Abstract
There is no other place where opinions of such complexity concerning the moment of change can be found as appear in Aristotle’s Physics. In this chapter, I shall try to put them into some systematic order. I shall often refer back to the digression in Plato’s ‘Parmenides’, as in many places Aristotle’s opinion can be interpreted as a (probably very consciously formulated) opposition to Plato. When interpreting other passages, I will show how Aristotle’s treatment of the moment of change is integrated into the overall frame of his philosophy through the use of the technical vocabulary peculiar to Aristotelian metaphysics.
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Notes
rom a systematic point of view, it does not matter which contribution to the debate is earlier. But it is a fascinating idea indeed that the ‘Parmenides’ might be the later text, in which Plato defends himself against his former pupil. Cf. for this idea David Bostock: Aristotle on Continuity in Physics VI in: L. Judson (ed.): Aristotle’s Physics, Oxford 1991, pp.179–213 (cf. pp.204–208, esp. p.206 footnote 25: One might indeed wonder whether my presumed chronology is correct. Perhaps Plato’s Parmenides replies to Aristotle’s Physics VI, rather than vice versa?’). There are some hints towards this in the context of the ‘Parmenides’: Plato’s defence of the theory of Forms against an oversimplified textbook-version of it (which had to face the problem of the Third Man), as well as the name of the old Parmenides’ interlocutor in the second part: Aristotle. This hypothesis would also explain why there is a digression in the second part at all, despite its very systematic structure, and why the topic of this digression comes so near to Physics VI. On the other hand, I show in this chapter that Aristotle differentiates certain things much further than Plato does. This can only be brought to agree with Bostock’s conjecture by assuming that Aristotle knew Plato’s opinion well before Plato wrote it down as a reaction towards Aristotle’s criticism. This is, however, not improbable.
It would be wrong to speak of more than an ‘association’ here, for Aristotle does not use the word έξαίφνης as referring to a period: he does not make a noun out of the adverb, as Plato does in order to gain a name for a new kind of ‘Then-object’. The τό in front of the word may in Aristotle be regarded as referring to an arbitrary event which happens suddenly; so the adverb remains an adverb; often enough, τό in definitions just seems to be a sort of verbalized quotation marks.
E.g. the 1/36 second during which the eye is presented with a single picture of a film (remember the discussion of subliminal perception in psychology).
Unless stated otherwise, I refer to passages in the ‘Physics’. The Greek text I used is in: Aristoteles’ Physik, übersetzt und mit einer Einleitung und Anmerkungen herausgegeben von Hans Günter Zekl [2 vols.,Gr./Gn.], Hamburg 1988.
My translation. A note on translations of Physics VI: I frequently found that the translation by R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye agrees with my interpretation. It is contained in: The complete works of Aristotle — the revised Oxford translation edited by Jonathan Barnes, vol.l, Princeton 1984 (in what follows: H/G). I will often follow this translation, indicating my changes of it by the following kind of brackets: <...>. As to the passages I wish to discuss I found that I rarely agree with the translation by Cornford and Wicksteed (Loeb edition). I am less happy with the style of Н/G, but using an established translation as a base is the most convenient thing to do. However, I agree with Jonathan Barnes’ caveat who writes in the preface to the revised Oxford translation:”[T]he [...] translators [did not] try to mirror in their English style the style of Aristotle’s Greek. For the most part, Aristotle is terse, compact, abrupt, his arguments condensed, his thought dense. For the most part, the Translation is flowing and expansive, set out in well-rounded periods [...] and sometimes orotund. [...] the Translation produces a false impression of what it is like to read Aristotle in the original [...] making [Aristotle’s philosophizing] seem more polished and finished than it actually is. [...] Aristotle’s sinewy Greek is best translated into correspondingly tough English; but to achieve that would demand a new translation.“(p.xi). H/G translate 222bl4/15 as:” ‘Suddenly’ refers to what has departed from its former condition in a time imperceptible because of its smallness.“Here I disagree: ‘suddenly’ as an adverb does not refer to anything, let alone to a changing object, and the έκστάν is rather inflated by”has departed from its former condition“.
