Abstract

I argue that Aristotle's theories of coming into being by nature and by art, and actuality and potentiality, resolve the problems that his predecessors encountered in explaining change and motion in the world. I prove that Anaxagoras, Empedocles, the Atomists, the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, and the Platonists, could not adequately explain change and motion in the world. Analyzing natural changes I argue against W. Charlton's relativization of matter and that from which something is made is not the same as that from which it comes to be. I argue that Aristotle's automata analogy successfully resolves the problem between Aristotle's statement in Physics that the agent in every change must be in contact with the patient and the lack of such contact in natural generation. I argue that there is insufficient evidence in the text on inherited likeness to warrant the attribution by D. Balme to Aristotle of a notion of radically individual forms which contribute accidental properties such as skin color, eye color, sex, etc. Analyzing changes by art I argue that artifacts are not classified as this or that artifact by virtue of resemblance of any scientific or nomological import because they do not share a common, hidden nature; and that the function of an artifact is not structured enough in order to have any kind of scientific import. I argue that Aristotle describes the change in coming into being by nature and by art but the purpose of his discussion lies also in the support that it gives to the claim that neither matter nor form is generated in the generation of a composite. I argue against the scholars who impute the doctrine of pure form to Aristotle , and that there can be no question that for Aristotle form is a correlate of matter. I analyze the role of appetite and choice in rational activities. I argue that for Aristotle the choice which forms the conclusion of a practical syllogism and the doing of the chosen action come to the same thing. Using the notion of potentiality and actuality, I construct a form-matter relation in terms of which primary matter and primary being may be explained. I argue and prove that Aristotle's concept of being potentially is a successful alternative and resolution to the difficulties that his predecessors encountered in explaining change and motion in the world