The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Panagiotis Dimas
onDivisibility of Magnitude in De Generatione et Corruptione I.2
Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
The central section of GC I.2 is dedicated to an argument allegedly
proving that magnitude cannot be divisible. Offered at 316a14-316b18,
the argument against what we may call the divisibility thesis has the
form of a reductio claiming to show that absurd consequences are implied
by this thesis. Since Philoponus, commentators take this reductio to be
an argument by Democritus and Aristotle’s aim in this chapter to refute
Democritus. Still, the reductio relies heavily on Aristotelian
assumptions and theories that it is doubtful would have been available
or acceptable to Democritus.
I argue that in this chapter Aristotle puts forward the claim that
divisibility is a capacity of magnitude, which if true would account for
the position taken for granted in Phys. III.6 that the infinite is an
attribute of magnitude. The reductio in GC I.2 exploits Aristotelian
commitments to allege that this claim is incoherent. Dealing with this
allegation, as this chapter purports to do, does not require a
refutation of Democritus, and none is offered. Besides, Democritus lacks
the conceptual tools to construct the reductio, which moreover rests on
an argument too obviously flawed to suppose that he would believe it
could be used against the divisibility thesis. Apparently propelled by
Aristotle’s view on capacities as possessed by subjects the flaw on
which the reductio rests is not trivial for Aristotle, but a challenge.
To address it Aristotle needs to offer a characterization of what it is
to say that magnitude is divisible in capacity, which is precisely what
he achieves in this chapter.
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