Aristotle’s Method of Understanding the First Principles of Natural Things in the Physics I.1
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Date
2012
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Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM
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Abstract
This paper presents Aristotle’s method of understanding the first principles of natural things in the Physics I.1 and analyzes the three stages of which this method consists. In the Physics I.1, Aristotle suggests that
the natural proper route which one has to follow in order to find out the
first principles of natural things is to proceed from what is clearer and
more knowable to us to what is more knowable and clear by nature. In
the Physics I.1, the terms καθόλου (universal) and καθ΄ ἕκαστα (particular)
are not used in their usual meaning (e.g., the meaning which the
same terms have in the Posterior Analytics I. 2). This paper examines
the Physics I.1 in comparison with the Posterior Analytics II. 19 in order
to elucidate the meaning of καθόλου in the first chapter of Aristotle’s
Physics. Furthermore, it reaches the conclusion that the structure of
the natural world to which we belong determines the structure and the
form of our knowledge. On the one hand, natural things are composite
and, on the other hand, perception is involved in the initial grasping of
natural things as composites. Thus, since perceptual knowledge is more
accessible to us than any other kind of knowledge it is natural to reach
knowledge of simple things, i.e., of the principles, starting our inquiry
with the composites.
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Keywords
Aristotle, Method
Citation
Peitho. Examina Antiqua, nr 1(3), 2012, s. 31-50.