Keywords
Aristotle’s Physics
change. continuous
dialectic
infinite
motion
ontology
time
Zeno of Elea
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper proposes an interpretation of Books V and VI of Aristotle’s Physics as being (at least partly) a reaction to Zeno’s four “arguments against motion” that Aristotle expounds and discusses in Phys. VI 9. On the basis of a detailed textual analysis of that chapter, I show that Zeno’s arguments rest on a frame of a priori notions such as part and whole, in contact, between, limit, etc., which Aristotle takes over in order to account for the inner structure (here called “the In-Between”) common to all facts of motion and change. That frame allows him to develop a specific ontology for that inner structure – although it exists only potentially according to the Aristotelian orthodoxy – because he needs such an ontology in order to vindicate the reality of motion and change.
References
De Gandt, F., 1991, “Sur la détermination du mouvement selon Aristote et les conditions d’une mathématisation”, in: F. De Gandt, P. Souffrin (eds.), La Physique d’Aristote et les conditions d’une science de la nature, Paris, pp. 85–105.
Diels, H., Kranz, W., 1934–1937 Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 volumes, Berlin.
Kant, E., 1787, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2nd edition, Riga.
Lachelier, J., 1910, “Note sur les deux derniers arguments de Zénon d’Élée contre l’existence du mouvement”, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 5–6 (reprinted in: Corpus 24–25 (1994), pp. 11–21.
Laks, A., Most, G. W., 2016, Early Greek Philosophy, vol. V: Western Greek Thinkers, Cambridge.
Sorabji, R., 1976, “Aristotle On the Instant of Change”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 50, pp. 69–89 (reprinted in: J. Barnes, M. Schofield, R. Sorabji, Articles On Aristotle, vol. III: Metaphysics, London 1979).
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