰσθανώμεθα just previous in 219a31; the two clauses are parallel in sentence structure.
- 33.
Coope (2005, 29) supports that the now is not temporal when she observes, “On the one hand, none of time is except the now. This suggests that time only exists in virtue of the existence of the now. But on the other hand, for the now to exist, it must be a division or boundary of some independently existing continuum. This continuum cannot be time, since time itself is dependent on the now. It follows that there must be some other continuum, prior to time, on which the now depends for its existence” (emphases in original). For Coope, however, the “other continuum” is going to be change. I will ultimately disagree with this conclusion. The more primordial “other continuum” is a “this,” the self-subsistent existing natural beings undergoing the change as a result of their very nature. King (2009, 63) states both that “the change is marked by our saying now and now; that is how we mark off the before and after in time”; and, “saying now has to be thought of as occupying no time, like an instant…[the now] is the temporal analogue of a point…” While it is not correct to say that the before and after is marked in time—by time is more appropriate—because as King acknowledges just after, the now does not occupy time, it does seem right that the change is marked by apprehension of more than one “now,” which must be non-temporal.
- 34.
See Hussey (1983, 143) on “changes ‘along’ magnitudes”; there, he concludes that every change is necessarily a change along a path and thus that there is ontological and logical priority on the path.
- 35.
ᾗ δ’ ἀριθμεῖ, ἀριθμός †· τὰ μὲν γὰρ πέρατα ἐκείνου μόνον ἐστὶν οὗ ἐστιν πέρατα, ὁ δ’ ἀριθμὸς ὁ τῶνδε τῶν ἵππων, ἡ δεκάς, καὶ ἄλλοθι.
- 36.
Hardie and Gaye (ROT) render “συνεχής (συνεχοῦς γάρ), φανερόν” as “attribute of what is continuous,” but the idea of “attribute” does not appear in the Greek. It would be more accurate to translate the Greek: manifestly continuous; for the continuous.
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Harry, C.C. (2015). Physics iv 10-11 as a Parallel Account. In: Chronos in Aristotle’s Physics. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17834-9_2
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