Aristotle Physics (William Charlton Oxford)

Intro:
-in Phy. I-II: book I: emphasis on the constituents of physical things in general =
about the philosophy of physics
book II: emphasis on the development of plant and animals =
philosophy of the biological sciences
-ti to on = what is there? / what exists? search for principles
-Phy. II an explanation of nat. science
ch. 1: distinction betw. natural obj. and artefacts which are not due to
nature natural obj. have a source of their behaviour in themselves --- nat., def. as
such a source
ch. 8: nature as a cause for something some nat. things and processes
exist or come about for the sake of definite ends, and can be explained as existing
and coming about for those ends. (xvi)
nature for Arist. = not necessarily a single universal force, which
pervades all nat. objects and so on, but the nature of this or that thing a
tree or a horse has a nature
Book I:
Ch. 2:
natural things are some or all of them subject to change. if the universe is
continuous, the one will be many; for continua are divisible within limit. (185b 10)
-the question of things being both one and many at the same time (185b 27)
things are many: the being of pale is diff. from the being of a musician [note, p.45:
the word musician, often used in a wider sense, and Aristotle may mean by it what
we mean by cultured or polished].
Ch. 5
-opposites = principles everything else comes from them = primary opposites
a thing does not come to be out of just anything or does not pass away into just
anything in the first place (p.11) It is necessary that the united [note, p. 46:
transl. also as tuned untuned] should always come to be out of disunited,
and the disunited out of united, and that the united should pass away into disunion,
and not just any chance disunion, but that opposed to the preceding union. (188b
12 14)

-commentary (pp. 65):

-the principle of physical things are opposites
authority (ex consensu sapientium)

1 argument based on

-it is not a matter of chance what comes out of what, but a thing always comes
from its opposite or smth. in between change is within definite ranges the
Aristotelian kind of thing or category = a range within which things may change

Book II:
Ch.1:
-things due to nature: animals, plants, simple bodies (=earth, fire, air, water) have
a source of change and staying unchanged
-things due to some kind of art: no innate tendency to change + none have in
themselves the source of their making
nature is a sort of source and cause of change and remaining unchanged
in that to which it belongs primarily to itself, that is, not by virtue of
concurrence. [] a man who is a doctor might come to be a cause of
health in himself. Still, in so far as he is healed he does not possess the
art of medicine, but being a doctor and being healed merely concur in the
same person. [???] (I. 21-26)
-any thing which has the source in itself (but not of itself = the thing is a cause to
itself by virtue of concurrence [?]) has a nature and is a reality (II.I. 192b33)
It is in accordance with nature, and so is anything which belongs to it of
itself, as moving upwards belongs to fire [=moving upwards is in
accordance with the nature of fire?] for that neither is a nature nor has a
nature, but is due to nature and in accordance with nature. (193a)
-if you bury a bed, after decomposition the remaining might be just wood this
seems to show that the disposition of parts customary for beds and the artistry
belong only by virtue of concurrence, and that the reality [wood?] is that which
persists uninterruptedly while being affected in these ways. (193a 14-17)
-fire, earth, air, water = the nature of things + imperishable Those who fix on
some such element or elements represent it or them as the entire reality, and say
that other things are merely affections, states, or dispositions. (idem, 23-6)
-2nd meaning of nature = the shape and form which accords with a things
account. Just as that which is in accordance with art and artificial is called art, so
that which is in accordance with nature and natural is called nature. (33-3)

