Aristotle Physics I 8: Phronesis 51,4 - f2 - 330-361III 10/23/06 3:37 PM Page 330

Phronesis 51,4_f2_330-361III 10/23/06 3:37 PM Page 330
Aristotle Physics I 8
SEAN KELSEY
ABSTRACT
Aristotle’s thesis in Physics I 8 is that a certain old and familiar problem about
coming to be can only be solved with the help of the new account of the “prin-
ciples” he has developed in Physics I 7. This is a strong thesis and the literature
on the chapter does not quite do it justice; specifically, as things now stand we
are left wondering why Aristotle should have found this problem so compelling
in the first place. In this paper I develop an interpretation which (I hope) will
help to remedy this.
I believe that Aristotle’s problem about coming to be depends on a certain
principle to the effect that “nothing can become what it already is” (it is this that
is supposed to explain why tÚ ˆn cannot come to be §j ˆntow – cf. 191a30). The
main innovation of the interpretation developed here is its suggestion that we
understand this principle as a principle about kinds. So understood, the principle
does not make the comparatively trivial point that nothing can become any indi-
vidual it already is, but rather the more powerful and substantive point that noth-
ing can become any kind of thing it already is. I argue that this is a point which
Aristotle himself accepts and that this is why the problem about coming to be
raises serious difficulties for him. I also discuss Aristotle’s proposed solutions to
this problem, explaining how each draws on his new account of the principles
and why each is required for any full resolution of the difficulties the problem
raises. In this way I hope to show how the interpretation developed here does
justice to the very strong thesis with which Aristotle begins Physics I 8. I con-
clude briefly and somewhat speculatively with a suggestion as to why Aristotle
might accept the principle on which I have suggested the problem turns.
Physics I 8 is given to a problem about the possibility of coming to be

(and also of ceasing to be). The problem is an old one, going back at least
as far as Parmenides. It led some to conclude that there is no coming to
be of substance; it led others to conclude that there is no coming to be of
anything – that there is no change of any kind. Aristotle’s thesis is that
this problem can only be solved in light of the new account of the “ele-
ments” or “principles” that he has developed in Physics I 7.
This is a strong thesis and the literature on the chapter does not
quite do it justice. Aristotle says that the problem can only be solved with
the help of his new account of the principles. This suggests that he
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ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 331
thinks the problem is pretty difficult, a suggestion which is confirmed by

his discussion of it in another place, where he says explicitly that it is
“extraordinarily” difficult (¶xei yaumastØn épor¤an, GC I 3, 317b18-19).
Ideally then we want an account of the problem that would explain why
he finds it so difficult. It is just here that I find the literature unsatisfac-
tory. The standard commentaries say nothing to explain why the problem
seemed compelling to Aristotle.1 Other commentators have tried to moti-
vate the problem, but in doing so have ventured far enough from the text
of I 8 to raise concerns about whether we are still discussing the same
problem.2 Partly in reaction to this, one recent study has tried to stay closer
to Aristotle’s own statement of the problem, but at the cost of having to
downplay how difficult it can have really seemed to him.3
In this paper I develop a reading of the problem which would explain
why Aristotle thinks it is so difficult and which would also explain why
he thinks the problem can only be resolved with the help of certain inno-
vations he has made in the course of developing his new account of the
principles. I begin in Section I with a brief and selective review of the lit-
erature, with a view to bringing out how hard it is to explain why Aristotle
thinks the problem really does raise serious philosophical difficulties. Then
in Section II I introduce and develop a new reading, which I believe does
allow us to see why Aristotle thinks the original problem is so difficult.
The main innovation of this reading is to understand one of the principles
on which the problem implicitly depends – the principle that “nothing can
become what it already is” – as a principle about kinds. So understood
the principle says, not that nothing can become any individual it already
is, but rather and more powerfully that nothing can become any kind of
thing it already is. I argue that this is a principle which Aristotle himself
endorses and that, because of this, the original problem really does raise
serious difficulties for him. I then turn in Section III to discuss the vari-
ous solutions to the problem Aristotle mentions or develops in Physics I 8;
1
So Simplicius, Philoponus, Aquinas, Ross 1936, Wagner 1967, Charlton 1970.
Also Mansion 1946, Solmsen 1960, Wieland 1970.
2
So I think Code 1976, Graham 1987, Lewis 1991 (and to a lesser extent Waterlow
1982). This is not to take anything away from the interest or thoughtfulness of these
discussions.
3
So Loux, who says that the problem is “not fully convincing,” and further that it
is open to objections so “direct and devastating” as to “leave us wondering how any
intelligent and sane thinker could have been taken in by the argument” (Loux 1992,
284, 293). In another recent study, Horstschäfer says that the problem does raise a
serious difficulty – not for Aristotle, but for an Eleatic (Horstschäfer 1998, 390).
332 SEAN KELSEY
in the case of each I first offer an interpretation of what the solution is