This is one of the rare cases in which it would be appropriate to write something such as”cf. Physics VI passim“, so numerous are the passages to which I could refer for this; in direct connection with the moment of change cf. e.g. 239a8, 237a25, 227Ы9/22.
Cf. e.g. the function of the expression πέρας in 236a7/15 (a passage which is central for the moment of change).
Cf. for this use of the preposition έν 234a34/b5 and 263b9/264a6.
H/G has ‘time’ instead of ‘a period’.
This comes out very clearly in a digression in Physics VIII, 263b9/264a6 compare also 234a34b5.
236bl9/22, 236b25/32, 236al5/27.
similarly unambiguous: 237a3/9.
Contrast with: [τό εν] δτε μεταβάλλει, [...] ουδέ κινοιτ’ αν τότε — Parm. 156e5/7.
This is very clear in Physics VI in e.g. 239b 1, 234a24/34, 239a20/21.
Cf. Richard Sorabji: Aristotle on the Instant of Change, second version, p.166 (footnote):”Aristotle] seems [..] to deny motion or rest at any instant. It might be replied that he only means that an instant has no duration within which a thing could get any distance — and indeed some of his arguments seem to suggest only this. This would leave him free to go on to say (a) that at an instant a thing can nonetheless be in course of moving or resting, and (b) that it is so at all instants, except the instant of transition between motion and rest. [...] But [...] I do not find statements (a) and (b) spelled out by Aristotle.“
As Sorabji (Aristotle on the Instant of Change, second version, p.159) remarks. Sorabji himself does not agree with this reproach. It is indeed unjustified as I hope to show in ch. 1,3, for it presupposes that the medieval philosophers in the Aristotlelian tradition followed the ‘philosophus’ in this point without considering it for themselves. And this is simply not true.
A terminological exception is Physics VI. Cf. on this matter Knuuttila: Remarks..., p.246 and the section on substantial change in this chapter.
234a31: ούκ αρα έστιν κινεισθαι έν τω νυν. άλλα μην ούδ’ ήρεμειν. (There is no moving in the now, but no resting either). On the other hand, what Aristotle in 239b2 explicitly declares to be possible at an instant (έν τω νυν) is the non-comparative ‘just being here’ (είναι κατά τι).
An almost identical description is found in 234a31/34.
Cf. on this meaning (but also on other possible uses of έν ώ which can sometimes be found) Wagner’s commentary in the appendix of his German translation of the ‘Physics’, p.625.
Frank Jackson/Robert Pargetter: A Question about Rest and Motion. This distinction is not made by them with regard to Aristotle, though. Their approach will be discussed in ch. 11,1.
The reason for this is that in chapter 11,1, in connection with Russell’s Cambridge- Change Criterion, I will use the word ‘relational’ in a different, well-established sense. Using Jackson/Pargetter’s terminology at the same time would lead to confusion.
The distinction between comparative and non-comparative properties is not identical with the distinction between κίνησις and ένέργεια (which is dealt with in ch.2.5.). It is true that examples are often similar: motion is a κίνησις, and being in motion is a comparative property. An act of watching something is an ένέργεια and watching something is a non¬comparative property. However, (1) the distinction between κίνησις and ένέργεια is not supposed to classify properties but acts (it might be extended to distinguish states from events, but those are not properties either). (2) Even if, instead of identity, one simply wanted to state a one-to-one correspondence, there would be a problem: rest is neither intuitively, nor according to Aristotle’s criterion, a κίνησις; but being at rest is a comparative property.
Bertrand Russell: The Principles of Mathematics, §446/447.
H/G reads:”...it is in just these circumstances that we use the term ‘being at rest’ — when at one now after another it can be said with truth that a thing... occupies the same space“. Here ‘space’ is too narrow and, much worse, ‘one now after another’ suggests a discrete time order, which is alien to Physics VI.
Richard Sorabji: Time, Creation and the Continuum, London 1983, p.413; Aristotle and the Instant of Change, second version, p. 171. Sorabji (correctly) refers to the following passages for this: 262a30; b20, 239a35-b3, 263b20–23.
