Commentary on the Account of Change (Generation)

I find philosophical texts the hardest to read. For other fields, page count gives me a rough estimate of how much time to set aside. With philosophy, however, estimation is usually useless. Eight pages of Freud's The Ego and the Id, for example, took me three whole days to digest, with approximately 20 rereads!

The most challenging texts I've encountered are Aristotle's, which also makes them the most fun and rewarding to analyze and reconstruct—almost like solving a puzzle. I know that calling someone's text a "puzzle" is usually an insult, but I don't mean it that way. Aristotle's texts were not at all written with readers in mind; it's the nature of his texts. Since ancient times, readers of Aristotle, recognizing the value in Aristotle's systematic and innovative ideas, have attempted to grapple with his demanding texts. One tradition that sprang up to address this difficulty was the commentary tradition, a tradition of carefully reading and commenting on the books and chapters of Aristotle, in some cases—line by line.

I find great value in reading and trying to interpret philosophical texts, which are, to quote my philosophy professor, "the most forbidding thickets of ideas." They are excellent practice for building critical thinking, but more importantly, grit, patience, courage, and the power to push forward even when progress feels invisible. Slowly but surely, large unchewable chunks break down into bite-sized pieces, and suddenly, they're digestible. Those overwhelming, unfathomable words that seemed impossible to grasp (I'm not exaggerating), begin to make sense. It feels almost magical how the words that had no meaning, after hours and hours of dedication, are understandable and appear quite simple. Beyond building perseverance, you learn to contextualize foreign ideas that emerged centuries ago in radically different times and places. You also learn the importance of precise language. You discover how slight ambiguities in terminology can make texts devastatingly difficult, while also learning from the intentional, purposeful, and careful use of words by great thinkers.

In this post, I offer my commentary on Aristotle's account of change—my best effort at making sense of his words from my own perspective and in my own language, while remaining true to both the text and the spirit of his ideas.

[189b30] Let us, then, give our own account of coming to be, in the following way.

Though it is self-explanatory what “come to be” means, it is worth examining the meaning of “come to be” in more detail and understanding why Aristotle is discussing “coming to be” in the Physics. “Coming to be” means that something came into existence. “Come to be” is related to the Greek word ‘ginetai’ which means ‘to be generated.’ Thus, coming to be is equal to coming into existence or being generated.

Next, let us understand why Aristotle addresses “coming to be” in the Physics, which is a book inquiring into nature. Aristotle defines nature as “a principle or cause of being moved and . . .” (192b23). “Being moved” is used in a wide sense, meaning change. For example, when a newly sprouted leaf grows into a fully-grown leaf, the leaf has been moved (i.e. changed) or the fully-grown leaf has been generated. Note that generation is a type of change; when something comes to be F, it means that its state has changed from not F to F. Thus, Aristotle discusses “coming to be” in the Physics because the principles of generation are one of the constituents of nature.

Although Aristotle’s inquiry on “coming to be” seems abstract, his approach is not fundamentally different from how we try to understand the world in the present day. We study the origins of the earth and investigate how the plates of the earth moved to form the continents. Although the specific methods differ, we are also inquiring into “coming to be.” After all, things must first exist before we can expand to other topics. It is, therefore, natural to begin with an investigation of how things came into existence.

And first let us deal with all of coming to be; for the natural procedure is to speak first about what is common to every case, and then to study what is special to each case.

This is consistent with 184a22 where he states that we should examine universals and then particulars. Looking at generals and then advancing to special cases allows for an efficient and deeper understanding by 1) guiding us to categorize particulars and 2) better distinguishing what is exclusive to the subject. This is also linked to how his definition consists of the genus and differentia. When defining a circle, by first thinking about the genus (plane figure), we can efficiently associate all the characteristics common to plane figures that we have pre-established. Then, we can enhance our understanding by adding what is specific to circles. By having a predefined general notion, the investigation becomes efficient. Additionally, we are able to better identify what exclusively determines the subject in question by partialling out the common parts. I clarify that I used the term “subject” not in the Aristotelian way, but to refer to the current interest of discussion.

When we say that something comes to be one thing from being another and different thing, we are speaking about either simple or compound things. What I mean is this: It is possible that a man comes to be musical, that the not-musical thing comes to be musical, and that the not-musical [190a] man comes to be a musical man. By ‘simple thing coming to be ‹F›’ I mean the man and the not-musical thing; and by ‘simple thing that comes into being’ I mean the musical thing. By ‘compound’ I mean both the thing that comes into being and what comes to be that thing, whenever we say that the not-musical man comes to be a musical man.

