Refutation of Certain Doctrines of Aristotle

Contents

Reading pages: 0–6 · 7–29 · 30–51 · 52–63 · 64–65

1. 0Addressing the presbyter Paul, the author proposes to show from Aristotle's Physics that the Greeks reasoned about God and creation by conjecture, while the prophets, taught by God, agree that the one unoriginated God made all things by his will.
2. 1Aristotle's claim that there is always an underlying thing from which what comes to be comes is turned into a series of questions against the eternity of matter.
3. 2Aristotle's account of the underlying thing as one in number but two in form is turned against him: if matter has no being as a “this” of its own, it cannot be an eternal principle.
4. 3On the number of the principles of natural things (Physics 1.7): if form makes matter formed by its presence, matter without form cannot be ungenerated.
5. 4The author quotes Aristotle on the early philosophers who denied all coming to be, as proof that the Greeks reasoned by conjecture rather than demonstration.
6. 5The author quotes Aristotle's claim that things come to be from not-being only accidentally and argues that this abolishes generation as much as the early philosophers did, that matter cannot be ungenerated, and that his principles should be four, not three.
7. 6Against Aristotle's distinction of matter and privation (Physics 1.9): matter that never is in itself cannot be an ungenerated principle beside God.
8. 7Against Aristotle's matter as a joint cause and “mother” of what comes to be: matter that is ungenerated and imperishable would rival God.
9. 8Against Aristotle's definition of nature as the underlying matter of each thing (Physics 2.1).
10. 9The author quotes Aristotle's statement that a man is not nature but exists by nature, and objects that by Aristotle's own definition a natural being should be called nature.
11. 10Against Aristotle's distinction of matter in art and in nature, the author argues that the first animal, made neither by art nor by nature, needs another account, without which natural science is incoherent.
12. 11The author quotes Aristotle's claim that mind and nature are prior causes to chance, even of the heaven, and charges him with contradicting his own claim elsewhere that the heaven is ungenerated.
13. 12Against those who make spontaneity the cause of the heaven (Physics 2.4).
14. 13Aristotle says the heaven came to be from spontaneity and again not from spontaneity, ungenerated and again generated by nature; the author sets out On the Heaven 2.1 to show it.
15. 14Against Aristotle's claim that nature rightly exempted the ungenerated and imperishable body from the contraries (On the Heaven 1.3).
16. 15Against the claim that nothing that comes from spontaneity can be imperishable or ungenerated (On the Heaven 1.12).
17. 16Against Aristotle's unmoved first mover, the author argues that a principle that is not natural cannot move naturally, and that a natural principle that has a principle of motion is not a principle. The author concludes that among eternal things nothing is first, so Aristotle's unmoved mover cannot be the first principle.
18. 17The author quotes Aristotle's grounds for believing in the infinite, including infinite time, and objects that time, which always comes to be, cannot be infinite. The author argues that if generation and perishing were infinite they would be without beginning like the ungenerated, which is impossible.
19. 18From Aristotle's denial of an infinite number, the author infers that past time, being numerable, is finite.
20. 19The author argues against Aristotle that time, which has come to be, must have a beginning, and that whatever is actual, like completed divisions or counted numbers, is finite and has a beginning.
21. 20Against Aristotle's infinite by addition and subtraction (Physics 3.6): what is infinite only potentially is not eternal in act.
22. 21Against the claim that what has something outside it is not infinite: what grows by addition from outside cannot be infinite or eternal.
23. 22Since Aristotle says the infinite does not remain but comes to be, the author concludes that time and motion are generated and have a beginning.
24. 23From Aristotle's saying that what is not is nowhere, the author asks how matter, which Aristotle says is nothing, can be anywhere.
25. 24The author quotes Aristotle's approval of Hesiod's making Chaos, a space for things, come first, since place would then be prior to all things. If everything is in place, as Aristotle agrees with Hesiod, then the heaven, being in place, cannot be ungenerated, for that would make the generated prior to the ungenerated.
26. 25Since the heaven, on Aristotle's account, needs place in order to be and to move, it cannot be ungenerated.
27. 26Against Aristotle's claim that place has magnitude but no body (Physics 4.1).
28. 27Against Aristotle's inference of place from replacement, as matter is inferred from alteration (Physics 4.1).
29. 28Against Aristotle's claim that the heaven is not in place, the author argues that what moves by locomotion must be somewhere, and that the heaven's parts change place as it revolves.
30. 29Against Aristotle's saying that a point has no place, the author argues that the point is a being and so must be somewhere and have a place.
31. 30The author begins to quote Aristotle on how place itself is somewhere. The author presses contradictions in Aristotle's account of place: “somewhere” and “in place” differ yet are one category, place is both place and limit, and the heaven, a movable body, should be in place.