According to Plato-2. Plato-1 makes Plato more modern than Aristotle, since according to Plato-1, Plato allows motion at an instant (this does not exactly help to the plausibility of Plato-1).
Norman Kretzmann: ‘Incipit/Desinit’, in Machamer /Turnbull (ed.): Motion and Time, Space and Matter, Columbus (Ohio) 1976, p. 101–136.
Richard Sorabji: Aristotle on the Instant of Change, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 50 (1976).
Sorabji: Aristotle on the Instant of Change, second version, p.166; Sorabji, Time..., p.408.
Second version = Richard Sorabji: Aristotle on the Instant of Change, in: J.Barnes/ M.Schofield/R.Sorabji: Articles on Aristotle vol. 3, London 1979. Third version = Sorabji: Time... ch. 26.
The problematic passage (236al7ff) reads: ετι δ’ ε’ τω ГА χρόνω παντι ηρεμεί (...) και έν τω Α ηρεμεί, ώστ’ ε’ άμερές έστι τό ΑΔ αμα ηρεμήσει και μεταβεβληκός εσται. έν μέν γάρ τω Α ηρεμεί, έν δέ τω Δ μεταβέβληκεν (If [something] is at rest throughout a period GA, then it is also at rest at A. Therefore, if AD has no parts, it will both be at rest and have changed.: For in A it is at rest, but in D it has [already] changed).
In contrast to the very careful labelling throughout the rest of the ‘Physics’, we get а Г here which has not been introduced before, so we do not learn whether it is an instant (which divides the period ΑΔ which has been properly introduced) or something else. This might point towards an error in an ancient edition or towards a marginal note which slipped into the text.
Cf. Aristoteles: Physikvorlesung, übersetzt von [tr. by] Hans Wagner, Berlin 1983 and Aristotle: The Physics II [engl./gr.], translated by Philip H. Wicksteed und Francis M. Cornford, London 1934.
The other one is 263b9ff.
in the same sense Knuuttila: Remarks..., p.246–250, esp. p.249:”There is [according to Aristotle] no rest in an instant and hence no intrinsic limits of the period of rest.“; and Sorabji: Time..., p.412:”Aristotle allows that, when something stops moving, there is a single instant which is both the last of the period during which the object is moving, and the first of the period during which it is resting [...]. And something parallel is true when a thing starts moving. But this does not in the least commit him, as he makes very clear, to saying that this an instant at which the object is moving or resting. [...] Aristotle will say, for reasons similar to those already quoted [...] that there is no first or last instant, nor indeed any instant, at which it is changing colour, or remaining the same colour.“
Cf. ch. 11,3.
Cf. ch. 1,3.4.3.
Sorabji comments (Time..., p.413):”...this is one of the passages where he [Aristotle] does not construe the process as one of white spreading part by part over the surface.“I do not think this is so clear. I think that the passage allows to imagine an object which is gradually painted black as well. But nothing really depends on this. Passages like 236a27/bl8 show that alterations analogous to gradually being painted white are use by Aristotle in Phys. VI. On the other hand, examples can be found in Aristotle for an alteration happening all at once on the entire surface of an object: Sorabji points towards De Sensu 447al-3, where Aristotle uses the example of a pond where the whole surface is suddenly frozen after a process of cooling down. A short version of this example also appears in Phys. VIII,3, 253b23/28.
Sorabji writes about this passage:”[Aristotle] switches his example in mid-discussion...“Sorabji: Time..., p.413), but it is difficult to see in which way. Hardie and Gaye drop a λευκόν at 263b23, but this does not really seem to help either.
Hamblin, after an obviously rather cursory reading of the text, really thinks that this is Aristotle’s opinion (Cf. ‘Instants and Intervals’, Studium Generale 24 (1971), p. 131:”The best anyone seems to be able to do with the problem [of the moment of change] is to solve it by fiat, by specifying a priori that the instant of change shall be considered as the first instant of the subsequent state, or the last instant of the preceding one: the latter is the traditional solution attributed to Aristotle, based on a reading of Physics 236a7–15. The arbitrary and ad hoc nature of this decision makes it... unsatisfactory...“. Detailed discussion of the passage Hamblin mentions in this chapter shows that it is far from presenting an ad-hoc solution.
