Responding to the Platonists : Physics I 9

Abstract

This chapter examines Aristotle’s rejection of a Platonist theory positing two principles: Form and the Great and Small. He complains that, under the latter, privation is not distinguished from the subject of coming to be. This chapter discusses the background for this dyadic theory in the Philebus and the Timaeus. It suggests that Aristotle’s opposition only makes sense if Platonists were proposing to extend it to cover comings to be such as biological reproduction. It also discusses whether, dialectically, Aristotle wins against Platonism within Physics I 9, and in the wider context of his biology. The chapter notes that when the explanandum is eternal motion, the triad of principles is useless, because there is no distinct principle of privation. So, Aristotle himself is chained to a Platonist-style dyadism. The chapter concludes by drawing a connection between this theory and Aristotle’s first mover as both final and efficient cause of eternal motion.