This is the first full discussion of Philoponus' account of matter. It is shown here that philosophical problems in Neoplatonism motivated the definition of prime matter as three-dimensional extension, and that Plotinus, Syrianus, and Proclus prepared the way for Philoponus.

John Philoponus' New Definition of Prime Matter: Aspects of Its Background in Neoplatonism and the Ancient Commentary Tradition

The Four Causes

In this paper Modern Essentialism is used to solve a problem of individuation of spacetime points in General Relativity that has been raised by a New Leibnizian Argument against spacetime substantivalism, elaborated by Earman and Norton. An earlier essentialistic solution, proposed by Maudlin, is criticized as being against both the spirit of metrical essentialism and the fundamental principles of General Relativity. I argue for a modified essentialistic account of spacetime points that avoids those obstacles.

Modern Essentialism and the problem of individuation of spacetime points

In 1956 Hugh R. King attacked the traditional view that Aristotle postulates what the tradition calls 'prime matter'. He drew replies from Friedrich Solmsen in 1958 and A. R. Lacey in 1965. In an appendix to my translation of Physics I-II in 1970 I offered independent arguments for a position similar to King's. My arguments were criticized by H. M. Robinson in 1974 and R. M. Dancy in 1978. Now C. J. F. Williams, in another appendix, though he thinks that Solmsen and Robinson have 'made out their case', makes it out afresh with special reference to the De Generatione el Corruptione. If Williams is to escape the charge of flogging a dead horse, I must attempt a rejoinder. What exactly is the doctrine which some of us deny, and others assert, that Aristotle held? Williams formulates it as follows (p. 21 1):

Prime Matter: a Rejoinder

In this paper, I will discuss a certain conception of matter that Aristotle introduces in Metaphysics Z3. It is often assumed that Aristotle came to distinguish between matter and form only in his physical writings, and that this lead to a conflict with the doctrine of primary substances in the Categories that he tries to resolve in Z3. I will argue that there is no such conflict. In Z3, Aristotle seems to suggest that matter is what is left over when we strip a thing of all its properties. I take it that he does not want us to strip away these properties by physical means or in our imagination. Rather, we are asked to strip a referring noun phrase of all its predicative parts. We are thus not supposed to be able to refer to something that has no qualities whatsoever, but to construct a phrase that refers to something that has properties without referring to its having them, and without implying which properties it has. The idea that there might be a way of referring to something definite without mentioning any of its qualities is platonic and it still underlies modern predicate logic. In Z3, Aristotle argues against this conception and thus against the basic idea of predicate logic. According to him, matter is at best an inseparable aspect of a primary substance, which substance is best referred to as a compound τoδe τι (“this such”). Matter is what the τoδe refers to as part of this phrase. But it cannot exist in separation from form, and we cannot refer to it by a separated term, without also referring to the substantial form of the substance of which it is an aspect.

Matter in Z3

The interpretation of Aristotle on matter can be seen as divided grossly between those who would make of it, in Dermot O'Donoghue's words, a "material principle of change,"' and those who would make of it a (kind of) "thing" "a very real, if enigmatic, matter which underlies the elements."2 I say divided grossly because the exact nature of the difference between a principle and a thing could be clearer. The issue is heightened though not clarified by putting it in terms of whether or not Aristotle had a doctrine of (believed in) "prime matter."3 Proponents of the former approach (the "principle") tend to cite the Physics, De Generatione et Corruptione, and the De A nima Proponents of the latter put great stress on the Metaphysics, especially Z 3. Most recently the former approach appears to have been gaining ground,4 but the interpretation of Z 3 has remained unsatisfactory; due, I think, to insufficiently close analytical attention. The aim of this paper is to supply that attention, in the interest of the non-"thing" interpretation, and in the hope that a correct understanding will obviate the whole principle-thing dichotomy. 1029a20-26 is no doubt responsible for the contemporary, and not only contemporary, use of 'characterless' to characterize prime matter. Cook puts it this way: ". . . prime matter is taken to be characterless, eternal, unchanging, and unable to exist on its own."5 But it should not be too difficult to absolve Aristotle of the charge of believing in something "characterless," since the notion of something "characterless" is absurd. 'Characterless' is indeed half as absurd as 'heterological'. If 'heterological' applies to itself, then it doesn't, and if it doesn't, then it does. Whereas, if'characterless' applies to a thing, then it doesn't, and if it doesn't, then it doesn't. Cook in effect points out that such an interpretation ignores the force of the crucial (Greek corresponding to) 'itself in the passage.6 Let us see what this comes to. In the Appendix to his edition of Aristotle's Physics I and II,7 entitled "Did Aristotle Believe in Prime Matter?" W. C. Charlton suggests that lines "a 10-26 are all a statement of an opponent's line of thought .. . His principal reason for holding this view, which is peculiar to him, is that "If we say (as Aristotle himself does) that the bronze is less of a reality than what it constitutes ... then we ought surely to say that the length, breadth, and depth are the length, breadth, and depth of the statue: 'what these delimit' will be the statue, not some indeterminate stuff." According to this suggestion, the force of a 10-26 is: "If we say that bronze has more claim to the title of reality than what it constitutes, we shall then be forced to posit some completely indeterminate matter." Note that it is the bugaboo of "some completely indeterminate matter" which drives the argument, and the interpretation which sees that argument in the passage. Were it possible that this "completely indeterminate matter" does not figure at all in what Aristotle wishes to convey here, then there would be no reason to suppose Aristotle to be speaking otherwise than in his proper person. "And how," a simple-minded person might ask, "could the length, breadth, and depth delimit anything but the statue? How could

Donald E. Stahl

Papers

Stripped away: Some contemporary obscurities surrounding Metaphysics Z 3 (1029a10-26)