Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 3 PDF
Preview Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 3
SIMPLICIUS On Aristotle Physics 3 This page intentionally left blank SIMPLICIUS On Aristotle Physics 3 Translated by J.O. Urmson Notes by Peter Lautner LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY 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 First published in 2002 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. Paperback edition first published 2014 Introduction © 2002 by Richard Sorabji Translation © 2002 by J.O. Urmson Notes © 2002 by Peter Lautner The authors assert their 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: 978-0-7156-3067-9 PB: 978-1-4725-5735-3 ePDF: 978-1-7809-3900-1 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 Board of the British Academy; the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/GW). The editor wishes to thank Keimpe Algra, Rachel Barney, Charles Brittain, Jan Opsomer, Gerd Van Riel and Christian Wildberg for their comments, and Eleni Volonaki and Han Baltussen for preparing the volume for press. Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents Introduction 1 Translator’s Note 5 Textual Emendations 7 Translation 11 Notes 145 English-Greek Glossary 169 Greek-English Index 173 Subject Index 197 This page intentionally left blank Introduction Richard Sorabji Aristotle’s Physics Book 3 covers two main subjects, the definition of change and the finitude of the universe. The Physics is about nature, and change enters into the very definition of nature as an internal source of change. Change receives two definitions in chapters 1 and 2, as involving the actualization of the potential (201a10-11), or of the changeable (202a7- 8). Alexander is reported (Simplicius in Phys. 436,26-32) as holding, and Philoponus agrees (in Phys. 367,6-369,1), that the second definition is designed to disqualify change in relations from being genuine change. Relational change Immediately before his first definition, at 200b33-201a9, Aristotle leaves a rather confusing impression as to whether there is change in respect of relation, or only in respect of place, quantity, quality and substance. Having started by saying that change (kinêsis, metabolê) is always (aei) in these four respects, he finishes by saying that there are as many kinds of change as there are categories of being, which would suggest ten kinds. The ambiguity is resolved in Physics 5, where he says that in respect of relatives there is no change, except accidental (kata sumbêkos), which he has agreed to dismiss (apheisthô, 224b7), because it is possible that without a thing’s changing at all, a different relational property becomes true of it (Phys. 5.2, 225b11-13 = Metaph. 11.12, 1068a11-13; similarly 7.3, 246b11-12; Metaph. 14.1, 1088a30-5). The idea that one of the two rela- tives ‘does not change at all’, when e.g. Socrates comes to be shorter than the growing Theaetetus, is taken from Plato Theaetetus 155B-C, and is further endorsed by the Stoics, ap. Simplicium in Cat. 166,17-29; 172,1-5. The idea of relational change has been reintroduced into modern discus- sions under the title of ‘Cambridge change’ by Peter Geach. Simplicius is worried at Aristotle’s restriction. He would rather that Aristotle had made a terminological distinction, allowing ‘transformation’ (metabolê), as the wider term, to extend beyond the four categories of change (kinêsis) in Phys. 861,5-20. Moreover he cites Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus (in Cat. 435,28-31; in Phys. 412,31-413,9) and Alexander (in Phys. 409,12-32) as allowing change in the other categories. But Theo- 2 Introduction phrastus, he thinks, goes too far, in not distinguishing change of place, quantity and quality, as affecting the disposition (diathesis) of a thing, from changes which merely affect its relationship (skhesis), a distinction suggested by Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus, in Phys. 861,5-26; 859,16-27. Activity of agent and patient identical In Physics 3.3, Aristotle maintains that the activity of the teacher is located in the learner and in a way identical with the activity of the learner, though not the same in definition. Rather, if you are counting how many activities are going on, there is only one to be counted. This enables Aristotle in Physics 8, as Simplicius observes in Phys. 442,18, to locate the activity of the divine unmoved mover in the universe which he moves, and so to accommodate no motion within himself. Philoponus in Phys. 385,4ff. refers to Aristotle’s principle, in order to support his own impetus theory, according to which the impetus imparted by a thrower comes to be located inside the projectile. The doctrine