CLARENDON ARISTOTLE SERIES General Editors J . L. ACKRILL AND LINDSAY JUDSON Also published in this series Categories and De lnterpretatione J. L. ACKRILL De Anima Books II and Ill 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, Il, and VIII MICHAEL WOODS Second edition Metaphysics Books r , ~.and E CHRISTOPHE R KIRWAN Second edition Metaphysics Books M and N JULIA ANNAS Physics Books I and II WILLIAM CHARLTON New impression with supplementary material Posterior Analytics JONATHAN BARNES Second edition Other volumes are in preparation ARISTOTLE PHYSICS BOOKS Ill AND IV Translated with Introduction and Notes by EDWARD HUSSEY Fellow of All Souls College Oxford CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford oxz 6oP Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dares Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ©Oxford University Press 1983 First published 1983 New impression with corrections and additions 1993 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. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Hussey, Edward Aristotle's Physics: books III and IV. -(Clarendon Aristotle Series) 1. Aristotle- Physics I. Title 110 Q151.A7 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Aristotle. A1·istotle's Physics, books III and IV. (Clarendon Aristotle series) Translation of: Physics. Bibliography: p. - Includes index. 1. Science, Ancient. 2. Physics-Early works to 1800. I. Hussey, Edward. 11. Title. III. Series. Q151.A7913 1983 500.2 82- 18996 ISBN 0- 19-872069-6 (pbk.) 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 Printed in Great Brt'tain on acid-free paper by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn PREFACE AND DEDICATION This volume offers guidance to a reader who wishes to explore books III and IV of Aristotle's Physics. The translation and the notes follow the common pattern of the Clarendon Aristotle Series. The translation aims to be literal, in the sense that it tries to beg as few questions of interpretation as possible. The notes give a step-by-step discussion of the text. In the Introduction, I have tried to give a more connected account of what Aristotle is about in these books. Two fundamental, and controversial, topics that arise are (i) Aristotle's philosophy of mathematics; and (ii) Aristotle's mathematical or other 'laws' of motion and of change in general. On these, I have provided fairly systematic treatments, but ones which are in some degree unortho­ dox. These topics, therefore, I have relegated to Additional Notes at the end of the volume. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the various kinds of help I have received in preparing this book. I must record particularly my gratitude to the Editor of the Clarendon Aristotle Series, Professor John Ackrill, for his sympathetic patience and valuable comments and advice at all stages. To David Charles, David Fowler, Jennifer Hornsby, Gavin Lawrence, Christopher Peacocke, Malcolm Schofield, and David Wiggins I am variously indebted for conversation, guidance and encouragement. I thank Edna Laird and Diane Burden for their efficient typing, and Derek Parfit for the generosity with which he allowed me the use of his electronic word-processing equipment. To Gwil Owen, who died when the manuscript of this book was already in the hands of the publisher, I owe in common with many others a less easily defmed, but deeper debt for his teaching and example in the study of ancient philosophy. I dedicate this book to his memory, and to that of another friend early dead, R. C. ('Prof) Zaehner. All Souls College, Oxford E.L.H. July 1982 V CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix TRANSLATION NOTES 55 ADDITIONAL NOTES 176 (A) Aristotle's Philosophy of Mathematics 176 (B) Aristotelian Dynamics 185 EXPLANATION OF REFERENCES 201 LIST OF DIVERGENCES FROM THE TEXT OF ROSS 208 GLOSSARY 210 INDEXES 215 vii INTRODUCTION !.PHYSICS Ill AND IV AND THEIR INTERPRETATION (a) Contents, aim, and method Books Ill and IV of Aristotle's Physics consist of five essays, on the subjects of change (111.1-3), the infinite (III.4-8), place (IV.l-4), void (IV.S-9), and time (IV.l0-14). It is clear that they were composed fairly early in Aristotle's career as an independent thinker. Probably they were originally written soon after the Topics was completed, and not (except for the essay on time) much reworked later. Some clues to the history of their composition are pointed out in the notes. For the understanding of the text, though, questions of relative and absolute chronology are not of importance.1 Aristotle's aim is to arrive at a correct general theory about each of the subjects under discussion. His method is the method of dialectic, by which (in theory at least) the philosophical inquirer started from the accumulated material of common-sense intuitions, previous opinions of philosophers, and observed facts relevant to the subject, and ascended by a process of rational criticism and generalization to the correct account of the subject, which would usually be enshrined in a definition of the central term. The practice of Aristotelian dialectic is codified in the Topics, and Physics Ill and IV provide one of the earliest surviving examples of its application.2 Dialectic is a formalization of the ordinary processes of rational reflection, and most of the time the modern reader will not be far out if he takes Aristotle to be doing in these essays much what a modern physicist or philosopher does when discussing certain very general topics, such as the nature of time or space, in general terms. The peculiarities of Aristotle's discussions derive not so much from a 1 On the date and composition of the Phyrfics see esp. Ross (1), 1-11. 2 On dialectic in general: Index of subjects (under 'Dialectical Method'); and Owen (3), Wieland (2). ix INTRODUCTION peculiar method of thought as from the fact that Aristotle starts out with a particular set of assumptions or philosophical commitments, of which the influence is often manifest and everywhere present. It would be impossible, and pointless, to state all these assumptions. In the later sections of this Introduction, and in the notes, some of them are identified and elucidated. Two in particular it may be useful to mention here, because they are so alien to our ways of thinking, and not only mistaken but disastrously so: the assumptions (a) that all the sciences are, not merely essentially finite and com­ pletable, but in principle deducible from principles which are in some sense self-evident; (b) that the essential truths about physics, at any rate the physics of inanimate matter, lie more or less 'on the surface' in the sense that there is no 'micro-structure' of matter, and no physical agent not directly observable, by the unaided senses, as such. Besides such assumptions there is Aristotle's general metaphysical position, and this is one that is fairly familiar, and even fashionable, at the present time: essentialist, realist,1 and anti-Platonist. As an exponent of this kind of position Aristotle has had (at least until recently) no serious rival. These essays are in the end important, if they are so at all, not only as almost the earliest but also as classic expressions of a durable philosophical treatment of the problems under discussion. (b) Obstacles to understanding For the innocent modern reader, the obstacles that lie in the way of understanding and appreciating these books, or any work of Aristotle, are many and serious. (I) The language barrier. Aristotle's Greek, even when perfectly clear in its own terms, is full of words and phrases for which there is no English equivalent. Even thp most faithful translation needs to be supplemented by a commentary. (2) The presentation is often repellent and difficult. It is obvious that these writings were never prepared for any 'publication' or 1 Aristotle's realism is severely qualified in certain directions; see below, secs 3(c) 3 and 6 (g). X INTRODUCTION literary presentation by Aristotle; they reek of the lecture-room, though the first editors of the Aristotelian corpus may have tidied them up a little. The language is sometimes sloppy and ambiguous, or clumsy and obscure. There is some confusing arrangement of materials, some repetition, and a few short passages which can hardly be authentic.