nature in the sense in which the word is used for a process proceeds towards
nature. It is not like doctoring, which has as its end not the art of medicine but
health. Doctoring must proceed from the art of medicine, not towards it. (193b1215)
-commentary (pp. 88-):
-the notion of nature, introduced by means of a distinction betw. nat. objects
and non-natural obj.
-a nat. object has in itself a source of its changing and staying put, whilst a
thing like a bed has not nature = an internal source of, or factor responsible for,
a things changing and staying put the nature of a thing = its disposition
(88)
-when you dont feel like looking outside a thing to account for its
behaviour (ex.: when a dog sees a rabbit and begins to chase it, you know
that it does so because he is a dog) = it is natural (88-9)
-artefacts dont have in themselves the source of their making tries to
distinguishes processes of manufacture from processes of growth but: as you can
say that a dog chases a rabbit for being a dog, so you can say that a washingmachine washes and spin-dries cloths for being a washing machine (89)
-the idea of artefacts having art in them or being art (a lot of arts gone into
that) Art, he holds (see also De Part. an, I 640a31-2) is the account of,
or prescription for, the work of art, without the matter. That is, art, like
nature, is always the art of smth. definite, the art of making a table or restoring men
to health or the like, and is, in fact, the form which the artist has in mind, or
intends, for the material, the pieces of wood or the patients body. While he
has it in mind only, it is only a possible form; it is realized in the material when
the work is finished, and thus actually exists only as what the material
constitutes. (90)
-matter as the nature of a thing: If the nature of a thing is that element in it
which is like what it gives birth to, the nature of a man will be a man, i.e.
what the flesh and bone constitute.
nature = matter

art = form?

-physis, a possible word for birth physis as a process = physis of the form
physis comes from a verb which in the passive means to be born / to grow (cf.
Latin natura) Arist. suggests that nature ought to be what this process is
towards, not what it is a process from, and what it is a process towards is
the form.

-the form of a thing = its nature, even more than matter since an actual x
has a better claim to be called an x than a possible one contrary
argument: the nature of a thing, like what it gives birth to (ex.: the nature of a man
is a man, i.e. what the flesh and bone constitute)
-Wieland: for Arist., the nature of a thing is only a source of its behaviour, not the
source
internal sources --- how do they account for behaviour?
-nothing changes itself but: distinction betw. stuff like earth / fire
(which originate from matter) AND living things (originate from form)
-Arist. explaining freedom and constraint in human action by
comparison with natural and constrained movements on the part of things like
stones the material of a thing can be a source of change because it has an active
tendency to change independent of any ext. cause
-253a15-18: there is no reason why it should not be the case,
and perhaps it is necessarily the case, that many changes are produced by the
environment in the body, and some of these change the thought or the
appetition, and that changes the whole animal. (qtd.92)
Ch. II
-the study of nature = the study of matter? but if art imitates nature, and it
belongs to the same branch of knowledge to know the form and to know
the matter up to a point (thus the doctor has knowledge of health, and also of
bile and phlegm, the things in which health resides ), then it belongs to the study
of nature to know both sort of nature. (194b 21-27)
nature is an end and what something is for and the end should not be
just any last thing, but the best. (idem 29, 32) AND the arts make their
matter, that is, they either bring it into being altogether, or render it good
to work with (33-4) 2 arts which control the matter and involve
knowledge: the art of using (knowledge of the form) and the art which
directs the making (=involves knowledge of the matter)
In the case of artefacts, then, we make the matter for the work to be
done, whilst in the case of nat. objects it is there already. (194b 7-8)

commentary:
-geometers separating the shapes of nat. things in thought / account--. an account
can be given of the form if a thing which is separable from the account of its matter
(94)

-natural things / realities a man, a dog a man is not the man of anything
further, because we speak of a man only when something is in something else [?],
when certain capacitites are in flesh and bone or a particular sort of organic body
The student of nature must consider not only what things are made of, but what
they are made for. (see 642a 14-15) the study of nature should deal with
both matter and form (see 194 21-7); you should study that which is for
smth. (=matter in a nat. object is for smth.) and what is it for (=form) (see
27-33); there are 2 sorts of knowledge we can have of a things matter:
1.concerning its manufacture, 2. concerning its use (=involves knowledge
of the form); matter is the matter of smth. or for smth. (wood of the tree,
or wood for a drawer) + we consider matter in rel. to form, rather than
form in rel. to matter. (97)