has another major importance for Neoplatonism, for it is the basis of Aristotle’s view in On the Soul 3.2, 3.7 and 3.8, that the activity of the perceptible or intelligible is in a way identical with the activity of perception or intellect. It is central to Neoplatonism that Intellect can be identical with its intelligible objects, the Platonic Forms, although this identity allows that the activity of the intelligibles, like that of the teacher, acts as agent and so has a certain priority. The identity also means that, in being aware of its objects, Intellect is in a way aware of itself. It further gives the human intellect the opportunity of being united with the Forms, while at the same time sowing the seeds of the Averroist problem about how disembodied intellects, if united with Forms, are still distinct from each other. Universe spatially finite In Physics 3.4-8, Aristotle analyses infinity, and concludes that the uni- verse is spatially finite. He gives an account of infinity still propounded by modern school teachers, according to which there is never a more than finite number of anything, but to talk of infinity is to say that however large a finite number of something you have, you can always have a larger finite number. Infinity is thus an ever expandable finitude, just as it is in modern talk of approaching a limit, or getting as close as you like. This helps to make it seem less frightening. One of Aristotle’s objections to a more than finite number is that its parts would also be more than finite, Phys. 3.5 204a20-9. That is something whose acceptability was not ex- plained in the West until the fourteenth century, although it has been pointed out to me that it was known in the thirteenth century to Introduction 3 Grosseteste, I presume from an Arabic source, and I would tentatively think of al-Haytham. In defending Aristotle’s view that the universe is spatially finite, Sim- plicius has to answer the objection of Plato’s Pythagorean friend Archytas (in Phys. 467,26-32), ‘What happens at the edge? Can I stretch out my hand or stick, or not?’ The objection had been elaborated by Eudemus, and had been answered by Alexander, Quaestiones 3.12, 106,35-107,4. There is nothing rather than empty space beyond the furthest stars, and one cannot stretch into nothing, nor even want to. That there is no place at all for stretching would follow from Aristotle’s definition of place in terms of a thing’s surroundings. Beyond the furthest stars, there are no surround- ings. Simplicius slightly alters Alexander’s solution when he repeats it, in Phys. 467,35-468,3; cf. in Cael. 285,21-7. A man is not prevented from stretching by nothingness. Rather, nothingness neither repels nor accom- modates a hand. Simplicius does not at 516,3-38, fully bring out the reply sketched by Aristotle Physics 3.8, 208a11-20, and elaborated by Alexander Quaestiones 3.12, 104,24-9, which tackles the objection that if we try to think of the universe as limited, we have to think of it, self-defeatingly, as limited by something further out. Their answer is that ‘limited’ has a different logic from ‘touched’. It does not equally imply an agent doing the limiting. Alexander illustrates the point by offering three sufficient conditions for a whole being limited, none of which implies a limiting agent outside. I have interpreted these three conditions in Matter, Space and Motion, ch. 8, at 135-8, as follows. First, a whole can have a limit, if it has a limit in Aristotle’s sense of a first rim outside which you cannot take anything. Secondly, in Alexander’s view, a thing will be limited, if it can be divided into an equal number of segments. Thirdly, a whole can have a limit if it consists of a limited number of parts of limited size, where this last reference to the limitedness of the parts can be understood in the oppo- nent’s way, as being limited by other parts. What is the meaning of ‘limited number’ in Alexander’s suggestion? Simplicius reports, 516,29-38, Alexan- der’s remark that a number can be limited (peperasthai) without possess- ing a limit (peras) at all. Simplicius thinks this impossible, but surely Alexander is right. Universe temporally finite? Philoponus was to complain of an asymmetry in Aristotle. His universe ought to be temporally, as well as spatially, finite, and that would refute pagan Aristotelians and Neoplatonists and vindicate the Christian view that the universe had a beginning. Without a beginning, the universe will have finished going right through a more than finite number of years and that will be only a fraction of the more than finite number of days. Finishing an infinity and infinite fractions had both been ruled out by
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