Sorabji (Time...) and Knuuttila (Remarks...) are of the same opinion. By contrast, M.C. Morkowsky seems to miss Aristotle’s motivation in her article ‘The Elastic Instant of Aristotle’s Becoming and Perishing’ (The Modern Schoolman XLVI, March 1969, pp.191–217). During the Middle Ages (cf. ch. 1,3) Aristotle’s motivation seems to have been rather well understood.
Knuuttila: Remarks..., p.248/249.
Sorabji: Time..., p.410:”...in all four kinds of change [Aristotle thinks to be genuine], he thinks that there is a gradual process of transition [...]. Qualitative change, such as change of colour, is said to take time. Change to a new place or size involves passing through intervening points; the creation of something like a house takes time, and occurs part by part, the foundation before the whole.“
ibd. p.411:”...colours [...] and other ranges of sensible qualities have a kind of derivative continuity [...]... in the case of colour, a change to the next discriminable shade in the discontinuous series of discriminable shades, may be produced by a continuous change in the proportions of earth, air, fire and water in a body.“
Not the ‘freezing over’, because this would suggest an instantaneous event. Cf. 2.6.2.
Knuuttila states that Aristotle’s account of substantial change has been a problem among commentators for a long time (’Remarks...’ footnotes 23 and 61). He refers to commentaries on the Physics by Averrroes (32 on book VI), Albert the Great (book VI, tract.2 cap.l) and Aquinas (book VI, lect.5, n.796–805 and 839–40) as well as to an anonymous Paris commentary of 1273 on the Physics (ed. by Albert Zimmermann, Berlin 1968) and to the work ‘Theorems of Existence and Essence’ by Giles of Rome (ed. by W.V. Murray, Milwaukee 1952).
Knuuttila: Remarks..., pp.246ff.
225bl-3; cf. also 225a26/27, 225a29, 225Ы0–12. The tenet that there are no degrees of substance is quite compatible with the historically influential view that at the times at which a substance exists it might exist to a lower or higher degree.
‘Remarks...’ p.246. However, as Knuuttila makes clear, Aristotle does not regard this as an instantaneous event (pp.246–48). Cf. on this topic ch.2.6.2.
Cf. 201a9–19.
Phys. IV loc.cit and VII, 249bl9–23, Gen. et Cor. 331a22–26.
‘Remarks...’ p.249.
Cf. The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edwards (New York 1967 ff.), vol. 5, Article ‘Logic’ 42b-43a.
Already in late antiquity, Simplicius, in his commentary on the Physics, wonders why Aristotle did not do this although the analogy would have been obvious: Cf. Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 6, transl. by David Konstan, London 1989, 986,1.
Sorabji: Time..., p.414.
The somewhat indirect translation is necessary in order to account for the aspectual character of the perfect tense here. Details about this in ch. 2.4.2.
It is usually assumed that in the ‘essay on time’ Phys. IV 10–14, χρόνος means ‘time’ as an abstract noun, and does not mean ‘period’. I am not so sure whether this is correct or whether Aristotle rather has a concrete, though arbitrarily chosen, period in mind. Hussey distinguishes a concrete, a semi-abstract and an abstract use of the word and holds that the essay on time progresses to ever higher abstraction (cf. Aristotle’s Physics, translated by Edward Hussey, Oxford 1983, introduction section (c) (xli — xlii) and p. 145).
237a7, 237a26, 237b21, 238al4/22, 239a8.
For the formal definition of ‘division’ cf. introduction 2.
Cf. Ross: Aristotle, London 1923, p.92.
Aristoteles: Physikvorlesung, übersetzt von [transl. by] Hans Wagner, Berlin 1983, appendix (in what follows: Wagner commentary), pp.625ff.
τοιοϋτόν functions here as a double reference. The Loeb edition (Aristotle: The Physics, London 1934 [Cornford/Wicksteed]) has a second πρώτον in this sentence which I cannot make sense of. The Meiner edition does not have it (Aristoteles’ Physikvorlesung, Hamburg 1988 [Zekl]). H/G translate”not because of some part of it“. I disagree: ετερον τι αύτου is much more general and has nothing to do with parts.
