Time for Aristotle Physics IV. 10-14

by Coope, Ursula

• ISBN13: 9780199556700
• ISBN10: 0199556709
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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, and Time for Aristotle is the first book in English devoted to this discussion. Aristotle claims that time is not a kind of change, but that it is something dependent on change; he defines it as a kind of "number of change." Ursula Coope argues that what this means is that time is a kind of order (not, as is commonly supposed, a kind of measure). It is universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables Coope to explain two puzzling claims that Aristotle makes: that the now is like a moving thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. Brilliantly lucid in its explanation of this challenging section of the Physics, Time for Aristotle shows his discussion to be of enduring philosophical interest.

Author Biography

Ursula Coope is a Tutorial Fellow in Ancient Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Table of Contents

Introduction

Introductory puzzles and the starting points of inquiry

The introductory puzzles

Time is not change but something of change

Time's dependence on change

Time follows change and change follows magnitude

The before and after

Time as a number and time as a measure

The definition of time as a kind of number

Time as a measure of change

The sameness and difference of times and nows

All simultaneous time is the same

The sameness of earlier and later times and nows

Two consequences of Aristotle's account of time

Being in time

Time and the soul

Appendix: the expression ho pote on X esti

Bibliography

Index

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