Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 1979"

Two Views of Motion: Change of Position or Change of Quality?

Abstract: Xt IS fairly well known that the problem of motion or, more gen erally, that of change is one of the oldest philosophical problems which can be traced to the very dawn of Western thought. It was inseparable from the basic problem which the Presocratics faced: that of the primary stuff underlying the phenomenal diversity of our sen sory experience. Once the sensory diversity is viewed as merely ap parent, one cannot avoid the question how such an appearance is gen erated by the underlying single principle; in other words, one faces the problem of the origin of things, i.e., the problem of change. Hence the monism which in various forms underlies the majority of the early cosmogonie or protocosmogonic speculations. But already then three different theses are discernible: a) one rather extreme view which upholds rigorously the strict oneness of the underlying substance and from its immutability infers the impossibility of change; this was the view of Parmenides and his disciples; b) the sec ond view which, while retaining the Eleatic principle of the singleness and immutability of the basic stuff, admits its existence in a plural form. This is atomism which reduces change to a change of posi tion. In other words, diversity is retained only in the form of nu merical diversity, and change only in the form of spatial displace ment. All apparently qualitative changes are thus explainable in terms of combination and recombination of the homogeneous and im mutable elements. Such are the basic premises not only of ancient Greek atomism, but very nearly of all forms of atomism in all different periods of history. Its basic inspiration has always remained Eleatic, although a very important concession has been made to sensory per ception in the sense that the reality of change has been admitted. But it is admitted in its most innocuous form?in the form of displace ment of the unchanging units of Being. c) Finally, there is the third view which is nearest to our sensory ?and introspective?experience: it accepts unhesitatingly qualita tive change, irreducible to a mere displacement of unchangeable ele