ARISTOTLE: ON GENERATION AND CORRUPTION BOOK I SYMPOSIUM ARISTOTELICUM This page intentionally left blank Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption, Book 1 Symposium Aristotelicum edited by FRANS DE HAAS And JAAP MANSFELD CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD 3 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 Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc. 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Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PREFACE The XVth Symposium Aristotelicum met from 21 to 28 August 1999 in Deurne, the Netherlands. We stayed at the Missiehuis St Willebrord, just outside town. We enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and spacious grounds of the Missiehuis, with their little lake, the weather being exceptionally favourable. We followed the tradition of the Symposium by bringing together colleagues from various countries to study and discuss a topic of major interest in Aristotelian studies. We took the individual chapters of the first book of the foundational De generatione et corruptione as the theme of (at least) one presentation and discussion, and left one session for discussion of this book as a whole. In this way the tendency of the more recent meetings of the Symposium to devote special attention to (a substantial part) of an Aristotelian treatise was continued. The chapters of the present collection do not form, and are not intended to form, a commentary on the treatise, though individual sections and passages are of course commented on. Instead, we want to focus on specific issues and controversial points, hoping that this inquiry will bring some measure of enlightenment to our readers, though dis- agreements on particular questions are unavoidably included. As always, the final versions of the papers differ from the drafts read at the Sympo- sium, the authors having profited from the discussions, and from the comments they happened to receive while revising their text. The paper presented by Jaap Mansfeld has been integrated to some extent in that of Keimpe Algra. Apart from the persons who read papers, the other participants were Enrico Berti, David Charles, Andrea Falcon, Michael Frede, Frans de Haas, Paul Kalligas, Geoffrey Lloyd, Mario Mignucci, Jan van Ophuij- sen, Marwan Rashed, Bertus de Rijk, David Runia, Theodore Scaltsas, Malcolm Schofield, and Gerhard Seel. The Symposium was financed by a generous grant from the Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University for which we are grateful. Our stay at the Missiehuis was made most pleasant by the unforgettable hospitality of Ms Nora Hendriks and Father Koos van Dijk, and the assistance of Marnix Hoekstra, who studies ancient philosophy at Utrecht. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Contributors ix Editor’s Introduction 1 Introduction: Aristotle on the Foundations of Sublunary Physics 7 M. F. Burnyeat 1. On Generation and Corruption I. 1: A False Start? 25 Jacques Brunschwig 2. On Generation and Corruption I. 265 David Sedley 3. On Generation and Corruption I. 3: Substantial Change and the Problem of Not-Being 91 Keimpe Algra 4. On Generation and Corruption I. 4: Distinguishing Alteration 123 Sarah Broadie 5. Simple Genesis and Prime Matter 151 David Charles 6. On Generation and Corruption I. 5 171 Alan Code 7. On Generation and Corruption I. 6 195 Carlo Natali 8. On Generation and Corruption I. 7: Aristotle on poiein and paschein 219 Christian Wildberg 9. On Generation and Corruption I. 8 243 Edward Hussey 10. On Generation and Corruption I. 9 267 Michel Crubellier 11. On Generation and Corruption I. 10: On Mixture and Mixables 289 Dorothea Frede viii Contents 12. A Note on Aristotle on Mixture 315 John M. Cooper References 327 Index Locorum Potiorum 331 Index Nominum et Rerum 345 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Keimpe Algra, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Utrecht University Sarah Broadie, Professor of Philosophy, St Andrews Jacques Brunschwig, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Paris I, Sorbonne Myles Burnyeat, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford David Charles, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford Alan Code, Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley John Cooper, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University Michel Crubellier, Professor of Philosophy, Universite´ Charles de Gaulle, Lille Dorothea Frede, Professor of Philosophy, Hamburg University Edward Hussey, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford Carlo Natali, Associate Professor of Ancient Philosophy, Venice University David Sedley, Lawrence Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge Christian Wildberg, Professor of Classics, Princeton University This page intentionally left blank Editor’s Introduction Frans A. J. de Haas The first book of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione is a difficult text which deals with a number of key notions in Aristotle’s physics, and does so at a high level of abstraction. These characteristics may serve to explain the choice of the Symposiasts for GC I: it is indispensable because it deals with key notions of Aristotle’s physics in a way they are not dealt with anywhere else in the Aristotelian corpus. Moreover, because it is notoriously difficult, there is room for improvement on existing scholarship. In this book Aristotle seeks to establish the differences between generation and corruption, alteration, and growth, three of his four kinds of change (locomotion is discussed in the Physics and De caelo). Furthermore, Aristotle argues that it is necessary to have a clear grasp of the concepts of touch, action and passion, and mixture before one can properly understand any of these kinds of change. More particu- larly, these concepts are required to understand the processes de- scribed in more detail in GC II and Meteorology IV, respectively: the transformation of the four sublunary elements, and the constitution of homogeneous materials, such as flesh, blood, and bone, out of these elements. The contributors to this volume have aimed at clarifying the structure of Aristotle’s text, revealing the strategy of his argument, and tracing its implications for his natural philosophy as a whole. By way of introduc- tion, we here provide an outline of each contribution to facilitate access to the volume. It will be seen that most contributions cover a single chapter of GC I, with the exception of the contributions by Charles and Cooper. Moreover, three series of chapters constitute thematic units. Chapters 3–5 all concern the vexed issue of prime matter in Aristotle, Chapters 8–10 cover Aristotle’s sustained discussion of action and passion in GC I. 7–9, and Chapters 11–12 both deal with mixture. The crucial role of the Presocratics, esp. Empedocles and the atomists, in Aristotle’s argument is a theme that runs through this entire volume, with emphasis on Chapters 2–3 and 7–10. 2 Editor’s Introduction In his introductory chapter Myles Burnyeat provides GC I with its proper setting in Aristotle’s philosophy of nature. We learn that the chapters on action and passion, and mixture point forward to more refined applica- tions in Aristotle’s theory of perception and thought, as well as to the metaphysical notion of ‘subject’ (hupokeimenon). These considerations dislodge a traditional line of interpretation which regarded GC Ias preparing only the discussion, in GC II, of the four elements, their transformations, and the homoeomerous mixtures which they make up. Although GC I is indeed concerned with these physical foundations, its references to the order of argument and exposition of the physical works as a whole, show its role in laying the conceptual foundations of Aris- totle’s philosophy of nature. Finally, Meteorology I. 1 reveals that GC I also provides the teleological foundations of Aristotle’s physics: together the Physics, GC, and De caelo point to what is best: the cyclic transform- ation of the elements, which in its turn serves the eternal life cycles of the biological species to which Aristotle has devoted his most scrupulous attention. In his discussion of GC I. 1 Jacques Brunschwig carefully considers the relationships between GC and other parts of the Aristotelian corpus, and between the treatises that now constitute GC. He identifies the question whether and how generation and alteration are to be distinguished as the central issue of his chapter. It dominates Aristotle’s discussion of the Presocratics, which is modelled on the more primitive division between monism and pluralism. Monism lacks the distinction between generation and alteration, whereas pluralist theories require separate treatment in this respect because they are so different from each other.