Aristotle introduces two terms regarding generation: simple and compound. This concept can be clearly understood by visualizing them with variables. Let us say that there are variables [a] and [z]. [a] and [z] together form an entity, [az]. If [a] changes to [A], the entity would be [Az] instead of [az]. [a], [A], [z] are simple things. Specifically, [a], [z] are ‘simple thing coming to be <F>’ and [A] is ‘the simple thing that comes into being.’  [az] and [Az] are the compound things. Put simply, simple things are the individual elements that together constitute the compound. (To enhance understanding for later sections, note that [a] and [A] are contraries.)

Aristotle uses language (manner of speaking) as a guideline for inquiring into ‘generation’ repeatedly in this chapter. He writes “When we say that something . . .” and not “When something . . .” Thus, it is important to note that though Aristotle distinguishes between speaking of generation in simple and compound terms, in reality, change happens to compounds. This linguistic approach has strengths in that we are able to verbalize what we unconsciously know about nature, since our virtues as human beings may already have a powerful insight about nature. However, its shortcoming is that our analyses may be centered around humans, giving us a limited and less objective understanding of nature.

One point that Aristotle did not explicitly state arises from his statements: when in a compound, one of the simple things acts as the defining element, has dominance, or is used as a representative (at least in language). Put another way, when we “say” [z], [z] encompasses the other simple thing [a]. I have come to this conclusion by pondering on this issue: unlike [a], it is less straightforward as to why [z] would also be considered as the ‘simple thing coming to be’, since [z] does not change. This kind of speaking is possible if ‘when we say [z],’ [z] is representative of [a] so that even if we are only referring to [z], we would actually be referring to [z] along with the characteristic of [a]. If that is the case - so that when we say [z], we are referring to the totality of [z] - which includes all that [z] encompasses - it is valid for us to say that [z] is the ‘simple thing coming to be.’

I will further elaborate using the example of the not-musical man, where not-musical corresponds to [a], man to [z] and musical to [A]. It would not make sense to say that man is the thing that comes to be a <F>, if by saying ‘man’ we are only talking about ‘man’ separate from his musical characteristics. This is because the change that occurs is not the change in man (z to Z) but of the unmusical thing becoming a musical thing. In order to make sense, we must also be referring to the characteristics the man has, which in this case is ‘not-musical,’ even when we are only saying ‘man.’ Thus, a simple thing may have dominance over the other (in speech), for the dominant simple thing must encompass the other simple thing for our language to make sense.

In one type of case we say not only that something comes to be F, but also that it comes to be F from being G; for instance, ‹the man not only comes to be musical, but also comes to be› musical from being not-musical. But we do not say this for all ‹properties›; for ‹the man› did not come to be musical from being a man, but rather the man came to be musical.

Let us examine what the criteria is for G by examining the examples provided. For something to be addressed in the form of “F from being G,” G must lie on the same spectrum as G. By spectrum, I am referring to any state in between (and including) the contraries. For example, we can say “black from being white” or “black from being gray” since black, gray and white all lie on the same spectrum. We cannot say “black from being humid” since humid lies on the spectrum of ‘humid and dry,’ not ‘black and white’. Change happens on the spectrum.

When something comes to be F (in the sense in which we say a simple thing comes to be ‹something›), in some cases it remains when it comes to be F, and in other cases it does not remain. The man, for instance, remains a man and is still a man when he comes to be musical, whereas the not-musical or unmusical thing, either simple or compound, does not remain.

Recall that when [az] changes to [Az], [a] is replaced by A, but [z] persists. Note that without [z] — the variable that persisted (or better phrased as a ‘constant’) — the compound would not be recognizable to have come from [az], hence the need for a ‘constant’ and Aristotle’s following arguments on ‘subject’ and ‘matter’.

Now that we have made these distinctions, here is something we can grasp from every case of coming to be, if we look at them all in the way described. In every case there must be some subject that comes to be ‹something›; even if it is one in number, it is not one in form, since being a man is not the same as being an unmusical thing. (By ‘in form’ I mean the same as ‘in account’.) One thing ‹that comes to be› remains, and one does not remain. The thing that is not opposite remains, since the man remains; but the not-musical thing, or the unmusical thing, does not remain. Nor does the thing compounded from both (for instance, the unmusical man) remain.

(Note that for this section, we are not talking about “what we say.” Thus, “man” is not referring to the totality but simply man itself separate from the unmusical thing.)

The second sentence highlights the main point of chapter 7. Further analysis will be provided later, as Aristotle explains this idea in more detail in the upcoming sections. The subject, which is a compound, exists as a single entity (an unmusical man). However, we can separate the compound into simple things (unmusical thing and man). There are two types of simple things, one that persists and one that does not. Since change happens on the spectrum, the thing that is not on the spectrum of unmusical and musical remains. However, the thing that is opposite cannot remain because it is on the spectrum, making it the direct “variable” that changes. Another way to think about this is that [a] is an endogenous variable with a certain constraint of being somewhere between the contraries, while [z] is a constant that is given exogenously.

