Aristotle Physics I 8

SEAN KELSEY

ABSTRACT
Aristotles thesis in Physics I 8 is that a certain old and familiar problem about coming to be can only be solved with the help of the new account of the principles he has developed in Physics I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not quite do it justice; specically, as things now stand we are left wondering why Aristotle should have found this problem so compelling in the rst place. In this paper I develop an interpretation which (I hope) will help to remedy this. I believe that Aristotles problem about coming to be depends on a certain principle to the effect that nothing can become what it already is (it is this that is supposed to explain why t n cannot come to be j ntow cf. 191a30). The main innovation of the interpretation developed here is its suggestion that we understand this principle as a principle about kinds. So understood, the principle does not make the comparatively trivial point that nothing can become any individual it already is, but rather the more powerful and substantive point that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a point which Aristotle himself accepts and that this is why the problem about coming to be raises serious difculties for him. I also discuss Aristotles proposed solutions to this problem, explaining how each draws on his new account of the principles and why each is required for any full resolution of the difculties the problem raises. In this way I hope to show how the interpretation developed here does justice to the very strong thesis with which Aristotle begins Physics I 8. I conclude briey and somewhat speculatively with a suggestion as to why Aristotle might accept the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns.

Physics I 8 is given to a problem about the possibility of coming to be (and also of ceasing to be). The problem is an old one, going back at least as far as Parmenides. It led some to conclude that there is no coming to be of substance; it led others to conclude that there is no coming to be of anything that there is no change of any kind. Aristotles thesis is that this problem can only be solved in light of the new account of the elements or principles that he has developed in Physics I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not quite do it justice. Aristotle says that the problem can only be solved with the help of his new account of the principles. This suggests that he
Accepted January 2006 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Also available online www.brill.nl/phro Phronesis LI/4

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thinks the problem is pretty difcult, a suggestion which is conrmed by his discussion of it in another place, where he says explicitly that it is extraordinarily difcult (xei yaumastn poran, GC I 3, 317b18-19). Ideally then we want an account of the problem that would explain why he nds it so difcult. It is just here that I nd the literature unsatisfactory. The standard commentaries say nothing to explain why the problem seemed compelling to Aristotle.1 Other commentators have tried to motivate the problem, but in doing so have ventured far enough from the text of I 8 to raise concerns about whether we are still discussing the same problem.2 Partly in reaction to this, one recent study has tried to stay closer to Aristotles own statement of the problem, but at the cost of having to downplay how difcult it can have really seemed to him.3 In this paper I develop a reading of the problem which would explain why Aristotle thinks it is so difcult and which would also explain why he thinks the problem can only be resolved with the help of certain innovations he has made in the course of developing his new account of the principles. I begin in Section I with a brief and selective review of the literature, with a view to bringing out how hard it is to explain why Aristotle thinks the problem really does raise serious philosophical difculties. Then in Section II I introduce and develop a new reading, which I believe does allow us to see why Aristotle thinks the original problem is so difcult. The main innovation of this reading is to understand one of the principles on which the problem implicitly depends the principle that nothing can become what it already is as a principle about kinds. So understood the principle says, not that nothing can become any individual it already is, but rather and more powerfully that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a principle which Aristotle himself endorses and that, because of this, the original problem really does raise serious difculties for him. I then turn in Section III to discuss the various solutions to the problem Aristotle mentions or develops in Physics I 8;
1 So Simplicius, Philoponus, Aquinas, Ross 1936, Wagner 1967, Charlton 1970. Also Mansion 1946, Solmsen 1960, Wieland 1970. 2 So I think Code 1976, Graham 1987, Lewis 1991 (and to a lesser extent Waterlow 1982). This is not to take anything away from the interest or thoughtfulness of these discussions. 3 So Loux, who says that the problem is not fully convincing, and further that it is open to objections so direct and devastating as to leave us wondering how any intelligent and sane thinker could have been taken in by the argument (Loux 1992, 284, 293). In another recent study, Horstschfer says that the problem does raise a serious difculty not for Aristotle, but for an Eleatic (Horstschfer 1998, 390).

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in the case of each I rst offer an interpretation of what the solution is and then go on to explain [i] how it speaks to the original problem as I have construed it, [ii] why it is a necessary component of any full resolution of the difculties the problem raises for Aristotle, and [iii] how it draws on the resources of the new account of the principles Aristotle develops in Physics I 7. In this way I hope to show that the interpretation I have offered does justice to the very strong claim Aristotle makes about the original problem at the beginning of Physics I 8. Finally in Section IV I return to discuss in detail a particular passage in Physics I 8 which has given commentators no end of difculties. I argue that in fact this passage can be seen to make perfect sense once it is read in light of the interpretation of the original problem and of Aristotles solutions to it developed in this paper. I conclude with one or two brief remarks about the principle on which I suggest the problem turns, including a somewhat speculative suggestion as to why Aristotle might think that this is a principle he must accept. I. The difculty I begin with a brief review of some of the literature on the problem. Although several readings have been proposed, they all have trouble showing why the problem should have any grip on Aristotle. My point is not to argue that these readings stand thereby refuted, but rather to convey something of the difculty in explaining why Aristotle nds the problem compelling in the rst place. Aristotle begins Physics I 8 by introducing the problem as follows:
That this is the only way of resolving the difculty felt by thinkers of earlier times must be our next point. The rst people to philosophize about the nature and truth of things got so to speak side-tracked or driven off course by inexperience, and said that nothing comes to be or passes away, because whatever comes to be must do so either from something which is, or from something which is not, and neither is possible. What is cannot come to be, since it is already, and nothing can come to be from what is not, since there must be something underlying. And thus inating the consequences of this, they deny a plurality of things altogether, and say that there is nothing but being itself. (191a23-33, tr. Charlton, slightly modied)

Setting the inated consequences aside, this is a neat and tidy little problem. It begins with a sort of dichotomy, enumerating the possibilities for how things might come to be: if anything comes to be, it must do so either from what is (j ntow) or from what is not (k m ntow). These pos-

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sibilities are then eliminated in turn: things cannot come to be from what is (it is already), nor from what is not (something must underlie). The conclusion is that nothing comes to be. Despite its supercial simplicity, Aristotles presentation of the problem raises a number of questions. I will not dwell on all of these questions here. So, for example, we might ask whether the problem is just about the coming to be of substance, or whether it also denies the possibility of accidental change. Here I will assume that, at least in the rst instance, the problem is about the coming to be of substance what Aristotle sometimes calls coming to be simpliciter (Phys. I 7, 190a31-33, GC I 3, 317a32-b1). Again, when the problem talks about what coming to be is from, we might ask about exactly what sense of from is at issue here. For now I will assume that at issue is the sense of from in which Aristotle believes things come to be from matter, as opposed to from privation (or from both).4 The question I do want to focus on, and which has divided commentators the most, is about how to read the opening dichotomy, and in particular about how to take the word is in the expressions what is and what is not. Usually it is taken in one of two ways, either as complete as it stands or as requiring a complement referring back to the thing that putatively comes into being. Read the rst way, the dichotomy says that everything must come to be from either what is or is not (period); read the second way, it says that everything must come to be from either what is or is not it.5 On the second reading, the dichotomy represents a kind of schema, which gets lled out differently in different cases; for example, it tells us that Socrates must come to be from what is or is not Socrates, but Plato from what is or is not Plato, and Alexander from what is or is not Alexander, and so on. On the rst reading, it tells us that everything must come to be from one of two things, what is or what is not, where these are the same no matter what comes to be, whether Socrates or Plato or anything else. Both readings have trouble motivating the problem philosophically. The trouble with the complete reading is that the proposal that things come to be from what is appears untouched by the objection raised against it,
4 Some commentators have denied this in an effort to resolve an apparent difculty presented by Aristotles solution of the problem. For more on this see section IV below. 5 For the rst reading see e.g. Wagner 1967, Loux 1992, and Horstschfer 1998; for the second see e.g. Ross 1936, Code 1976, Waterlow 1982, and Lewis 1991.

