Metaphysics: Books Z and H

314 Pages·1994·17.009 MB·English

by  Aristotle, David Bostock

GlNIRA.l fOITOR\ I 1 "-Ch-Rill
"-:"\ll LIND51"-\ Jllll\0!\0
CLARENDON ARISTOTLE SERIES
General Editors
J. L. ACKRILL AND LINDSAY JUDSON
Also published in this series
Categories and De Interpretatione
J. L. ACKRILL
De Anima Books II and III
D. W. HAMLYN
New impression with supplementary material by Christopher Shields
De Generatione et Corruptione
C. J. F. WILLIAMS
De Partibus Animalium I and De Generatione Animalium I
D. M. BALME
New impression with supplementary material by Allan Gotthelf
Eudemian Ethics Books I, II, and VIII
MICHAEL WOODS
Second edition
Metaphysics Books r, d, and E
CHRISTOPHER KIRWAN
Second edition
Metaphysics Books M and N
JULIA ANNAS
Physics Books I and II
WILLIAM CHARLTON
New impression with supplementary material
Physics Books III and IV
EDWARD HUSSEY
New impression with supplementary material
Posterior Analytics
JONATHAN BARNES
Second edition
Other volumes are in preparation
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
BOOKS Z AND H
Translated
with a Commentary
by
DAVID BOSTOCK
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
T11is book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard specification
in order to ensure its continuing availability
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mum.bai Nairobi
Sao Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in cettain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© David Bostock 1994
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
Reprinted 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
ISBN 0-19-823947-5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is now some thirty years since I first took part in serious
discussions of these central books of Aristotle's Metaphysics.
From that time onwards I have learnt so much on the topic, from
so many friends and colleagues, that now I cannot say what in
this book should really be credited to others. So I here offer a
general 'thank you' to all who have helped me to form my views.
But I must make special mention of the two editors of this series.
John Ackrill is responsible for many improvements to the trans
lation, and both he and Lindsay Judson have done their best to
save the Commentary from its more obvious faults. I am very
grateful for the time and effort that they have given to this task. I
have gained much from it, and so will everyone who reads the
book.
BosTOCK
DAVID
Merton College, Oxford
January I993
v

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ix
TRANSLATION
I
COMMENTARY 41
including:
Prologue to ZI: The Senses of 'is' 45
Epilogue to ZI 65
Prologue to Z3: Matter 72
Epilogue to Z4-6 II6
Prologue to Z7-9 119
Prologue to ZIO: The Soul 141
Epilogue to ZI I: Form So Far 172
Prologue to 212 176
Epilogue to ZI 2 183
Prologue to Z13 185
Epilogue to 213 204
Epilogue to 213-16 232
Prologue to ZI7 236
Final Epilogue: Unity and Definition 287
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
GLOSSARY 295
INDEXES 297
vii

INTRODUCTION
The books of Aristotle's Metaphysics are standardly referred
to by their Greek numbering, i.e. by the letters of the Greek
alphabet, because of the anomaly that after book I there comes a
short book labelled, as it were, not 'I' but 'i'. Translators have
often called this 'book II', so that the following book is then
called 'book III' in English, though in the Greek it is unambigu
ously entitled 'B', which means 'II'. This creates confusion, which
is avoided by using the Greek numbering throughout. For those
unfamiliar with the Greek alphabet, here are the relevant letters,
and the confusing 'translation' of them into Roman numerals,
which is found in translations of the Metaphysics but nowhere
else:
AaB FLJE Z H 6/KA M N
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV
This peculiar numbering reflects a more important fact about
the books themselves, namely that they do not form a single and
well-organized whole, and one should not think of them as
intended for publication as they stand. Aristotle clearly did mean
there to be a connected series of books which we could call his
'Metaphysics', but the writings that have come down to us under
that title contain much that would have been either abandoned or
re-formed in a final version. For example, book a, which is an
alternative introduction, would surely have found no place at all;
book A would certainly have been pruned of the material in the
first half of chapter 9 (which reappears almost unchanged in
chapters 4-5 of book M), and probably of other material in
consequence. There is no book of the existing Metaphysics of
which one can confidently say that it would have figured in the
final version just as it now is. This is especially true of the two
books z and H (pronounced 'zeta' and 'eta') that are the subject
of this volume. The two books go closely together, and between
them they contain Aristotle's main treatment of the topic of
perceptible substance. But one should think of them as being, in
effect, a collection of papers on this topic, probably of different
dates, and perhaps for that reason not entirely consistent with
one another. There are plenty of signs that Aristotle intended
there to be one continuous discussion of perceptible substance
that would evolve from these papers, but there are also some
quite clear signs that the evolution is not completed.
ix