دانلود کتاب Time for Aristotle (Oxford Aristotle Studies)

Time for Aristotle by Ursula Coope (Oxford Aristotle Studies: Oxford University Press) What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind.
Aristotle claims that time is not a kind of change, but that it is something dependent upon change; he defines it as a kind of number of change. The author argues that what this means is that time is a kind of order (not, as is commonly supposed, a kind of measure). It is a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation and enables Coope to explain to puzzling claims that Aristotle makes: that for now is like a moving thing, and that time depends for its existence upon the mind. Time for Aristotle is a lucid discussion of one of the more perennial fascinating sections of Aristotle's Physics.
For Aristotle all living things have their natures in Aristotle's discussion of the natural things, in his Physics III & IV, he discusses the nature of these natures for Aristotle there are four simple bodies: which correspond to our currently conceived for states of matter: earth, air, fire, and water, each of which has a natural tendency to occupy a particular place in the universe. For Aristotle the earth is at the center, then in concentric circles water, air, and fire. (Note for modern physics there are five states of matter that correspond to the solid, liquid, Gaseous, radiant, and the hyper hot magma.) In the section of the fixed physics that concerns Coope, Aristotle lays out his account of four things that are fundamental to the study of any nature: change, infinity, place, and time. Previously he also discusses the void he says that the void is generally thought to be a precondition of change if there is present also place, time. Later he does discuss that all this is generally accepted except for the claim that there can only be changed if there is void. In his discussion of void he argues not only that there can be change in the absence of void, but that it is, in fact, and possible for there to be void. (IV.6-9).
Sense nature is a source of change, in order to understand all what it is to have a nature we need to account for change. Changes, Aristotle thinks, are infinitely divisible, so in providing a foundation for physics, we must tackle the obscure notion of the infinite. He provides an account of place, because if there is to be any kind of change there must be change of place. The example given is that of the heavenly bodies must engage in eternal movement that is a change in place. Moreover whenever one thing axon another to produce a change, there must be spatial movement, sense before one think and act on another, the thing that acts in the thing that is acted upon must approach one another. Such was the reasoning to give rise to the ether. To understand the change of place than an account of time is also needed sense all changes and all changing things are within the time.
This sets the context on how the accounts of time plays out in Aristotle's overall system. If we are to understand his Physics as a whole we need to grapple with his difficult remarks about time.
Coope argues that Aristotle's account of time rep presents it as a kind of universal order and that this is why he defines it, oddly as a number. It is, he says, a number of change, a single order within which all changes are related to one another. Aristotle argues that the existence of this single order depends on the existence of beings, like us who can count. It depends on the fact that week count in the present, it presents series of nows, in a certain way. To count a now is to mark a dividing-point in all the changes that are going on at it. Our counting thus introduces a kind of uniformity into the world. It allows us to the limit, within a change, arbitrary parts that are exactly simultaneous to corresponding parts in every other change that is going on. One of Aristotle's central concerns as to explain how time can have this kind of uniformity. He asks what account of time will make sense of the fact that the changes are various and separate from one another, time is everywhere seemingly the same.
In order to approach the idea of time and one must have an deep appreciation of Aristotle's explanations for change. First Aristotle explains change in terms of the notions of potential and actuality. His account makes no explicit reference to time that there should be such an account of change is presupposed by his whole project of explaining time in terms of its relation to change. Second, a change is, in a certain sense, asymmetric. It is defined in terms of a potential to be in some and state. A change points forward to its completion in a way in which it does not point backward at its inception. This may suggest that the account of change does, after all, make a central reference to time. However in Aristotle's view this is the asymmetry within change itself is basic. It is temporal asymmetry that depends on the asymmetries within change, rather than vice versa. Finally this definition of change provides Aristotle with the sources to make sense of a certain kind of inference.
The acorn is changing into an oak tree. But this change may or may not result in their actually being an oak tree. If the young sapling is eaten by wild animals, the oak tree never materializes, but it is never less true that the acorn was becoming an oak and not becoming a sapling. This is because the potential that govern the acorns change was the potential to be an oak tree and not the potential to be a sapling. The change was actually of the potential oak tree, as potentially an oak tree. This final feature a change its teleology is the key to an analogy Aristotle draws between change and spatial magnitude.
In his account time, Aristotle takes for granted certain views about the senses in which boundaries, or divisions, can exist within a continuum these views are partly motivated by his need to reconcile two claims about the infinite. On the one hand he thinks that continuous things, like lines, changes, and time, are infinitely divisible. On the other he argues that there is no actual infinite: it is not possible for infinitely many things to exist all at once; to complete any number of subchanges is to have ever completed infinitely many changes. In order to make sense of this apparent incompatibility of these two lines of thinking, Aristotle makes good use of his idea of potential parts or points versus actual existents. For Aristotle indivisible things like points are instances that exist only in so far as they are boundaries, divisions, or potential divisions of a continuum. They are thus essentially dependent entities. A boundary must always be a boundary of the something or other, which is its actuality. Next for a boundary to be enhanced of four parts of it to be bound by it it must be marked out in some way from its surroundings. A continuous thing that contains no such boundaries will not contain any parts although it will of course be divisible. Third when one narks a now, I create a potential division, both in time and in whatever changes are then going on. It is thus by marking now that we create parts in time and in changes.
Coope discussion becomes from the most interesting when after accounting for time as something that is numeral and must be counted, as evidence of its asymmetrical relationship to change in general, Aristotle insists that there would be no time if there were not ensouled beings to notice it. There is no accounting without a counter. Essentially then the notion of time is a dependent upon the apprehending mind. If there are no Sorrell's, there would be no time. If there were no souls, however there might be changes. Coope claims that Aristotle himself accepts the argument that time depends on the soul and that doing so, he is not making a simple logical mistake. We need to explore why he thinks that the fact that time is accountable shows that it depends upon for its existence on beings who are able to count. Aristotle also thinks that colors would not be perceptible in a world without perceivers. The analogy holds that that between perception and counting supports the view that time depends upon the soul. Also for time to be countable, it must first be counted. This raises questions about the nature of the soul effect upon the world. It may be that the soul perceives the world as within itself. This would account for the anima mundi. However that is another study.
Coope altogether manages a vibrant analysis of certain lingering puzzles in Aristotle's account of the nature of things.