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Metaphysics: Books Z and H PDF

314 Pages·1994·17.009 MB·English
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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

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