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namely that it is already.6 Why should it follow, just because Socrates comes to be from something that is (period), that he already was, before he came to be? Surely he might have come from some other thing that is, for example from an egg or a seed. As for the incomplete reading, here the trouble is just the reverse; the proposal that things come to be from what is not appears untouched by the objection to it, namely that something must underlie.7 Why should it follow, just because Socrates comes to be from something that is not Socrates, that he comes to be from nothing at all (or from nothing that underlies)? In the face of these difculties, it is tempting to try a sort of hybrid reading combining the virtues of both (so Simplicius 236.20-22); read this way, the problem would argue that Socrates can come to be neither from what is (namely, from what is Socrates), because he is already, nor from what is not (that is, from what is not, period), because something must underlie. However, the trouble now is that the supposed dichotomy between what is and what is not in this case, between Socrates himself and nothing at all does not appear to be exhaustive.8 It is not obvious then why Aristotle nds the original problem so difcult. Motivating the problem demands three things: that the dichotomy between what is and is not seem exhaustive, that the proposal that things come from what is seem open to the objection that it is already, and that the proposal that things come from what is not seem open to the objection that something must underlie. The trouble is that none of the readings we have considered can deliver more than two of these.9

So Ross 1936, 494 ad 191a28. So Loux 1992, 288; Horstschfer 1998, 388. 8 I also think that such a reading is implausible as a way of taking the phrase j ntow k m ntow. 9 It does not help to say that the problem would have a grip on someone already convinced of Eleaticism (so Horstschfer 1998, 390). The question is not why the problem might seem compelling to Parmenides, but why it might seem compelling to Aristotle. Besides, Aristotle knows that not everyone who recognized the problem was an Eleatic. Moreover, he thinks that those who were Eleatics thought that Eleaticism was a consequence of the problem, not one of its presuppositions (191a31-33). Finally, if he thought the problem turned on Eleaticism, he ought to think we can solve the problem simply by rejecting Eleaticism, and thus without having to make any appeal to the special resources of his new account of the principles.
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II. A new reading I believe that it is possible to read the problem in a way that meets all three demands, but seeing this requires a shift in how we have been thinking about coming to be so far, and in particular in how we have been thinking about its terminus ad quem. So far we have been speaking of what comes to be as if it were always some particular individual; this is common in the literature and in a certain respect natural. After all, at least when successful, coming to be always does leave us with a particular individual, such as Socrates or Plato or Alexander. Nonetheless, there is another way of thinking about the matter, according to which what comes to be is not a particular individual, but rather a particular kind of thing. This too is natural. For example, suppose I am building a chair from some wood I have lying around in the garage, and you come in and ask me what I am building. Maybe it is possible to take this as asking for which individual I am building (the answer would be this chair or this one). But another perfectly good way of taking it is as a request for the kind of thing I am building (the answer would be a chair, or a piece of furniture). In this sense, what I am building, and so what the wood is becoming, is not a particular individual, but rather a particular kind of thing. In this sense, as Aristotle would put it, what the wood is becoming is not tde but toinde not this, but such.10 Suppose we think of the terminus ad quem of coming to be in this way, not as a particular individual, but as a particular kind of thing. This shift in focus makes a difference for how we understand the original problem, and in particular for how we understand the objection to the idea that things come to be from what is. If we think of the terminus ad quem as this or that individual, it will be natural to understand this objection as appealing to a certain general principle, that nothing can become the individual thing it already is. Understood this way, the difculty is to see why it follows from the fact that something is, that it already is the very individual it will become (or alternatively, why it follows from the fact that something is not that individual, that it is not anything underlying). However, suppose we instead think of the terminus ad quem as this or that kind of thing. It will then be natural to understand the objection as
10 Cf. Owen 1978-9 (pp. 291-94 in the reprint). Perhaps there is also a sense in which it is becoming both: not just tde, and not just toinde, but tde toinde, i.e. tde ti.

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appealing to a different principle, that nothing can become the kind of thing it already is. Heard this way, the difculty is to see why it follows from the fact that something is, that it already is of a kind it will become (or alternatively, why it follows from somethings not being of that kind, that it is not anything underlying). The advantage of understanding the problem in this second way is that these are questions we can answer, provided the kind in question is sufciently general. For example, when Socrates comes to be, one of the things he becomes is a human being that is the kind of thing he is. However, since human beings are a kind of animal, and animals are a kind of substance, it follows that when Socrates comes to be, another thing he becomes is an animal, and still another a substance. Suppose then we ask what sort of thing it is that substances such as Socrates come to be from. Either it is a substance or it is not a substance. If it is a substance, then it will become something that it already is, namely a substance. If it is not a substance, it will not underlie (for Aristotle, only substances underlie).11 So, it is easy to see why it follows from somethings being, that it already is at least a kind of thing that it will become. When substances come to be, at least one thing they become is a substance. Similarly, it is also easy to see why it follows from somethings not being any of the kinds it will become that it is not anything underlying. The difculty now is to explain why Aristotle would nd the former result objectionable. Does Aristotle really think it plausible to suppose that nothing can become any kind of thing it already is (not even the very general kind substance)? Happily, the answer to this question is yes. The principle that nothing can become what it already is, where what things are is of a kind, is one that Aristotle unquestionably endorses. To be sure, he does allow that this principle admits of a kind of exception. Indeed, this can happen in a couple of ways. For example, suppose I build a chair from some wood salvaged from an old table and then move it into the living room from the garage. One might argue that, in so doing, I have violated the principle twice. First I made a piece of furniture (a table) into a piece of furniture (a chair). Then I did it again, making a piece of furniture (in the garage)

See e.g. Phys. I 7, 190a35-b1, where Aristotle says that substance alone is not predicated of an underlying subject and that everything else is predicated of it. Many have objected to me that Aristotle does not believe that substance alone underlies, on the grounds that he believes that matter underlies and that matter is not substance. But of course it is the doctrine of Physics I and elsewhere that in a way matter is substance (see e.g. Phys. I 9192a5-6) indeed, thats a good deal of the point.

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into a piece of furniture (in the living room). And, in fact, Aristotle is going to allow both examples as a kind of exception to the general principle, at least in a way. However, he is also going to insist that, in another way, strictly and properly speaking, these examples are not really exceptions to the principle at all. Aristotle knows as well as you and I that when I move a chair into the living room, what the chair really becomes is not a piece of furniture, but in the living room.12 And, though this is perhaps less obvious, it is at any rate Aristotles view that when I make a chair from a table, what the chair really comes from is not a table but wood.13 So, yes, Aristotle will allow that things can become what they already are, in a way. Thus he will also allow that the general principle on which I have suggested the problem turns does, in a way, admit of exceptions. Indeed, as we will see, he thinks that recognizing these exceptions takes us part of the way but only part of the way towards resolving the difculties the problem raises. Nonetheless, we must not lose sight of the conditions Aristotle places on these exceptions. They are allowable, but only when the kind in question is not really what the coming to be is from, or when it is not really what the coming to be is of or to. Given these conditions, our so-called exceptions hardly jeopardize Aristotles commitment to the principle at issue. On the contrary, they serve precisely to underline how fundamental that commitment is. For Aristotle, nothing can become what it already is, not strictly and properly speaking no matter how general the kind in question. As he puts it later: if something is going to become an animal non-incidentally, it will not be from an animal, and if something that is, not from something that is (191b23-25).14 Where does this leave us in relation to the readings we began with, namely complete and incomplete? I am proposing that we interpret the
12 It is common to characterize such points as being about how the termini of coming-to be are best described (so e.g. Waterlow 1982, Graham 1987, Lewis 1991, Loux 1992). I prefer to think of them as points about what the termini of comingto-be really are. 13 This last is a point about what kind of thing the chair comes from, not about which individual it comes from. One way to make the point intuitively clear is to consider that as a rule chairs are made from wood, and that the case envisaged is no exception. (One reason I make the point in this roundabout way is to avoid prejudging whether Aristotle believes that the terminus a quo must always survive into the nal product. Another is to avoid simply assuming the point at issue, namely that Aristotle regards a tables being a piece of furniture as an obstacle to its becoming one.) 14 e d ti mllei ggnesyai zon m kat sumbebhkw, ok k zou stai, ka e ti n, ok j ntow.