Met. 1012b31, 1070al, 1070b35, 1012b7, Phys.243a32, 245a8, 245a25, 256a9, 260a25. Met. 1012b7 contains the idea that a prime mover himself is unmoved. In 1072b30 the prime mover is identified with god.
Met. 1073al4–1074al7.
For the πρώτον κινούν the proximity of the temporal and the hierarchic meaning of πρώτον has always been clear. Lloyd calls it the”...ambiguity of the term πρώτον in the key passages, where it may mean either ‘first’ in a series, or ‘prime’ in the sense of ‘ultimate’”. (G.E.R. Lloyd: Aristotle — The Growth and Structure of his Thought, Cambridge 1982, pp.l54f. [first edition 1968]).’Prime mover’ is a telling translation here, since ‘prime’ is always meant in a hierarchic sense (cf. ‘Prime Minister’). The hierarchic sense is, of course, suggested by Aristotle’s explanation that the prime mover moves like an object of love or desire (Met. 1072b2: κινεί δε ώς έρωμένον).
This method is applied for precision’s sake. The application of it does not involve any claim that Aristotle is actually working on the analysis-of-language level here. I rather think he is not.
My translation. H/G translate:”Now everything that changes changes in time, and that in two senses may be the primary time, or it may be derivative, as e.g. when we say that a thing changes in a particular year because it changes in a particular day. That being so, that which changes must be changing in any part of the primary time in which it changes.“The talk about ‘two senses’ of ‘primary time’ suggests a διχώς which is not in the text. The second sentence is not well understood at all.
Cf. 2.1.§4.
As we have seen in introduction 2, the contrary is typical of statements about events.
M.Th. Liske: Kinesis und Energeia bei Aristoteles, in: Phronesis 199, p. 161–178 (esp. p.162).
B3: 238b36/239a2 ώσπερ δέ τό κινούμενον ούκ έστιν έν ω πρώτφ κινείται, οΰτως ούδ’έν ω ισταται το ίστάμενον (And just as there is no primary time in which that which is in motion is in motion, so too there is no primary time in which that which is coming to a stand is coming to a stand). B4: 236α27 ούκ έστι έν ω πρώτφ μεταβέβληκεν (It is evident, then, that there is no primary time in which it has changed).
235b32 έν ω δέ πρώτφ μεταβέβληκεν τό μεταβεβληκός, άνάγκη άτομον είναι — The first [time] in which something can be said to be changed is necessarily indivisible. 236a4 ώστ’ ούκ έν εΐη διαιρετόν έν ω μεταβέβληκεν (Now the time primarily in which that which has changed has changed must be indivisible).
Cf. ch. 1,1.
239al0/22.
My translation. H/G is not widely different, but I disagree with quite a number of details.
Wagner calls this a ‘strictly presentic perfect tense’ (’streng präsentisch gemeintes Perfekt’ Wagner commentary, p.627). Zekl recalls a parallel dinstinction in grammar which is well- known as the distinction between an ingressive and a perfective aorist (Aristoteles’Physik Bd.2, Hamburg 1988, p.272, endnote 44). This parallel is transferred into the two different meanings of μεταβέβληκεν, since one of them is explained by the ingressive aorist ήρξατο μεταβάλλειν, while the other is explained by the perfective aorist έπετελέσθη ή μεταβολή. The method of the proofs in 236al5/27 (B3) and 235b32/236a4 (B4) also suggests that the perfect tense cannot be meant historically here: none of the proofs takes into account the case that both subperiods of a period might satisfy μεταβέβληκεν. However, if the perfect tense had a historical meaning here, this case would have to be considered; only if it refers to the completion of a process is Wagner right in saying that this case is impossible (’keine Denkbarkeit’ Wagner commentary, p.626).
Of course, Aristotle does not deny that a motion can begin at all, i.e. that there is a transition from perfect rest to motion (cf.in the same sense: Wagner commentary, p.628).
236al5/27.1 am ignoring the strange passage about ‘rest at A’ (cf. ch. I,2.2.1.(e)). 80 235b32/336a4.
