On Aristotle Physics 7

202 Pages·2014·0.967 MB·English

by  Hagen, Charles;Simplicius

Simplicius
On Aristotle Physics 7
This page intentionally left blank
Simplicius
On Aristotle
Physics 7
Translated by
Charles Hagen
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 1994 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Paperback edition fi rst published 2014
© Charles Hagen (Introduction and Appendix, Richard Sorabji) 1994
Charles Hagen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identifi ed 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: 978-0-7156-2485-2
PB: 978-1-7809-3421-1
ePDF: 978-1-7809-3422-8
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 editor wishes to
thank Robert Wardy, Catherine Atherton, A.R. Lacey and Peter Lautner
for their comments on the translation and Ian Crystal, Paul
Opperman and Dirk Baltzly for their help in 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
Chapter 1 11
Chapter 2 23
Chapter 3 39
Chapter 4 60
Chapter 5 84
Notes 101
Bibliography 130
Philosophers Cited by Simplicius 132
Appendix: The Commentators 134
Indexes
English-Greek Glossary 144
Greek-English Index 158
Subject Index 179
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
Richard Sorabji
Simplicius is important for the understanding of Aristotle’s Physics
Book 7.1 He explains that the book seemed redundant to many
because Book 8 covers the same subject, the case for a prime mover,
with more exactitude. Accordingly, it had been left out of Eudemus’
treatment of the Physics, and discussion of it had been skimped by
Themistius. Simplicius did not necessarily have access to Philoponus’
commentary on it, of which the Arabic summary is translated in this
series.
Simplicius’ response is that the book shows Aristotle’s acumen and
is connected with other books in the Physics, but that it was super-
seded by Book 8. It is, however, germane enough to have been
included by some as a part of the Physics. Simplicius also reports the
existence of the two versions of the Greek text, A and B. He himself
makes more use of version A, but his references to B show that
originally B extended at least into Chapter 4, whereas now it is extant
only for the first three chapters. In Chapter 1, Aristotle argues that
to avoid an infinity of movements, there must be a first moved mover
(A 242b71-2; cf. B 242b34). Simplicius puts the point by saying there
is a first mover not moved by anything else (1047,15-16; cf. 1042,13-
14, 26-7; 1045,5; 1112,1-2). So far, both formulations leave open that
it might be self-moved, as Plato believed the soul to be. But as Robert
Wardy brings out in his excellent study of Physics 7,2 self-motion is
ruled out earlier in the chapter (A 241b39-44, 242a35-49; B 241b27-
33, 242a1-13), particularly clearly in version B, which insists that in
apparent self-movers what is moved is moved by something else
(242a3,12-13). The unstated implication is that the first moved mover
presupposes something else to move it, but that since it is itself the
first thing to be moved, the presupposed mover must be unmoved.
Book 8 argues explicitly for an unmoved mover. But Book 7,
Chapter 1, contributes an argument that is missing from Book 8. An
1 Simplicius in Phys. 1036,1-1037,10.
2 Robert Wardy, The Chain of Change: A Study of Aristotle’s Physics VII, Cambridge
1990. This introduction draws heavily on Wardy and on the excellent notes supplied
by Charles Hagen to the translation below.
2 Introduction
infinite chain of moved movers is impossible, because their motions
would sum into one infinite motion, and it has been proved earlier
(Physics 6.7) that an infinite motion cannot be performed in a finite
time (A 242a49-242b53; B 242a15-242b19). The motions would sum,
because agent and patient have to be in contact with, or continuous
with, each other (A 242b53-243a31; B 242b20-243a2).
Simplicius is very helpful in explaining how the other chapters of
Book 7 fit into the first one. Chapter 2, he says (1048,1-6) defends the
last assertion, that agent and patient must be in contact with each
other, in all kinds of change, motion, change of size and change of
quality, at least where that change is produced, by sensible qualities.
Chapter 3 argues, he points out (1061,25-9), that there is no other
kind of qualitative change. Apparent counter-examples are not genu-
ine cases of qualitative change, although (246a6-9; 246b14-17; 248a4)
they may involve something else undergoing qualitative change. The
point of this last concession is not explained by Aristotle. Simplicius
takes it (p. 47 at note 229) as an explanation of why the apparent
counter-examples seem to be cases of qualitative change. But Wardy
is right that one could draw a conclusion more relevant to Aristotle’s