Things are said to come to be in many ways, and some things are said not to come to be, but to come to be something; only substances are said to come to be without qualification. In the other cases it is evident that there must be some subject that comes to be ‹something›; for in fact, when ‹something› comes to be of some quantity or quality, or relative to another, or somewhere, something is the subject ‹underlying the change›, because a substance is the only thing that is never said of [190b] any other subject, whereas everything else is said of a substance.

Aristotle distinguishes between the thing prior to generation (“some things are said not to come to be, but to come to be something”) and the thing that exists after generation (“Things are said to come to be”). He further divides the latter into two types, the things that are generated without qualification (substances) and those that are not. Recall the Categories where he introduces categories such as substance, quantity and quality. There must be an underlying factor (the existence of the tree) for the leaves to increase from 10 to 15, or to even talk about the leaves at all. The other way does not hold. Therefore, substance (i.e. beingness) is prior to other things since other things rely on substance. This is coherent with my idea that a simple thing can be said to have dominance over the other simple thing.

However, substances—the things that are without qualification—also come to be from some subject. This will become evident if we examine it. For in every case there is something that is a subject from which the thing that comes to be comes to be, as plants and animals come to be from seed. Some of the things that come to be without qualification do so by change of figure (for instance, a statue); some by addition (for instance, growing things); some by subtraction (for instance, Hermes from the stone); some by composition (for instance, a house); some by alteration (for instance, things changing in accordance with their matter). It is evident that everything that comes to be in this way comes to be from a subject.

The statement that substance also comes from some subject may seem contradictory to the prior statement that substance is never said of any other subject. To resolve this possible discrepancy, we must once again remember the distinction between speech and reality; the prior statement is about what is “said” while the statement in this section is talking about the real existence. For example, for a man to exist, his parents (subject) must underly the generation of the child. However, it is possible to talk about the man independent of his parents. (Note that we cannot talk about the man’s hair independent of the man.) Thus, both of his statement holds.

And so it is clear from what has been said that, in every case, what comes to be is composite: there is something that comes into being and something that comes to be this. And this latter thing is of two sorts: either the subject or the opposite. I mean, for instance, that the unmusical is opposite, and the man is subject; and that the lack of figure, shape, and order is the opposite, and the bronze, stone, or gold is the subject.

The expressions Aristotle uses are confusing. To simplify, “something that comes into being” refers to the thing after generation, and “something that comes to be this” refers to the thing prior to generation. The things prior to generation are the subject ([z]) and the opposite ([a]).

The thing that resulted from the generation must be a composite since 1) the thing before the generation was a composite and 2) the subject is needed. The thing before the change is a composite of the subject and the opposite ([az]). Since the subject must underly the generation, the result of the generation would be a composite of ‘the subject that remains’ and ‘the opposite’s opposite’ ([Az]). Thus, what comes to be is also a composite.

Another noticeable characteristic of the opposite ([a]) is that it is the lack of a form (privation). This is illustrated by the given examples, where unmusical is the lack of musical and the ‘uncarved statue’ is that lack of shape. The reason why Aristotle may limit [a] to be ‘the lack’ may be because he perceived generation to be a change of something lacking to becoming full. Once again, I would like to suggest that this arises because Aristotle’s perspective is human-centric. If we take the point of the bronze, becoming a statue may be a change of going from fully natural to an artificial, destroyed state (lack of fullness).

Suppose, then, that there are indeed causes and principles of natural things, from which they primarily are and have come to be—not come to be coincidentally, but come to be what each thing is called in accordance with its essence. It evidently follows that everything comes to be from the subject and the shape. For in a way the musical man is composed from man and musical, since you will analyze him into their accounts. It is clear, then, that whatever comes to be does so from these things.

The key points are that 1) generation does not happen coincidentally, and 2) things come to be from the subject and the form. The first point will be further discussed in the next section. The second point shows that he is beginning to conclude what the principles of generation are. This point will be discussed in later sections.

The subject is one in number but two in form. Man, gold, and matter* in general, is countable, since it is a this more ‹than the privation is›, and what comes to be comes to be from it not coincidentally. The privation—the contrariety—is a coincident. The form is one—for instance, structure, musicality, or anything else predicated in this way.

Aristotle states that the subject is matter and privation (the lack of form). This statement may feel repetitive to 190a13, where he talks about the subject being two in form in terms of the surviving thing and the not surviving thing. By mentioning what the subject is once again, however, he illustrates that he has concretized his idea through inquiries. The thing that survives is matter and the thing that does not survive, the opposite, is privation.