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dichotomy between what is and is not as between what is and is not substance.15 In a way this could be seen as exemplifying either reading. We might regard it as a version of the complete reading, augmented by the assumption that what it is for something to be (or to come to be) period is for it to be (or to come to be) substance. Alternatively, we might regard it as a version of the incomplete reading, one that lls in the blanks with a predicate, namely the very general predicate substance. All this notwithstanding, there is a way in which the current proposal is unlike any available in the literature: it is able to explain why Aristotle nds the original problem so difcult. The proposal again is that the dichotomy between what is and what is not is a dichotomy between what is and is not substance. This makes it easy to see why it would seem exhaustive to Aristotle. It also makes it easy to see why the idea that things come to be from what is not would seem open to the objection that something must underlie. The apparent difculty is to explain why the idea that things come to be from what is would seem open to the objection that it is already. This difculty is removed by the suggestion that the principle implicit in this objection, that nothing can become what it already is, is a principle about kinds. It is this suggestion that is the real heart of the reading proposed here. It enables us to explain why Aristotle nds the original problem compelling, by making the problem turn on a principle he endorses. III. Aristotles solution(s) I have presented a reading of the problem Aristotle discusses in Physics I 8 which would explain why he nds the problem difcult. I now want to present a reading of his solution which would explain why he thinks that it depends on the account of the principles that he has developed in Physics I 7. In fact Aristotle offers two ways (trpoi) out of the problem, the rst developed at length, the second mentioned only in passing (191a34-b27, b27-29). Before getting into the details, it will be useful in keeping our bearings to have considered in a general way how these two solutions are supposed to be related. Suppose then we think of the problem as placing
15 An alternative proposal, in keeping with the spirit of the one offered above, would be to read the dichotomy as between what is and is not a being, sc. in any of the categories. (Cf. GC I 3, 317a32-b13, which suggests that the problem can be run either way.)

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certain conditions on what substances come from call this substancematerial and then arguing that these conditions cannot be jointly satised. The rst condition says that substance-material must underlie; the second says that it must not already be what it will become. If we try to satisfy the rst condition, by saying that substance-material is substance, we fall foul of the second, which says that it cannot already be what it will become (namely substance). If we try to satisfy the second condition, by saying that substance-material is not substance, we fall foul of the rst, which says that it must underlie (for Aristotle, only substances underlie). To solve this problem, we must either deny one or both of these conditions, or else show how they can be reconciled. Very briey, Aristotles rst solution denies both conditions (it comes in two parts, one given to each), while his second solution attempts to reconcile them. In a way these solutions are independent of one another, inasmuch as each is sufcient to undo the original problem.16 In another way they are complementary, inasmuch as both are necessary for any complete resolution of the difculties the problem raises. I will discuss these solutions in turn (I take the rst solution in pieces, one to each of its two parts), and in the case of each solution, besides saying something about what it means, I want to do three things. First I want to explain how it speaks to the original problem. Then I want to explain why Aristotle must regard it as indispensable for any full resolution of the difculties the problem raises. Finally I want to explain how it draws on material from Physics I 7. III.1. First solution, rst part: genesis from what is not The rst part of Aristotles rst solution to the problem says that there is an ambiguity in the premise that nothing can come to be from what is not (191a34-b17). Aristotle says that this premise can be understood in two ways. The strictest or most proper way to understand it, he thinks, is as saying that nothing can come from what is not unqualiedly (plw), or qua what is not ( m n). But, he thinks, it is also possible to understand this premise in another way, as making a point about what things can come to be from even incidentally (kat sumbebhkw). Understood this second way, the premise says that nothing can come from what is not in any way: not qua what is not, and not qua anything else, either. With this distinction in place, Aristotle concedes the premise as
16

This point was driven home to me by David Ebrey.

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understood in the strictest or most proper way (mlista kurvw), but then denies it as understood in the other way (191b13-17). He hopes thereby to show that the fact that something is not need not be an obstacle to its being what things come from, at least not in a way (pvw), namely, incidentally. What are we to make of this? Earlier I proposed that we understand the premise nothing can come to be from what is not to mean that substances cannot come to be from what are not substances. So understood, I take it that, when interpreted in the most proper way, this premise says something about the kind of thing substances can come from;17 in particular, the premise says that, whatever it is to be what substances come from, it is not simply not to be substance. Aristotle wants to concede that, understood this way, the premise is correct: it cannot be what it is to be substance-material simply not to be substance (not even some particular kind of substance for example, the particular kind of substance the material in question will become).18 However, Aristotle also wants to insist that this fact about the kind of thing substance-material is does not prevent concrete instances of substance-material from happening not to be substance, any more than the fact that it is not what it is to be furniturematerial simply not to be furniture prevents concrete instances of furniture-material from happening not to be furniture.19 Moreover, when substance-material happens not to be substance (for example, when it happens not to be substance of the particular kind it will become), there is a way in which whatever comes to be from it will also come to be from what is not substance (namely, from what is not a substance of that kind). So, for example, suppose I build a chair from some materials that happen not to be a chair. There is a way in which the chair comes to be from what is not furniture (namely, it comes to be from what is not a chair); the chair comes to be from what is not furniture inasmuch as it comes to
See note 13 above. If it were, then substance-material would not be the sort of thing that underlies. Moreover, its destiny (sc. to become substance) would then be its destruction (cf. Phys. I 9, 192a20-25). In addition, it would then be difcult to see in what sense substance-material could be present in ( nuprxein ) what it becomes (cf. 192a30-32). 19 As we will see, there is something that prevents substance-material from happening not to be substance of any kind an important difference between substance and furniture. However, what prevents this is not that substance-material must be the sort of thing that underlies (poketai), but rather that only substances are separable (xvristn).
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be from some material that happens not to be furniture. In Aristotles language, it comes to be from what is not furniture incidentally not qua not furniture, but qua something else (call it furniture-material). Similarly, when a substance comes to be from material that happens not to be substance (namely, of the particular kind the material in question will become), then in a way that substance comes to be from what is not substance (again, of the particular kind it will become) not insofar as it is not a substance of that particular kind, but insofar as it is something else, namely substance-material. So much for what Aristotle is trying to say in this part of his solution to the original problem. He wants to concede that earlier thinkers were absolutely correct to insist that if substances do come into being, it cannot be the very nature of the material they come from simply not to be substance. (Just to be clear, he wants to concede not only that it cannot be the nature of substance-material simply not to be substance of any kind, but also that it cannot be its nature simply not to be substance of just some particular kind; for example, he wants to concede that if air comes to be, it cannot be the nature of the material it comes to be from simply not to be air.) However, in addition to making this concession to the original problem, Aristotle also wants to object that this fact about the nature of substance-material does not prevent its concrete instances, in addition to being substance-material, from happening also not to be substance (in particular, it does not prevent substance-material from happening not to be substance of the particular kind it will become). So, for example, if air comes to be, the fact that it cannot be the nature of the material it comes from simply not to be air does not prevent this material, in addition to being air-material, from happening also not to be air. In this way, Aristotle wants to object, substances can come from what is not substance not insofar as it is not substance, but insofar as it is something else (namely, a certain kind of material, the nature of which he has yet to disclose). I want to make three points about this part of Aristotles solution. First, it speaks to the original problem by denying one of the conditions the problem sets on what substance-material can be: namely, that it must be something that underlies (191a31). Aristotle concedes that this is a condition on the kind of thing substance-material can be on what substances can come from unqualiedly (191b13-14). That is, he agrees that it cannot be what it is to be substance-material not to be substance. However, he wants to deny that this is also a condition on what substancematerial can even happen to be on what substances can come from even