purpose: the counter-examples, at least indirectly, conform to the
requirement that agent and patient be in contact.
Simplicius does not explain the relevance of Chapter 4 on the
extent to which different types of change and motion can be compared
in speed. Wardy suggests the purpose is to remove a threat to the
procedure adopted in Chapter 1 of summing infinitely many motions
into one infinite one. The chapter certainly shows Aristotle’s acumen,
when he discusses criteria for comparability of speed, including
criteria for difference in meaning of terms such as ‘fast’.
The last Chapter, 5, as Simplicius says (1102,29-1103,3), relates
to the discussion in Chapter 4 of the comparability of motions. For it
looks to see whether all motions are comparable in observing the
same proportionalities. Do the force (iskhus), the weight moved, the
distance covered and the time taken stand in fixed ratios, so that
doubling one doubles or halves another? Aristotle finds a problem
(250a12-19), for if you double the weight or halve the force, you may
fall below a threshold and get no motion at all. If many haulers can
move a ship, it does not follow that one hauler can move it a little.
This also solves a paradox of Zeno’s (250a19-25), who argued that if
a falling bushel of millet grains makes a sound, so will any fraction
of a grain. Aristotle’s reply is more developed in On Sense Perception
6, 445b29-446a20. A part exists only potentially within a whole, and
if a part is small enough it cannot exist separately from the whole
either, since it would dissolve. Although such tiny parts are not
detected within the whole (445b31; 446a2, 4, 15), they can still be
called perceptible, but only because they are in the whole (hoti en tôi
Introduction 3
holôi). I take Aristotle to mean that they contribute to the percepti-
bility of the whole. He puts the point also by saying that our sight
encounters them (epelêluthen, 446a1), and that they are potentially
visible (446a5). Similarly in our Physics passage, Aristotle says that
a small enough portion of millet might not, however long you gave it,
move as much air as the bushel moves. Nor can one say that it moves
as much air as it would when separated, for it could not exist
separately, but exists only potentially within the bushel. Hence Zeno
is wrong that it makes a sound.
Simplicius preserves a dialogue (1108,19-28) in which Zeno is
presented as directing his paradox against Protagoras. He comments
that Aristotle must be right about thresholds, or one could, given
enough time, move Mount Athos a fractional distance, as Archimedes
claimed; ‘Give me somewhere to stand, and I will move the earth’
(1109,32-1110,5). On the other hand, he says, Aristotle’s proportion-
alities are meant to hold for situations above the threshold (1106,17-
26).
Simplicius’ Neoplatonism, as Hagen shows below, is apparent at
several points. He claims that Aristotle’s denial of self-motion applies
to bodies, and does not exclude Plato’s self-moving souls (1140,30-
1041,1;1041,28-31). In his discussion of non-qualitative changes, he
claims that a human soul that has lost its natural virtue is not a soul
in the strict sense, but is dead (1066,21-7; cf. 1021,16-18). In the same
context, discussing the acquisition of knowledge, he rejects Alexan-
der’s interpretation of Aristotle as saying at A 247b6-7 (it is still
clearer in the B version at 247b20-1) that we acquire knowledge of
the universal empirically through perception of particulars. Sim-
plicius prefers to interpret Aristotle as taking Plato’s view that the
intellect knows particulars through universals which it knows non-
intermittently (1074,6-1075,20). This is in spite of the fact that
elsewhere Simplicius takes the view shared by almost all Neoplaton-
ists that we have knowledge of universals through both routes. That
is, we acquire universals empirically from perceived instances, al-
though we may have to correct them by reference to the more accurate
universals that we inherit from a previous life.3
Later in the same context, Simplicius takes up Aristotle’s state-
ment that the young adult’s acquisition of knowledge is like recover-
ing from a bodily illness, or drunkenness, or sleep, since the
disturbances of childhood inhibit knowledge (A 247b16-248a3; B
247b28-248a3). Aristotle’s aim is to deny that the acquisition of
3 Ian Mueller, ‘Aristotle’s doctrine of abstraction in the commentators’ in Richard
Sorabji, ed., Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence,
London & Ithaca NY 1990, ch. 20. I have benefited also from unpublished work by
Frans de Haas. The Simplicius references are Simplicius in Cat. 84,23-8; Simplicius
(?) in DA 3 233,7-17; 277,1-6; 277,30-278,6.