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A ncient G reek philosophy, metaphysics [Greek steresis , from steresthai , to lack or to be deprived of] Normally, something suffers privation when it lacks an attribute that, according to its nature, it should possess. According to Aristotle 's analysis, privation, substratum , and form are the three basic elements in the process of change. Privation at the beginning of change is the absence of a character which the change will provide at its completion and which the substratum is capable of receiving. For example, if a man changes from being unmusical to being musical, the man is the substratum, unmusical is the privation, and musical is the form the man will gain when the change is finished. “For a thing comes to be from the privation, which in its own nature is not-being – this not surviving as a constituent of the result.” Aristotle, Physics ... log in or subscribe to read full text