32. 31Against Aristotle's doubts about the existence of time, the author argues that time, which came to be, has a beginning, is composed of actual and potential parts that exist, and must include the now as a part.
33. 32From Aristotle's link between time and motion, the author concludes that both time and motion are generated, have a beginning, and are finite.
34. 33Against Aristotle's claim that time is as great as the motion (Physics 4.11): what has come to be cannot be eternal or infinite.
35. 34Against Aristotle's account of when we say time has passed: if time is perceived by before and after in motion, it has a beginning.
36. 35Against Aristotle's claim that the now measures time: if the now is not a part of time, it cannot measure it.
37. 36Against Aristotle on the least number: number and the line are bounded, and so are motion and time, which follow them.
38. 37Aristotle says eternal things are not in time, yet calls motion eternal and time its number, which the author finds contradictory.
39. 38Against Aristotle's claim that what neither moves nor rests is not in time (Physics 4.12).
40. 39Against the three kinds of change in Physics 5.1: if change is from subject to subject, what changes had a beginning.
41. 40Since Aristotle says what is not a “this” cannot be moved, the author asks how substance can come from matter, which Aristotle says is not a “this.”
42. 41Against Aristotle's argument that time, and so motion, has no beginning, since there is no time without a now (Physics 8.1).
43. 42Against Aristotle's rejection of “it always is or comes to be so” as a sufficient principle (Physics 8.1).
44. 43Against Aristotle's eternal first mover (Physics 8.6).
45. 44Against the primacy of locomotion (Physics 8.7): if circular motion is first and eternal, it cannot also be said to have a before and after.
46. 45Against Aristotle on the infinitely many halves in the continuous, present only potentially (Physics 8.8).
47. 46If the heavenly body moves in a circle by its own nature, as Aristotle says, the author asks what need there is of a first mover.
48. 47Against Aristotle's divine fifth body, the author argues that a body that moves around the earth cannot be prior to the earth, and that if both are eternal it is not more honorable.
49. 48The author objects that a heavenly body without weight or lightness could not be tangible or heat the air by its motion, as Aristotle claims.
50. 49Using Aristotle's saying that God and nature do nothing in vain, the author argues that the heavenly bodies are made by God and so cannot be ungenerated and eternal.
51. 50Against Aristotle's distinction between the form apart from matter and the form in matter (On the Heaven 1.9).
52. 51Against Aristotle's claim that the heaven is a particular thing made of all matter: then it is composite and generated.
53. 52Against “each thing that has a work is for the sake of the work” and God's activity as eternal motion (On the Heaven 2.3).
54. 53The author quotes Aristotle on why the heaven's circular motion requires a body at rest in the middle. The author completes Aristotle's argument that a resting earth implies fire, the intermediate elements, generation, and further circular bodies, and objects that the heaven, said to move by its element, actually moves by its spherical shape, and that a weightless body should rest rather than move. The author argues that the heaven's spherical motion is not natural to its element, that a world whose parts depend on one another is the work of providence and so generated, and that Aristotle's chain of necessities (eternal motion, a fifth body, a resting earth, the elements, generation) proves the dependence of all these things.
55. 54Against Aristotle on the two directions of motion on the circle (On the Heaven 2.5).
56. 55On what the stars are made of and how they move (On the Heaven 2.7): the author argues that this too implies their generation.
57. 56If the stars rest fixed in their circles, they are there either in vain or by force, which Aristotle denies of eternal things; and stars called gods would be gods dragged along by gods.
58. 57Against Aristotle's claim that nature gave the stars no organ of motion (On the Heaven 2.8).
59. 58Against the spherical shape of the heaven and stars argued from their motion (On the Heaven 2.8).
60. 59The author begins to quote Aristotle on nature's providing that the heavenly motion keeps things here unchanged. If the heavenly motion is arranged by nature's providence for the sake of things on earth, the heaven and stars are secondary to providence and serve generated things, and so cannot be eternal.
61. 60The author argues that stars made of the same element and shape as the heaven yet kept at rest have their nature in vain or contrary to nature, and that their shaping by nature's providence shows they are not ungenerated.
62. 61Against Aristotle on the first motion moving many divine bodies (On the Heaven 2.12).
63. 62Against Aristotle's division of natural things into substances and their works and affections (On the Heaven 3.1).
64. 63Against the claim that the first element is ungenerated and imperishable (On the Heaven 3.1).
65. 64Aristotle says the elements are generated and perishable, yet calls the earth co-eternal with the heaven, which the author calls inconsistent.
66. 65The author questions how the elements can come to be from one another, as Aristotle says, if they must already exist in order to change.