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Aristotle's Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of Aristotle’s Subject Matter Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University Keren Wilson Shatalov, MLitt Graduate Program in Philosophy The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee: Allan Silverman, Adviser Tamar Rudavsky Lisa Downing ii Copyright by Keren Wilson Shatalov 2019 iii Abstract In my dissertation I examine Aristotle’s concept of matter by highlighting the tools from his Organon which he uses to introduce matter in his Physics. I make use of logical concepts Aristotle develops in his work on explanation in Posterior Analytics, especially his concept of subject or ὑποκείμενον, to argue that matter, for Aristotle, must be understood not as a distinct ontological category but as a term of art denoting a part of an explanation in natural philosophy. By presenting an analysis of Aristotle’s concept of ὑποκείμενον from his logical works, I show how Aristotle uses it to spell out just what explanatory role matter plays, and what this means for what it is to be matter. I argue that when Aristotle uses the term “ὑποκείμενον” to name a principle of change in Physics A, he is employing the logical concept which he had made use of and developed in his logical works, contra prominent readings which argue instead that the term in Physics is a distinct technical term, homonymous with the logical term. Further, I offer a new reading of the concept of ὑποκείμενον in the logical works. On my reading, a genuine ὑποκείμενον is something which, just by being what it is or ὅπερ x τι, is what is presupposed by something else, y, and which grounds and partially explains the presence of that y. In the light of this, I argue that for Aristotle matter as ὑποκείμενον is what is presupposed in a dynamic context, and which thus partially explains both the change and its outcome. What counts as matter is something under the description by which it is that very thing which must be present in order for something y to come to be. For example, in order for an educated or musical thing to come to be, there must first be a human, for rationality is what is presupposed by education. Thus in the change by which a musical thing comes to be, a rational thing or person is the matter or subject. What counts as matter in a case of change is not simply some other item, but that item understood in the respect in which it is predisposed towards the presence of the outcome of the change. That is to say, it is not just a human person, a rational thing, which is the ὑποκείμενον of the change from which an educated thing comes to be, it is something rational and non- educated, that is, something educable, which is the ὑποκείμενον. Thus matter as ὑποκείμενον helps to fill out the sense in which matter, for Aristotle, is what is potential or potentially y. ii I also draw from Mary Hesse’s work on analogy in Aristotle to show that matter, for Aristotle, is analogous; to be matter is to stand in a certain relation to something else, form, in virtue of possessing a certain characteristic. Hesse’s reading of what an analogous term is for Aristotle fits both with the kinds of considerations by which Aristotle introduces matter as a principle of change and with the way he characterizes it; matter being ὑποκείμενον plays a key role in both. Further, seeing that matter is analogous for Aristotle has ramifications for what it is to be matter. I will argue that because matter is analogous Aristotle cannot consistently posit any such principle as Scholastic materia prima. In conclusion, I suggest that this has further consequences for to understand Aristotle’s investigation into substancehood appears in his Metaphysics. These are potentially significant for understanding Aristotle’s theory of substance, since they concern the trio of matter, substance, and ὑποκείμενον, which are widely understood to be in tension in Aristotle’s thought. My reading of ὑποκείμενον and matter suggests that they may not be. iii Dedication To my father, whose conversations were my first lessons in philosophy. iv Vita May 2004 ...............................Logan County Home Educators May 2008 ...............................B.A.Liberal Arts, Thomas Aquinas College November 2009 ......................MLitt, University of St. Andrews 2010-2017 ..............................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Philoosophy, the Ohio State University 2017 to the present .................Sawyier Fellow, Department of Humanities, Illinois Institute of Technology Fields of Study Major Field: Philosophy Specialization: Ancient Greek Philosophy v List of Figures Fig. 1: The number and nature of the principles ........................................................... 64 Fig. 2: The simples and complexes in change ............................................................ 103 vi Table of Contents Abstract………… .......................................................................................................... ii Vita……………………….. ........................................................................................... iv List of Figures. ................................................................................................................ v Chapter 1: Background and Overview ............................................................................ 1 Chapter 2: Ὑποκείμενον in the Logical Works ............................................................ 27 Chapter 3: Physics A.1-6 .............................................................................................. 63 Chapter 4: Matter as Ἡυποκείμενον in Physics A.7 ..................................................... 98 Chapter 5: Matter as Analogous ................................................................................. 134 Bibliography…… ....................................................................................................... 151 vii Chapter 1 Background and Overview §.1 Background: In my dissertation I examine Aristotle’s concept of matter by highlighting the tools from his Organon which he uses to introduce matter in his Physics. I make use of logical concepts Aristotle develops in his work on explanation in Posterior Analytics, especially his concept of subject or ὑποκείμενον, to argue that matter, for Aristotle, must be understood not as a distinct ontological category but as a term of art denoting a part of an explanation in natural philosophy. By presenting an analysis of Aristotle’s concept of ὑποκείμενον from his logical works, I show how Aristotle uses it to spell out just what explanatory role matter plays, and what this means for what it is to be matter. My understanding of Aristotle’s concept of matter depends on how I understand Aristotle’s notion of ὑποκείμενον in his logical works, since I claim that it is this notion he is employing when he introduces ὑποκείμενον as a principle of change in Physics A. I find that extant views in the literature on Aristotle’s concept of matter are also dependent on whether scholars see Aristotle as using ὑποκείμενον synonymously between his Physics and his logical works and, if, they do, on how they understand Aristotle’s notion of ὑποκείμενον in his logical works. In what follows I aim to give a sense of how important these two points are for understanding Aristotle’s matter by tracing their influence on some of the prominent views concerning matter in Physics. Seeing the range of readings already offered will, I hope, help to show what the reading I will give in this dissertation can add to the conversation about what matter is for Aristotle. Rather than attempt to capture all of the variety of proposals which have been made, I will take David Bostock, William Charlton, and Sarah Waterlow as my primary interlocutors. These three have all written works which are now classics on Aristotle’s Physics: Waterlow’s Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics, Charlton’s translation and commentary in his Aristotle’s Physics, I & II for the Clarendon Series, and Bostock’s essays in his Space, Time, Matter, and Form. Sir David Ross’s tome Aristotle’s Physics makes him a fourth important voice, standing in a unique position as one whose scholarship both made possible and influenced, in some way or other, all the 1 rest, including my own. I will take on Bostock, Waterlow, and Charlton individually; Ross will be consulted throughout as a source of insight. Though they differ among themselves in many ways, one thing they all take in common is reading Aristotle’s notion of ὑποκείμενον or subject from his logical works as being coextensive with his notion of οὐσία or substance, at least for the purposes of their commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. As I will show, this has great bearing on whether they read ὑποκείμενον in Physics as being synonymous with the subject from the logical works, as well as what this means for matter, whether they do or do not take it as synonymous. First, some things held in common. On my view, in Physics A Aristotle aims to provide a model or schema for explaining any change. Physics A consists of a search for the principles of natural science, and by Aristotle’s lights the consideration of the principles of a science is not itself a part of the science, but a necessary complement of and foundation for it. David Bostock puts the same thought this way: “Roughly, what is introduced as if it were a continuation of the physicists’ investigation of nature has instead become a meta-investigation of the general form
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