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incidentally (191b14-16). Aristotle says that there is a way in which substances can come from what is not that is, from what is not substance. Given that only substances underlie, this is to say that there is a way in which substances can come from what is not the sort of thing that underlies. The second point I want to make about this part of Aristotles solution is that it is a necessary component of any full resolution of the difculties the problem raises for him. This is because Aristotles other commitments require him to hold that, when substance-material is ready to become substance, it cannot then even happen to be a substance of the particular kind it is to become.20 This is the familiar doctrine that substances always come from their privation (strhsiw) or absence (pousa) (Phys. I 7, 191a4-7).21 This doctrine is a consequence of the idea that substances come to be by way of very specic sorts of change induced in the materials they come from: some of them by change of shape, like a statue, some by addition, like things which grow, some by subtraction, as a Hermes comes to be out of the stone, some by composition, like a house, some by alteration, like things which change in respect of their matter (Physics I 7, 190b5-9). It is this idea that requires Aristotle to hold that, in a way, substances always come from their privation (which is what is not per se, sti kay at m n, I 8, 191b15-16). For if some substance-material did happen already to be a substance of the particular kind it is to become, then it would already be of the specic size and shape and quality and so on that it must come to be, in order to become that kind of substance. Thus if substance-material is going to become a particular kind of substance, by changing in certain very specic kinds of way, then it cannot already be a substance of that particular kind, not even incidentally for that would be an obstacle to its changing in just those ways.22 This in turn forces Aristotle to allow that in a way it is possible

20 Distinguish this point from the principle on which the original problem turns. That principle says that nothing can become any of the kinds of thing it already is; it is a point about what things can come to be from unqualiedly. The point here is that nothing can become the specic kind of thing it already is; it is a point about what things can come to be from even incidentally. (If you like, the point here places a limit on the exceptions to the earlier principle.) 21 I understand privation as the absence or lack of a particular kind (as opposed to a particular individual). This is in keeping with my understanding of the original problem. It is also in keeping with the details of Aristotles text (see esp. Phys. I 7, 191a14-15). 22 For example, suppose I am at the local science museum, waiting my turn to build

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for substances to come from what is not substance (namely, from what is not a substance of the particular kind it is to become). The third and nal point I want to make about this part of Aristotles rst solution is that it quite plainly draws on innovations in the account of the principles he develops in Physics I 7. To see this, recall that Aristotle comes to this chapter having inherited a number of problems arising from the previous discussion. One problem is that there are apparently compelling reasons both for thinking that the principles must be opposites, and also for thinking that they cannot be opposites (among other reasons, because opposites are not substance, and therefore do not underlie).23 Aristotles solution to this problem has two parts. On the one hand, he takes the view that strictly speaking there are just two principles, subject (pokemenon) and form, neither of which is an opposite (cf. 190b17-20, 32, 191a17-18).24 On the other hand, he also takes the view
a catenary arch, and the patron ahead of me nishes his and leaves it standing. Making an arch requires putting the blocks provided in a certain order, dictated by the logic of the arch; since these blocks happen to be in that order already, to put them into it I must rst take them out. In this way, the fact that the blocks happen to be an arch already is an obstacle to my making them into one. (The obstacles are not always so easy to overcome: consider becoming a Hermes or a house or an animal or bronze.) Nor would the case be substantially altered were I to devise a way to disassemble the arch piecemeal, one block at a time. The reason the blocks are not ready to make into an arch is not just that the rst thing to do is take down the old one, but also and crucially that the work still in front of me cannot even happen to be a step in the process of assembling an arch. This is because the changes it calls for are precisely and diametrically opposed to the ones called for by the process of assembly (Cf. Metaph. Y 7, 1049a9-11, on being something potentially, and Phys. V 4, on the ways changes can be one). It is this that renders the blocks unready to become an arch, and it would not be altered by my disassembling the arch one block at a time, assembling a new one as I go along. (Suppose I want to build a house from a deck of cards, but the only cards I have happen to be a house already. I carefully take down the old house, one card at a time, building the new one as I go along, on just the same model as the old, but with no card functioning in the new house as it did in the old (this is by contrast with the catenary arch). Here, breaking the construction into stages, we can say that the cards from which the roof was built were not a roof, and so on.) 23 Phys. I 5, 188a31ff.; I 6, 189a27-34. Although the considerations Aristotle raises in I 6 are introduced as reasons for not making opposites the only principles, they are equally reasons for not making them principles at all. 24 The fact that neither principle is an opposite is shown by the fact that Aristotle regards both of them as a kind of substance (191a8-13). It is true that he concludes Physics I 7 by saying it is not yet clear whether the form or the subject is substance (191a19-20). But this can hardly be because it is not yet clear whether the principles of substance are substance; in Physics I 6 Aristotle gives compelling reasons for thinking that, if there are principles of substance, they must be substance (nor are these

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that, in a way, incidentally, the principles are opposites, inasmuch as the subject, in addition to being a kind of subject for the other, also happens to be its opposite (see 190b24-27, 30-35, 191a4-7).25 So, in Physics I 7, Aristotle concedes that the principles cannot be opposites, not strictly speaking, but then insists that this does not prevent them from happening to be opposites (even necessarily so). But this is just the move he makes here in Physics I 8, where he concedes that it cannot be what it is to be substance-material not to be substance, but then insists that this does not prevent substance-material from happening not to be substance (even necessarily so). In this way, this rst part of his rst solution to the problem about coming to be depends crucially on innovations introduced in the account of the principles he develops in Physics I 7. III.2. First solution, second part: genesis from what is I now turn to the second part of Aristotles rst solution of the original problem, which is addressed to the premise that nothing can come to be from what is. This part of his solution is presented in a compact and difcult passage (191b17-27) which has been interpreted in a number of different ways. Here I just lay out my own view of this part of his solution, clean and simple. In Section IV I show how this view makes sense of the details of the passage in which it is presented. Aristotle prepares us to expect this second part of his rst solution to be parallel to the rst part, and that is how I will interpret it (see 191a34b4, 17, 24-25). So, as before, I take the second part of the solution to expose an ambiguity in one of the problems premises: this time, in the premise that nothing can come to be from what is. Understood in the strictest way, this premise says that nothing can come to be from what is
reasons subsequently retracted or modied). My suspicion is that the reason Aristotle says that it is not yet clear whether the form or the subject is substance is that he has not yet made it clear whether substances really do come to be (and therefore whether there really are any principles from which they do so). Here I am moved by the fact that he puts his conclusion in the form of a conditional: it is clear then that, if there really are causes and principles of things due to nature, from which rst they are and have come to be, not incidentally but each what it is called in accordance with its substance [it is clear] that everything comes from both the subject and the form (190b17-20). 25 Or, if not its opposite, then at least its privation or absence. In either case we have a concession to the reasons for thinking the principles must be opposites (see Phys. I 5, 188a36 and ff., and note that privation also meets the strictures against t tuxn which Aristotle appeals to there).

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unqualiedly, or qua what is. Understood another way, it says that nothing can come to be from what is even incidentally, that is, not just qua what is but even qua something else. Again as before, I take this part of Aristotles solution to concede the premise as understood in the strictest way, but then to deny it when understood in the other way (191b17-19, 23-25). As I understand it, Aristotle hopes thereby to show that the fact that something is need not be an obstacle to its being what things come from, at least incidentally. We can make sense of this along the lines drawn above. As before, I take it that the most proper way of taking the premise that nothing comes to be from what is is as a premise about the kind of thing substances come from: that is, the premise says that whatever substancematerial is, it cannot be any kind of substance. Aristotle wants to concede that, understood this way, the premise is correct: it cannot be what it is to be substance-material simply to be substance. However, Aristotle also wants to insist that the fact that it is not in the very nature of substancematerial to be substance does not prevent concrete instances of substance material from happening to be substance. It no more prevents this than the fact that it is not in the nature of furniture-material to be furniture would prevent concrete instances of furniture-material from happening to be furniture (as they are when I make a chair from some materials which, in addition to being materials for a chair, happen also to be a table).26 Moreover, when substance-material does happen to be a substance, there is a way in which whatever comes to be from it will also come to be from a substance. So, for example, suppose I build some furniture (a chair) from material that happens to be furniture (a table) already. There is a way in which the piece of furniture I build comes to be from furniture, inasmuch as it comes to be from some material that happens to be furniture. In Aristotles language, it comes to be from furniture incidentally not

26 As we have seen, there is something that prevents substance-material from happening to be a substance of the specic kind it is to become (in this respect, substance is no different from furniture). However, what prevents this is not the principle that the material for coming-to-be cannot as such be anything it will become, but rather the very different principle that the material for coming-to-be cannot even happen to be the specic kind of thing it will become. (The rst principle has to do with what things come to be from unqualiedly; the second has to do with what they can come to be from even incidentally. The reason for the second principle is that if some material happened already to be of the particular kind it was to become, this would be an obstacle to its changing in the specic ways whereby things of that kind come to be (see above, p. 342 and n. 20).)