My translation. Wagner’s commentary, pp.626f. Similarly Ross loc.cit.:”An event is in a nest of times as a body is in a nest of places; the death of Cesar took place in March B.C. 44, and also in B.C. 44, and also in the first century B.C. The ‘first’ time of an event is the time it precisely occupies, its exact or commensurate time.“The fact that Wagner uses the example of life and death, which we already know from Aulus Gellius (ch.l, 1.4.), is due to his conjecture that it can also be found in some other ancient statements on the moment of change in Simplicius and Themistius (p.627):”Interessant ist hier ein Exzerpt aus Alexandras bei Simpl[ikios] (938a25ff.) [misprint; correctly: 983,1–25]; es spricht von einer Sophistenfrage: Ίη welcher Zeit starb Dion?’ Eine Andeutung in gleicher Richtung bei Them[istius] (194.12ff.)“. Cf. Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 6, transl. by David Konstan, London 1989 for a translation of the passage to which Konstan draws attention in his introduction (p.8), too.
On this issue cf. e.g. Ackrill: Aristotle’s Distinction between Kinesis and Energeia, M.Th. Liske: Kinesis und Energeia bei Aristoteles, Phronesis (1991), pp.161–181 and Ludger Jansen: Aristotle and the Talk about Events, M. Litt. Thesis [unpublished], St.Andrews 1994.
Liske suggests this (loc.cit). Galton identifies ένέργειαι with states and κινήσεις with events. He holds that events are characteristically heterogenous, states are homogenous (see Galton: Logic of Aspect, Introduction). For temporally extended states and events I think that this criterion is plausible. Kienzle and Jansen reject Galton’s criterion referring to Aristotle’s distinction between κίνησις and ένέργεια: As both κίνησις and ένέργεια are πράξεις, and as every πράξις is an individual event, but as an ένέργεια in contrast to a κίνησις is always homogeneous, there must also be homogeneous events. The conclusion is valid, but I deny the premiss that a πράξις is always an event. A πράξις such as ‘enjoying the magnificent view’ (= ένέργεια, in contrast to ‘scanning the hills from East to West’ = κίνησις) does not seem to me to be an individual event but rather a state. I would answer the counter-objection that a specific action is just the prototype of an event by saying that πράξις should not be translated by ‘specific action’ then, but just by ‘a case of (human) action/acting’. ‘Enjoying the magnificent view’ may not be a specific action, but it certainly is a case of acting. Cf.: Ludger Jansen loc.cit. and Bertram Kienzle: Ereignislogik, in: Bertram Kienzle (ed.): Zustand und Ereignis, pp.413- 469 (cf. footnote 9, p.417).
Knuuttila refers to this passage in ‘Remarks...’. He interprets it as a passage showing that Plotinus agrees with Plato on assuming the existence of instantaneous events. I do not think that this is very clear in that passage but it is quite possible to read it so. Knuuttila does not elaborate on the connection of the passage with Aristotle’s ‘Physics’ although it contains a literal quotation from the ‘Physics’.
Translation: A.H.Armstrong (Loeb edition of Plotinus’ works vol. Vi).
Following the Loeb edition. Some manuscripts have αναλογία, which does not make much sense, since it is difficult to see what is to be compared to what here.
He might just as well have referred to De sensu 446 or to Phys. 253b23, where Aristotle gives the example of the freezing pond. 88 Cf. Liske loc. cit. and above 2.4.2.
In this sense also Knuuttila: Remarks...p.246.
This is one of the rare passages where έν ω is not meant temporally (cf. also Zekl’s translation in: Aristoteles’ Physik, Hamburg (Meiner) 1988).
This is not quite so clear for Physics VIII. There Aristotle writes about the instantaneous freezing of the pond (253b25). Zekl is right in commenting (Aristoteles’Physik, Hamburg 1988, p.284):”...das will nicht ganz zur Kontinuitätslehre des Z [VI. Buches] passen.“(“This does not really fit the doctrine of continuity expressed in Physics VI“).
Kretzmann: Incipit/Desinit, p. 115.
Ibid., p.102.
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Strobach, N. (1998). Aristotle. In: The Moment of Change. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9127-0_3
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