Another fact he has established is that the privation is coincidental while the generation of the form is not. This is coherent with his view on final causes and chance. Since nature works based on essences and causes, it is natural for generation, a type of change, to also be a change from something coincidental to something that is not coincidental.

Hence we should say that in one way there are two principles, and that in another way there are three. In one way they are contraries—if, for instance, one were to speak of the musical and the unmusical, or the hot and the cold, or the ordered and the disordered. But in another way they are not contraries, since contraries cannot be affected by each other. This ‹puzzle about how becoming is possible› is also solved by the fact that the subject is something different, since it is not a contrary. Hence, in a way the principles are no more numerous than the contraries, but, one might say, they are two in number.

Since he had fruitful inquiries about “coming to be,” he returns to the question of how many principles there are. He first explains the case where one might argue that there are two principles. I admittedly do not fully understand this section for I cannot comprehend the last sentence. I struggle to see why he says that the puzzle is solved by the subject, but proceeds to say that “the principles are no more numerous than” two, unless he regards ‘subject’ as given. I will thus give a guess of what I think he means. If we only consider the contraries, meaning the privation and the form, we have two principles. It is impossible, however, for the contraries to be affected by each other. This makes it insufficient for us to say that the contraries are the two principles. With the assistance of the newly developed idea of the ‘subject,’ the contraries can now be regarded as the principles, if we simply take the idea of the ‘subject’ as given and do not consider it as a candidate for a principle. Another possibility is that he regarded the subject as one and the form as another, giving us two. This is also a plausible explanation since Aristotle says that the subject is one in number.

On the other hand, [191a] because they differ in being, they are not two in every way, but three; for being man is different from being unmusical, and being shapeless is different from being bronze. We have said, then, how many principles are relevant to the coming to be of natural things, and we have described the different ways they should be counted.

He then proceeds to make the case for why we should say the principles are three. The reason is that, as he has numerously demonstrated, the subject is one in number but two in account (the matter and the privation). Thus, the form (one of the contraries), the privation (the other contrary) and the matter are the three principles. He reasons that it is more correct to count the subject as two because the subject is the matter and the privation. Since this section states that there are three principles instead of two since the subject is two in account, it is more likely that my second guess to the section prior is closer to what Aristotle meant.

In another way, however, there need not be two; for just one of the contraries is enough, by its absence or presence, to produce the thing. And it is clear that some subject must underlie the contraries, and that there must be two contraries.

Aristotle once again states the need for a subject to remain. By remaining, the subject acts as the underlying factor for the contraries. In other words, it is a base for the change to take place. Aristotle notes that one of the contraries is enough. Although this statement seems intuitively straightforward and trivial, I struggled to find a systematic explanation. I aim to explain his statement with an analogy, while admitting that my comment is not clear enough and that there might be errors in my analogy. A hot liquid can become a cool liquid without any other interactions with a cold thing but simply by being on one extreme. Likewise, though the two contraries must always conceptually be present, being on one extreme is sufficient to produce another thing.

The nature that is subject is knowable by analogy. For as bronze is to a statue, or wood is to a bed, or as the shapeless before it acquires a shape is to anything else that has a shape, so the nature that is subject is to a substance, a this, and a being. This, then, is one principle; it is not one or a being in the way a this is. Another principle is the one specified by the account, and a third is the contrary of this, the privation.

His analogy can be confusing because the first part talks about the subject, which is both the matter and the privation, and then talks about the privation in the third part. Therefore, for a clear understanding, I will deconstruct his examples. Bronze, seemingly one subject, is actually two in that it is the matter bronze and the privation (i.e. lacking shape). If we think about what the matter bronze is to the statue, it is the (part of the) subject that remains. Thus, for the sake of understanding this section, it may be easier to think that he is simply referring to matter in the first part. By “the one specified by the account,” he is referring to form. This is clear by deduction. The principle mentioned first is “not a being in the way a this is”; thus, it cannot be a form. The third is given to be the privation. Therefore “the one specified by the account” is form.

The way in which these are two, and the way in which they are more than two, has been stated above. First, then, it was said that only the contraries were principles. Later we added that something further is needed as subject and that there must be three principles. And from what we have said now it is evident how the contraries differ, how the principles are related to one another, and what the subject is. It is not yet clear, however, whether the form or the subject is substance. Still, it is clear that there are three principles, and in what way there are three, and what sorts of things they are. This, then, should allow us to observe how many principles there are, and what they are.

This is a summary of the chapter. I omit further commentary on this for it would be repetitive. He also provides a brief introduction to the next chapter. Having established that the principles are form, matter and privation, he moves to discussing which of form and subject is the thing that comes to be without qualification.