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qua furniture (furniture is not the kind of thing furniture comes from), but qua furniture-material. Similarly, when a substance comes to be from material that happens to be substance, then in a way it comes to be from substance not qua substance, but qua substance-material. As before, I want to make three points about this second part of Aristotles rst solution. First, it is like the rst part of the solution in that it too speaks to the original problem by denying one of the conditions the problem sets on what substance-material can be: this time, the condition that substance-material cannot be anything it will become (191a30). Aristotle concedes that this is a condition on the kind of thing substance-material can be on what substances can come to be from unquali edly (191b13-14). That is, Aristotle concedes that it cannot be what it is to be substance-material to be any kind of substance. (Indeed, if he did not agree to this, the problem would have no grip on him.) However, despite making this concession, Aristotle wants to deny that the principle nothing can become what it already is is also a condition on what substancematerial can even happen to be on what substances can come from even incidentally (191b14-16). Aristotle says that there is a way in which substances can come to be from substances. However, given that when substances come to be, one of the things they become is a substance, this is just to say that there is a way in which substances can come from something that already is one of the things it will become, namely a substance. Substances can come from substances incidentally, and they do so whenever the material that they do come to be from unqualiedly also happens to be substance. For example, if air and water are substances, then air comes from a substance incidentally whenever the material that it comes from unqualiedly, in addition to being a certain kind of material (call it air-material), happens also to be water. The second point I want to make about this second part of Aristotles solution is that it is like the rst part in that it too is necessary for any full resolution of the difculties the original problem raises for him. Once again this is because of Aristotles other commitments. For Aristotle, the prospect of substance-material that does not also happen to be substance presents us with two alternatives. First, since it is not any kind of substance, we could say that neither is it of any determinate quantity or quality and so on. Alternatively, despite the fact that it is not any kind of substance, we could say that it is of a determinate quantity and so on, though this quantity is not the quantity of any actual substance. Both of these alternatives are unacceptable to Aristotle. He regards the rst as tantamount to allowing that substances come from nothing; he regards the

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second as a repudiation of the doctrine that only substances are separable (xvristn). Since Aristotle nds both alternatives unacceptable, he must and does insist that substance-material does always happen to be some kind of substance.27 This in turn forces him to allow that, in a way, it is possible for substances to come from substances, in apparent violation of the principle that nothing can become what it already is (in this case, a substance). For Aristotle, substances must come from substances not insofar as the latter are substances, but incidentally. The reason for this (again) is that substances alone are separable. The third and nal point I want to make is that this second part of Aristotles solution also draws on material from Physics I 7, by exploiting again the very move exploited in the solutions rst part. There Aristotle allows that in a way things can come to be from what is not, though he concedes that what they come from unqualiedly must be the sort of thing that underlies. Here he allows that in a way things can come to be from what is, though he concedes that what they come from unqualiedly must not already be anything it is to become. III.3. Second solution: dnamiw and nrgeia So much then for the two parts of Aristotles rst solution, which he develops at length in Physics I 8. I now turn to discuss his second solution, which he mentions only in passing (191b27-29). Aristotles rst solution tells us a lot about what kind of thing substance-material is not: it tells us that it is not the nature of substance-material to be substance, and that it is not its nature not to be substance, either. By the same token, however, Aristotles rst solution does not tell us anything about the kind of thing substance-material is about what substances come from unqualiedly. As I understand it, this is the question addressed by his second solution.28 Aristotle does not spell out this second solution in any detail, but just gives the distinction on which it turns: it is possible to speak of the same things in accordance with potentiality and with actuality (191b28-29).
27 See GC I 3, 317b19-33, also De Cael. III 3, 302a7-9. It is a question whether substance-material must always happen to be a single individual (e.g. an animal), or whether it would be enough if it happened to be stuff of some substantial kind (e.g. air or water). That depends on the requirements Aristotle places on being separable (xvristn). I take no stand on that here. (For some discussion see Dancy 1978, 399ff.; Kung 1978, 146ff.) 28 So also Aquinas, I.xiv.126ff.

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I take it that these different ways of speaking are supposed to answer to different ways of being one and the same kind of thing. So, for example, consider seeds and plants (the example is taken from Phys. I 7, 190b3-5). Obviously there is a way in which plants are plants. However, Aristotle thinks there is also a way in which seeds are plants too. After all, it is hard to see what other kind of thing seeds could be certainly not animals or minerals! Nor are seeds their own kind of thing, seeds, as if being a seed were on all fours with being a plant or animal or mineral. Nor again is it as if seeds simply fall outside the Aristotelian scheme all together, as if there were simply no saying what they are, because they fail to exemplify any determinate kind. For Aristotle, seeds do exemplify a determinate kind they have a perfectly respectable place in the system of nature. They have this place by exemplifying the kind plant not in actuality, but potentially. Moreover, Aristotle thinks, it is from precisely this sort of thing from what exemplies the kind plant in this way that plants come to be unqualiedly. That is, plants come from what are plants potentially, not insofar as they happen not to be plants in actuality, nor insofar as they happen to be some other kind of thing in actuality (for example, a compound of the four elements), but just insofar as they are, essentially, plants not in actuality, but potentially. The same is true for substances more generally. For Aristotle, substances come from what are substances potentially, not insofar as they happen not to be substances (namely, of the particular kind they will become), nor insofar as they happen already to be substances (namely, of some other kind), but just insofar as they are, essentially, substances (namely, of the particular kind they will become) again, not in actuality, but potentially. As before, I want to make three points about this second solution. First, it speaks to the original problem by trying to show how both of the conditions the problem places on what substances come from can be satised. So long as being a substance potentially is enough to qualify something as underlying, the idea that substances come from what is substance potentially will satisfy the problems rst condition, which is that the material from which substances come to be should be the sort of thing that underlies.29 So long as being a substance potentially is not ipso facto
Note that even if being a substance potentially is enough to make something underlie (poketai), it had better not be enough to make it separable (xvristn). If it were, there would be no need for Aristotle to insist that in a way substances come from substances, as he does in the rst solution. For in that case there would be no necessity that concrete instances of substance-material, in addition to being substancematerial, also happen to be substances in actuality.
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enough to qualify something as a substance in actuality, the idea that substances come to be from what is substance potentially will also satisfy the problems second condition, which is that substances come to be from something that is not already (namely, in actuality) anything it is to become.30 Second, this second solution is also essential to any full resolution of the difculties the problem raises for Aristotle. Recall that Aristotles rst solution concedes that the conditions which the problem places on what substances come from, though they do not constrain what substances can come from incidentally, really do constrain what they can come from unqualiedly. Given this, Aristotle must think that there is a way to reconcile these conditions; otherwise there would not be anything that substances come to be from unqualiedly, in which case they simply would not come to be at all. (This is the idea that what holds incidentally is parasitic on what holds unqualiedly or per se, for which see for example Phys. II 3, 198a8-9.) So, Aristotle must nd something that meets both conditions, if he wants to settle fully and completely the difculties the problem raises. Moreover, given that he thinks only substances underlie, it is not easy to see how else he can do this except by positing a way of being a substance that is enough to qualify something as underlying, but not so much as to make it actually anything it is to become (and in particular a substance). But to posit this just is to posit a distinction between being a substance potentially and being a substance in actuality. Finally, this second solution is like both parts of the rst solution in that it too draws on the account of the principles Aristotle presents in Physics I 7. It is true that Aristotle does not there use the language of potentiality and actuality. However, he does say that everything comes from something underlying, and also that this underlying something is substance, though not in the way that the form (t edow) is that is, not in the way that what it becomes is.31 But to characterize anything in this way is to admit that there is another way of being a substance, intermediate between being one fully and completely and not being one at all. And to say that to be a substance in this other way is precisely what

30 To say that it is not the essence of something to be substance in actuality is not to say that it is its essence not to be substance in actuality. (Were Aristotles view that it is the essence of substance-material not to be substance in actuality, his view would be open to the latter difculties raised above in note 18.) 31 190b23-27, 191a8-13; cf. I 9, 192a3-6. Note that there is no objection to identifying what matter becomes with t edow pace Simplicius 240.5-10 when what it becomes is of a kind (toinde).

