Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GOD 263characterization of the overall project of book XII, except as a means ofaddressing the more basic question: ‘What is being and what is it forsomething, anything, to be?’ (For this point, see Chapters 4§§1–3 and7§1.) We will return to this issue later (see §11 in this chapter).Before we turn to <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s project of arguing for, and his conceptionof, an ultimate explanation and cause of nature as a whole, a word isappropriate about how in general he undertakes this project in book XII.He begins (from XII. 1, 1069 b 3 to the end of XII. 5) with an investigationof sense-perceptible and in general changing things, and in particular thosechanging things that are perishable and not everlasting, i.e. the things withwhich we are most directly familiar from sense perception and experience—things such as plants and animals. The investigation up to the end of XII.5 is limited to those things and their fundamental explanations. It does notintroduce everlasting things or their explanations, or the question of whywe should think that there are everlasting things at all. Neither does itintroduce the explanation of nature as a whole, nor the question of why weshould think that there is such an explanation at all. Only in XII. 6–10 isthis introduced.We will concentrate on XII. 6–10, i.e. on:(1) the argument for the existence of a changing thing that is everlasting,and(2) the argument for the existence of a thing that is changeless, distinctfrom nature as a whole, and explanatory of nature as a whole.The first part of book XII (i.e. XII. 2–5) is important, but it does not addanything crucially different from what we already know from theMetaphysics (and from the Physics). Here is a very brief summary.XII. 2 considers the nature and principles of change and of changingthings especially in so far as they are subject to generation and destruction,i.e. in so far as they are perishable. This is familiar ground, also from thePhysics (see Chapter 2§4).XII. 3 considers, in particular, to what extent the main principles ofgeneration and destrction, i.e. form and matter, are themselves subject tochange. It also argues that form does not exist distinct from (para) thethings composed out of form and matter (1070 a 9–14). But, inantici pation of what is to come later (in XII. 6–10), it is suggested thatthere may be things that do exist distinct from matter (1070 a 14f.).XII. 4–5 consider whether each changing thing has the same explanationor a different explanation from every other changing thing. The questionhere is, in particular, whether each particular changing thing (e.g. Socrates)