Blackwell Reference Online

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What is change? Aristotle points out that there are many different types of change: change in respect of quality (for instance, change in color), change in respect of quantity (such as, growing and shrinking), change in respect of place (or “motion” as we would call it) and the kind of change that is the generation of a new substance (for example, the coming-to-be of an animal) ( Physics III.1 200b33–4). In Physics III.1–3, he provides a general account of change. Before looking in detail at this account, it is helpful to answer two questions. What is he attempting to achieve in giving it? And what are his criteria for success? In part, his aim is simply to defend the possibility of change. Parmenides, he tells us, argued that change was impossible on the grounds that nothing can come from what is not. Aristotle replies to this argument in Physics I.7–9. He agrees with Parmenides that something cannot come into being from nothing, but claims that this does not rule out the possibility of change. What is F can come to be from what is not F, provided that there is some underlying thing that persists through the change. For instance, the change that is becoming musical is not simply the emergence of musicality from an absence of musicality. Rather, it is a change that occurs in some man, who is first unmusical and then musical. Though he argues against Parmenides, Aristotle ... log in or subscribe to read full text