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it is to be the underlying subject from which substances come to be32 this just is the second solution, absent the language of potentiality and actuality. IV. A difcult passage This completes my account of the solutions Aristotle offers to the problem about coming to be he discusses in Physics I 8. The account is distinctive in how much it has Aristotle concede to the original problem. Most interpretations have Aristotle say, or at least leave room to say, that things do come to be from something that is (not from themselves, but from some other thing that is). That is, they have him say or leave room to say that, strictly speaking, substances come to be from other substances (for example, that air come to be from water or statues from bronze). By contrast, the account developed above has Aristotle say that, strictly speaking, nothing comes to be from anything that is; in particular, it has him concede to the problem that strictly speaking substances cannot come to be from substances not even from different ones. In part, this element of the interpretation developed here is motivated by my understanding of the original problem. As I see it, the problem turns on the principle that nothing can become what it already is that is, nothing can become any kind of thing it already is (not even the very general kind, substance). Given this, I cannot have Aristotle solve the problem by saying that substances come from other substances; that would be for him to abandon the principle which explains why he nds the problem compelling in the rst place. However, besides being dictated by my understanding of the original problem, I believe that this element of the present interpretation also ts the details of the passage in which Aristotle presents the part of his solution which is addressed to the question of whether what is can come to be from what is (191b17-27). Earlier I mentioned that this is a difcult and controversial passage which has been interpreted in a number of ways (Section III.2). Here I argue that the present account of this part of Aristotles solution to the problem he discusses in Physics I 8 makes better sense of the passages details than any currently on offer.
Cf. the summary at 191a17-19: from what we have just said it is clear . . . what the underlying subject is (k tn nn fanern . . . t t pokemenon). I take it the reference is to 191a7-12, which begins with the remark that the underlying nature is knowable only by analogy ( d pokeimnh fsiw pistht kat nalogan). That is, it is only thus that we can say what it is.
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The passage we are concerned with reads as follows:

And similarly [we too say that]33 neither is coming to be from what is nor yet does what is come to be, except incidentally. But in this way even this happens,34 just as if (for example) animal should come from animal, that is, some particular animal from some particular animal, for example if dog should come from horse.35 For the dog would come not only from some particular animal, but also from animal, but not qua animal; for that belongs already. And if something is going to become animal non-incidentally, it will not be from animal, and if what is, not from what is. Nor yet from what is not; for we have said what from what is not means, namely qua what is not. And further we are not doing away here with the dictum everything is or is not. (191b17-27)

As I see it, the key to interpreting this passage correctly is to preserve the parallelism a parallelism for which Aristotle himself prepares us between its treatment of what is and Aristotles earlier treatment of what is not (see 191a34-b4, 17, reinforced at b24-25). In the earlier treatment of what is not, Aristotle concedes that strictly speaking nothing comes from what is not, and then objects that in another way things do come to be from what is not, namely incidentally. Here then we expect him in parallel fashion rst to concede that strictly speaking nothing comes from what is, and then to object that in another way things do come to be from what is, namely incidentally. In my view, this is exactly what he does do. However, it is generally felt that there are obstacles to taking the passage in this way, so that it parallels Aristotles earlier treatment of coming to be from what is not. In what follows I rst try to remove these obstacles; I then offer a new reading of the passage which leaves the expected parallelism intact.

Supplied because the clause still depends on the mew d ka ato famen at 191b13 (thus Ross 1936, 495 ad 191b17-18). 34 even this happens (ka toto ggnesyai). This could also be translated even this [sc. t n] comes to be. 35 for example if dog should come from horse. This is bizarre, and Ross (following Laas) emends the text to read: for example if dog should come [from dog or horse] from horse. Read this way, and interpreted as Ross intends, the situation we are being asked to envisage is the perfectly ordinary one of dogs begetting dogs and horses begetting horses. However, this is not at all suited to the context (it also makes it difcult to explain the optative). Here I follow the text as given in the mss. (so also recently Loux 1992 and Horstschfer 1998).
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The obstacles to reading our passage in the way I propose are essentially two. The rst obstacle is textual and it comes right at the beginning of the passage:
And similarly [we too say that] [i] neither is coming to be from what is nor yet [ii] does what is come to be, except incidentally. (191b17-18)

In this opening Aristotle appears to be making two points. The rst is that nothing comes to be from what is that is, that what is is not coming-to-bes terminus a quo. This is the point we were expecting and it clearly parallels Aristotles earlier concession that nothing comes to be from what is not. The second point is that what is does not come to be. This is usually interpreted to mean that there is no coming to be of what is that is, that what is is not coming-to-bes terminus ad quem. Interpreted this way, this second point is not a point we were expecting; it has no parallel in the earlier discussion, where Aristotle simply does not consider whether anything could become what is not whether what is not could be coming-to-bes terminus ad quem. On the face of it, then, Aristotles treatment of what is appears to diverge from his treatment of what is not right at the very outset. In fact this appearance can be dispelled easily enough. It is true that it is natural to read the opening of our passage as saying that what is cannot play the role in coming to be of either the terminus a quo or the terminus ad quem. However, it is also natural to read this opening in another way, as saying only that what is cannot play the role of terminus a quo. To see this, remember that in Physics I 7 Aristotle says that we speak of the terminus a quo of coming to be in two ways, both as what coming to be is from and as what comes to be (190a5-6, 21f.). (For example, we speak of it as what coming to be is from when we say that the knowledgeable come to be from the ignorant; we speak of it as what comes to be when we say that the ignorant come to be knowledgeable.) Second, note that Aristotle himself speaks of the terminus a quo in both of these ways earlier in Physics I 8, in his very statement of the original problem. There he says that nothing can come to be from what is (j ntow), because it is impossible for what is to come to be (ote gr t n ggnesyai) (191a28-30); here the context makes clear that when he says that it is impossible for what is to come to be, what he means is that it is impossible for what is to be the terminus a quo. Taken together, these considerations positively invite us to take the opening of our passage

