Aristotle’s positing matter is driven by trying to respond to the Parmenidean idea that things can’t come from nothing, and hence we must posit something that persists in change, and that is matter.
But there two senses of “x comes from nothing”:
x is uncaused
x is not made out of pre-existing materials.
If “x comes from nothing” in the argument means (1), the argument for matter fails. All we need is a pre-existing efficient cause, which need not be the matter of x.
Thus, for the argument to work, “x comes from nothing” must mean (2). But now here is a curious thing. From the middle ages to our time, many Aristotelians are theists, and yet still seem to be pulled by Aristotle’s argument for matter. But if “x comes from nothing” means (2), then theism implies that it is quite possible for something to come from nothing: God can create it ex nihilo.
There are at least two possible responses from a theistic Aristotelian who likes the argument for matter. The first response is that only God can make things come from nothing in sense (2), and hence things caused to exist by finite causes (even if with God’s cooperation) cannot come from nothing in sense (2). But there plainly are such things all around us. So there is matter.
Now, at least one theistic Aristotelian, Aquinas, does explicitly argue that only God can create ex nihilo. But the argument is pretty controversial and depends on heavy-duty metaphysics, about finite and infinite causes. It is not just the assertion of a seemingly obvious Parmenidean “nothing comes from nothing” principle. Thus at least on this response, the argument for matter becomes a lot more controversial. (And, to be honest, I am not convinced by it.)
The second and simpler response is to say that it’s just an empirical fact that there are things in the world that don’t come from nothing in sense (2): oak trees, for example. Thus there in fact is matter. This response is pretty plausible, but can be questioned: one might say that we have continuity of causal powers rather than any matter that survives the generation.
Finally, it’s worth noting that I suspect Aristotle misunderstands the Parmenidean argument, which is actually a very simple reductio ad absurdum:
- x came into existence.
- If x came into existence, then x did not exist.
- So, x did not exist.
- But non-existence is absurd.
The crucial step here is (6): the Parmenidean thinks the very concept of something not existing is absurd (presumably because of the Parmenidean’s acceptance of a strong truthmaker principle). The argument is very simple: becoming presupposes the truth of some past-tensed non-existence statements, while non-existence statements are always false. Aristotle’s positing matter does nothing to refute this Parmenidean argument. Even if we grant that x’s matter pre-existed, it’s still true that x did not exist, and that’s all Parmenides needs. Likewise, Aristotle’s famous actuality/potentiality distinction doesn’t solve the problem. Even if x was pre-existed by a potentiality for existence, it’s still true that x wasn’t pre-existed by x—that would be a contradiction.
To solve Parmenides’ problem, however, we do not need to posit matter or potentiality or anything like that. We just need to reject the idea that negative existential statements are nonsensical. And Aristotle expressly does reject this idea: he says that a statement is true provided it says of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not. Having done that, Aristotle should take himself as done with Parmenides’ problem of change.
2 comments:
The argument in Physics I doesn't reply to an argument that "things can't come from nothing", but to an argument that things can neither come from nothing *nor from something*, that nothing can come to be at all. And so the account of change Aristotle lays out doesn't just posit "matter" as a response to "why the thing isn't coming from nothing", but also "form" as a response to "why the thing isn't what already exists".
If Parmenides had only claimed "nothing can come to be from nothing", then Aristotle would not have faced an interesting puzzle: the reply of "something could have a cause" is too trivial to waste ink on. But Parmenides is, Aristotle thinks, extremely clever; Aristotle claims that his account of change is the *only* way to show that change is, contra Parmenides, not impossible.
Hylomorphism, not matter, is Aristotle's response to Parmenides; in a change, Aristotle says that there is both something which comes to be that was not and something which continues that was (e.g., in a man changing from white to black the black comes to be and the man continues in already being), and what continues through a change is just what he calls its "matter". The idea of "matter" as a term with a sense that's not relative to a change (so-called "prime matter") is a post-Aristotelian development; for Aristotle to speak of a matter is to speak of a change. But without such a notion as "prime matter", there is no puzzle about how an Aristotelian is to think of "creation ex nihilo": if no change makes use of a "prime matter", then God not doing so is no issue. In creation there is a change from God not having created a thing to God having created it: this description lays out both the continuance and the mutability that Aristotle's account of change in general requires. God does the work that "matter" does, in other words, as supplying something which makes the beginning-point and end-point of the change not entirely heterogeneous and so unrelated.
Yes, the "from nothing" is just one horn of the dilemma, and matter is introduced in order to explain how to reject the "from nothing" horn without getting impaled by the "from something" horn.
The suggestion that God does the work of "matter" is really interesting. However, I want to push back. First, even if we bracket prime matter, it is a part of Aristotle's theory that the matter is in some way a constituent of the object in a way that God is not. However, if all we need is a continuing influence to make the beginning and end not heterogeneous, then Aristotle would owe us an argument that this continuing influence is a constituent of the changing object.
Second, God is not in time. Strictly speaking, there is no continuance in the case of God: God exists simpliciter, but does not _continue_ to exist. But now if an atemporal being that never continues to exist can cause a horse to exist _ex nihilo_, why couldn't a pre-existent temporal being that also does not continue to exist once the horse comes into being cause a horse to exist?
(I suppose bringing in presentism could help Aristotle. But presentism is problematic in a context where there is an atemporal being.)
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