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likewise as speaking, not about both the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem, but rather about only the terminus a quo. Read this way, our opening says that regardless of how we refer to the terminus a quo whether as what the coming to be is from or as what does the coming to be it is not in any case something that is.36 This reading has the advantage over the usual one in that it preserves the expected parallelism between the present treatment of what is and Aristotles earlier treatment of what is not. So much for the rst, textual obstacle to reading our passage in a way that preserves the parallelism with Aristotles earlier treatment of what is not. The second obstacle is more philosophical. Many commentators are taken aback by Aristotles concession that nothing comes to be from what is and look for ways to explain it away. Isnt it precisely his view, they reason, that things do come to be from what is? Doesnt he think that things come to be from matter, and that matter is something that is? After all, matter is hardly something that is not that honor goes to privation (see Phys. I 8, 191b15-16). What else is there for it to be, then, except something that is? This is a natural line of thought and I think it can be seen behind many readings of our passage.37 Here I give four examples by way of illustration. [1] The sense of from in which Aristotle concedes that nothing comes to be from what is is not the same as that in which he conceded earlier that nothing comes to be from what is not. There he had in mind the sense of from in which things come to be from matter, while here he has in mind the sense in which they come to be from privation; in the sense of from in which he thinks everything comes from matter, Aristotle does not concede that nothing comes from what is.38 [2] When Aristotle concedes that nothing comes to be from either what is or what is not, the sense of from he has in mind is the same in both places (this is by contrast with reading [1]); however the sense of from he has in mind is a fused sense the sense in which things come to be from both matter and privation. The reason Aristotle concedes that nothing comes to be either from what is or from what is not is that, in this fused sense of from, everything comes from both; in the sense of from in which everything comes to be from matter alone,
So also Ross, who translates: and similarly we deny that anything comes into being out of the existent or that the existent comes to be anything (Ross 1936, 495 ad 191b17-18). 37 I nd it explicit in Lewis 1991, 230ff. and Loux 1992, 308. 38 Cf. Mansion 1946, 76.
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Aristotle never concedes that nothing comes to be from what is.39 [3] The sense of from is the same in both places and in both places it is the sense in which things come to be from matter alone. But where before the point was that what is not cannot be coming-to-bes terminus a quo, here the point is that what is cannot be its terminus ad quem; Aristotle never does say that what is cannot be coming-to-bes terminus a quo.40 [4] Aristotle does say that what is cannot be coming-to-bes terminus a quo (and also that it cannot be its terminus ad quem). But he does not mean that things that are do not come to be from things that are (from other ones). What he means is that things that are do not come to be from things that are just and precisely insofar as they are. This does not prevent him from holding that particular things that are come to be from other things that are qua the particular things that they are (for example, that air comes to be from water, not qua being, but qua water).41 All these readings try to soften or explain away Aristotles concession that nothing comes to be from what is. But though some may nd this desirable philosophically, it is hardly required as a matter of interpretation. It is true that Aristotle thinks that strictly speaking everything comes from matter, and that matter is something that is to a degree. Matter is more something that is than privation is; unlike privation, it is and is one; unlike privation, it is near being and in a way is substance, and not merely incidentally (Phys. I 7, 190b25-27, 191a7-14; I 9, 192a3-6). However, Aristotle emphatically does not think that matter is any of these things in the way that what it will become is as he puts it in Physics I 7, in the way that osa and tde ti and t n are (191a7-12). Indeed, supposing that he did think that matter was all these things in the way that what it becomes is, it then becomes very hard to see why he feels that he must posit two ways of being substance, potentially and in actuality, such that to be substance in the former way is to be more substance than privation (which is substance odamw, in no way), but not so much as substances themselves (as osa and tde ti and t n)

Cf. Lewis 1991, 233, 239-40. Lewis says that his own reading does involve a shift in senses of from, though one that is harmless and unobjectionable (233, 240). I do not see why this has to be so. He should be able to use the idea of a fused or mixed sense of from to avoid having to posit a switch, at least within Physics I 8. 40 Cf. Waterlow 1982, 17-18 and n.13. 41 So in effect Simplicius 240.5-7; Solmsen 1960, 76 n.8; Wagner 1967, 440; Charlton 1970, 80; Loux 1992, 312-17; Horstschfer 1998, 412-20.

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(Phys. I 8, 191b27-29; I 7, 190b25-27; I 9, 192a3-6; I 7, 191a7-14). This is a position that gets him into difculties, even by his own lights (see especially GC I 3, 317b13-33). Why would Aristotle occupy this position, if he thought it enough to say that substances come to be from other substances? These considerations remove the second obstacle to reading the passage in a way that I propose. There is nothing in Aristotles own remarks about matter that requires us to save him from the concession that nothing comes to be from what is. IV.2. A new reading It remains to see how to read our passage in a way that does preserve the expected parallelism between Aristotles treatments of what is and what is not. I will take it in three pieces. First comes the opening, which reads again as follows:
And similarly [we too say that] neither is coming to be from what is, nor yet does what is come to be, except incidentally. (191b17-18)

I propose to take this in the second of the two ways considered above, as saying that no matter how the terminus a quo is characterized whether as what the coming to be is from or as what does the coming to be it is not something that is (except incidentally). On this reading everything so far is just as we expect: Aristotle concedes that strictly speaking nothing comes to be from what is and then immediately objects that in another way things do come to be from what is, namely incidentally. The passage continues with an illustration asking us to consider how it would be if animals came to be from animals, for example if dogs came to be from horses:
But in this way even this happens, in the same way as if (for example) animal should come from animal, that is, some particular animal from some particular animal, for example if dog should come from horse. (191b18-21)

What exactly are we being asked to envisage here? As I understand it, Aristotle thinks that, in the actual world, substances come to be from something that, in addition to being substance-material, also happens to be substance; for example, he thinks that air comes to be from something that, in addition to being air-material, also happens to be (say) water or re. Since the case we are being asked to envisage is supposed to illustrate this, it is presumably a case in which animals come to be from things

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that, in addition to being animal-material, also happen to be animals: for example, a case in which dogs come to be from things that, in addition to being dog-material, also happen to be horses. Aristotle continues:
For [i] the dog would come not only from some particular animal, but also from animal, but [ii] not qua animal; for that belongs already. (191b21-23)

Here Aristotle makes two points, one corresponding to each of the points he made in the opening of our passage and which he is now trying to illustrate. The rst point is that if there were a way in which dogs came to be from horses, there would also be a way in which they came to be from animals (after all, there would be a way in which they came to be from horses, and horses are animals). This rst point corresponds to Aristotles objection to the original problem, which was that there is a way in which things do come to be from what is (namely, incidentally). The second point is that if there were a way in which dogs came to be from horses, and therefore from animals, nevertheless dogs would not come to be from horses qua animal. (Remember that, in the case envisaged, neither would they come from horses qua horse the case we are envisaging is one in which dogs come to be from horses incidentally.)42 This second point corresponds to Aristotles concession to the original problem, which was that nothing comes to be from what is qua thing that is.43 With these points in hand, Aristotle then closes the illustration by making its relation to the original problem explicit: And if something is going to become animal non-incidentally, it will not be from animal, and if what is, not from what is (191b23-25). Third and nally our passage is brought to a close with two concluding remarks:
42 Most commentators take Aristotle to be envisaging a case in which dogs came from horses qua horse (an exception is Philoponus, at 180.10-16). As I see it, this is excluded by his contention that they would not come from horses qua animal. (After all, horses do not just happen to be animals, they are a kind of animal.) Loux sees this objection, though in the end he decides to live with it (Loux 1991, 314). 43 Note that the reason Aristotle gives for the second point that belongs already, (191b22-23) echoes the reason he gives earlier for saying that nothing can come from what is, namely that it is already, (191a30) (so also Horstschfer 1998, 414 n.46). (Ross is led into difculties here, because he is worried that it does not give a good sense to say a dog would come into being from an animal, but not from an animal qua animal; for that is already present (Ross 1936, 496). The fact is that it makes as much sense to say here that animals cannot become animals because they already are animals as it did to say earlier that beings cannot become beings because they already are beings.)

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[i] Nor yet [will what is come to be] from what is not; for we have said what from what is not means, namely qua what is not. And further [ii] we are not doing away here with the dictum everything is or is not. (191b25-27)

The rst remark that neither does what is come to be from what is not simply repeats the concession Aristotle made earlier in the rst part of his rst solution; in so doing, it reinforces the idea that his treatments of what is and what is not are meant to proceed in parallel. The second remark assures us that, in denying that anything comes to be either from what is or from what is not, we have not violated the dictum that everything is one or the other. The reason Aristotle thinks he can offer this assurance is that he has just been saying that in a way, incidentally, substances do come to be both from what is and from what is not: from what happens to be a substance of some kind, and from what happens not to be a substance of the specic kind it is to become. The reason he thinks he should offer this assurance the reason the reader should nd it welcome is that he has also just been saying that strictly speaking substances do not come to be from either. In closing I want to make two points about the reading of our passage (191b17-27) developed in this section. The rst point is that this reading makes Aristotles treatment of what is respect the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns, by having him concede that, strictly speaking, things that are do not come to be from anything that is (not even from different things that are) any more than, in the case Aristotle asks us to envisage, animals would come to be from animals (even from different ones). In the case Aristotle asks us to envisage, animals would come to be from animals, not strictly speaking, but only incidentally. The second point I want to make is that the reading developed here makes Aristotles treatment of what is exactly parallel to his earlier treatment of what is not. It is in this respect especially that I think it ts the details of our passage better than other readings currently on offer.44

The parallelism might be preserved by a version of reading [2], which has Aristotle operating with a fused sense of the preposition from (see note 39 above). But such a reading is objectionable on other grounds. There is nothing in Physics I 8 to suggest that Aristotle thinks that it is only incidentally that things come to be from matter alone. Moreover, in Physics I 7 Aristotle says explicitly that, by contrast with privation, things come to be from matter non-incidentally (190b23-27).

44

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Conclusion In this paper I have presented a reading of the problem Aristotle discusses in Physics I 8 and of the solutions whereby he thinks the difculties it raises can be resolved. I have not argued that this is the only reading possible. Still, I have shown how this reading would explain why Aristotle would nd the problem compelling, and also why he would think that the difculties it raises cannot be completely resolved except by the solution(s) he proposes, and also how these solutions draw on his account of the principles in Physics I 7, and also how this reading allows us to make sense of a difcult and controversial passage, neatly and seamlessly. These are the readings virtues and they do add up to an argument for it in my view a powerful one. The central and guiding innovation of this reading is the idea that the principle on which the problem turns, that nothing can become what it already is, is a principle about kinds. It is this idea that explains why the difculties the problem raises are so acute for Aristotle and why he must think they can only be resolved in the specic ways he proposes.45 Now, many readers will nd this principle very implausible. It is certainly not the seeming tautology about individuals on which the problem is often thought to turn. Indeed, some may nd it so implausible as to raise a concern that if I have been able to explain why the problem has some purchase on Aristotle, this is only because I have not been afraid to saddle him with an absurdity (nothing hard about that). I hope that upon reection this concern will seem unwarranted. It is true that, in the hands of some thinkers, the principle is very rigid, with powerful and counterintuitive consequences: certainly that there is no coming to be of substance, perhaps that there is no coming to be of anything (no change of any kind). However, in Aristotles hands the principle is very supple. It can allow that substances come to be from substances in a way, namely incidentally ( just as it can allow that, in a way, furniture sometimes comes to be from furniture, as when I make a chair from a table). In this way the principle does not require that if substances come to be, they must do so from what is nothing at all a requirement that would effectively rule out that substances ever come to be. At the same time, this exibility
45 I take for granted some familiar Aristotelian theses about substance, e.g. that they come to be by way of specic kinds of accidental change, and that only substances are separable (xvristn), and that only substances underlie (poketai). I also take for granted the dependence of what holds only incidentally on what holds unqualiedly.

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notwithstanding, the principle remains powerful enough to constrain Aristotles philosophy in fundamental ways. Specically, it forces him to make a fundamental distinction between potentiality and actuality, as the only way to say what kind of thing substances do come to be from.46 It remains a question why Aristotle nds it natural to accept such a principle (and not just Aristotle, but his predecessors as well). My suspicion is that, at least in Aristotles case, this has something to do with how he thinks about what it is for things to be what they are. Consider the following analogy. Suppose someone took the view, contrary to the principle, that it was in the nature of experts to become experts: for example, of doctors to become builders. Suppose further that they took this to mean something like the following, that if your career as a doctor went well, then one of the things you would do is become a builder, or in other words, that becoming a builder partly constitutes success as a doctor. There is a kind of tension in such a view. On the one hand, it treats medicine and construction as if each were a fully-edged kind of expertise in its own right coordinate species under a single genus. On the other hand, it also says that part of what it is to be a good practitioner of the one is eventually to become a practitioner of the other. This makes it sound as if medicine and construction were not coordinate species under a single genus, but rather different levels or degrees one might attain in the practice of a single expertise. My suspicion is that this is something like the way in which Aristotle hears the view that substances come to be strictly speaking from other substances: for example, that air comes to be strictly speaking from water. For Aristotle, this would mean that part of what it is for water to succeed at being water is precisely for it to turn into some other kind of thing, namely air. This would be problematic, not merely because becoming air necessarily spells destruction for water becoming a builder does not necessarily spell destruction for a doctor but also because it is in tension with the idea that both water and air already are perfectly good, fully-edged kinds of substance in the rst place.47 If that is right, it suggests that the reason Aristotle thinks that nothing can become what it already is has something to do with his conceiving
46 We should not be too quick to assume that this is just hitting the problem with jargon. Lets leave aside for a moment the principle that requires Aristotle to invoke the distinction here. Do we really want to try to say what kind of thing seeds are without some such distinction at our disposal? (This is not to say we should accept the distinction, but just that there is an intuitive cost to doing without it.) 47 If they were not, but water stood to air e.g. as acorn stands to oak tree, then becoming air would not be the destruction of water. For in that case the kind of thing

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of what it is for things to be what they are in fundamentally normative terms. But really this is just a suspicion. My intention in this paper has not been to explain why Aristotle accepts this principle, but just to bring this question into focus.48 Department of Philosophy University of California, Los Angeles Works Cited
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. In Octo Libros Physicorum Aristotelis Expositio. Ed. P. M. Maggilo, O.P. Rome: Marietti, 1954. Charlton, William. 1970. Aristotles Physics Books I-II. Clarendon Aristotle Series. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Code, Alan. 1976. Aristotles Response to Quines Objections to Modal Logic. Journal of Philosophical Logic 5: 159-86. Dancy, Russell. 1978. On Some of Aristotles Second Thoughts about Substances: Matter. Philosophical Review 87: 372-413. Graham, Daniel W. 1987. Aristotles Two Systems. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Horstschfer, Titus Maria. 1998. ber Prinzipien: Eine Untersuchung zur Methodischen und Inhaltlichen Geschlossenheit des ersten Buches der Physik des Aristoteles. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Kung, Joan. 1978. Can Substance Be Predicated of Matter? Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie 60: 140-59. Lewis, Frank A. 1991. Substance and Predication in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Loux, Michael J. 1992. Aristotle and Parmenides: An Interpretation of Physics A8. Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 8: 281-319. Mansion, Augustin. 1946. Introduction a la Physique Aristotlicienne. 2nd edn., revised and expanded. Paris: J. Vrin. Owen, G. E. L. 1978-9. Particular and General. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 79: 1-21. Reprinted in M. Nussbaum (ed.), G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science, and Dialectic (Ithaca, 1986), 279-94. Philoponus, John. In Aristotelis Physicorum Libros Tres Priores Commentaria. Ed. H. Vitelli. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. XVI. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1887. water is would be air (sc. potentially), in which case its becoming air would spell not its destruction as a thing of that kind, but rather its fulllment. 48 For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I would like to thank Joseph Almog, Andreas Anagnostopoulos, Jonathan Beere, Tyler Burge, John Carriero, John Cooper, Verity Harte, Errol Katayama, Gavin Lawrence, Stephen Menn, Michael Pakaluk, John Palmer, David Sedley, Allan Silverman and Matthew Walz. In addition I would like especially to thank Pamela Hieronymi, for many hours of conversation about the material in this paper, and David Ebrey, not least for his extensive written comments on several earlier drafts. The papers remaining faults are of course my own.

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Ross, W. D. 1936. Aristotles Physics. A revised text with introduction and commentary by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Solmsen, Friedrich. 1960. Aristotles System of the Physical World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Simplicius. In Aristotelis Physicorum Libros Quattuor Priores Commentaria. Ed. H. Diels. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. IX. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882. Wagner, Hans. 1967. Aristoteles Physikvorlesung. In E. Grumach (ed.), Aristoteles, Werke in deutscher bersetzung, Bd. 11. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Waterlow, Sarah. 1982. Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotles Physics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wieland, Wolfgang. 1970. Die Aristotelische Physik. 2nd edn. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.