and then go on to explain [i] how it speaks to the original problem as I
have construed it, [ii] why it is a necessary component of any full reso-
lution of the difficulties the problem raises for Aristotle, and [iii] how it
draws on the resources of the new account of the principles Aristotle
develops in Physics I 7. In this way I hope to show that the interpretation
I have offered does justice to the very strong claim Aristotle makes about
the original problem at the beginning of Physics I 8. Finally in Sec-
tion IV I return to discuss in detail a particular passage in Physics I 8
which has given commentators no end of difficulties. I argue that in fact
this passage can be seen to make perfect sense once it is read in light of
the interpretation of the original problem and of Aristotle’s solutions to it
developed in this paper. I conclude with one or two brief remarks about
the principle on which I suggest the problem turns, including a somewhat
speculative suggestion as to why Aristotle might think that this is a prin-
ciple he must accept.
I. The difficulty
I begin with a brief review of some of the literature on the problem. Although
several readings have been proposed, they all have trouble showing why
the problem should have any grip on Aristotle. My point is not to argue
that these readings stand thereby refuted, but rather to convey something
of the difficulty in explaining why Aristotle finds the problem compelling
in the first place.
Aristotle begins Physics I 8 by introducing the problem as follows:
That this is the only way of resolving the difficulty felt by thinkers of earlier
times must be our next point. The first people to philosophize about the nature
and truth of things got so to speak side-tracked or driven off course by inexpe-
rience, and said that nothing comes to be or passes away, because whatever
comes to be must do so either from something which is, or from something which
is not, and neither is possible. What is cannot come to be, since it is already,
and nothing can come to be from what is not, since there must be something
underlying. And thus inflating the consequences of this, they deny a plurality of
things altogether, and say that there is nothing but being itself. (191a23-33,
tr. Charlton, slightly modified)
Setting the inflated consequences aside, this is a neat and tidy little prob-
lem. It begins with a sort of dichotomy, enumerating the possibilities for
how things might come to be: if anything comes to be, it must do so either
“from what is” (§j ˆntow) or “from what is not” (§k mØ ˆntow). These pos-
sibilities are then eliminated in turn: things cannot come to be from what
is (“it is already”), nor from what is not (“something must underlie”). The
conclusion is that nothing comes to be.
Despite its superficial simplicity, Aristotle’s presentation of the problem
raises a number of questions. I will not dwell on all of these questions
here. So, for example, we might ask whether the problem is just about
the coming to be of substance, or whether it also denies the possibility
of accidental change. Here I will assume that, at least in the first instance,
the problem is about the coming to be of substance – what Aristotle
sometimes calls coming to be simpliciter (Phys. I 7, 190a31-33, GC I 3,
317a32-b1). Again, when the problem talks about what coming to be is
from, we might ask about exactly what sense of “from” is at issue here.
For now I will assume that at issue is the sense of “from” in which
Aristotle believes things come to be from matter, as opposed to from pri-
vation (or from both).4
The question I do want to focus on, and which has divided commen-
tators the most, is about how to read the opening dichotomy, and in par-
ticular about how to take the word “is” in the expressions “what is” and
“what is not.” Usually it is taken in one of two ways, either as complete
as it stands or as requiring a complement referring back to the thing that
putatively comes into being. Read the first way, the dichotomy says that
everything must come to be from either what is or is not (period); read
the second way, it says that everything must come to be from either what
is or is not it.5 On the second reading, the dichotomy represents a kind of
schema, which gets filled out differently in different cases; for example, it
tells us that Socrates must come to be from what is or is not Socrates, but
Plato from what is or is not Plato, and Alexander from what is or is not
Alexander, and so on. On the first reading, it tells us that everything must
come to be from one of two things, “what is” or “what is not,” where
these are the same no matter what comes to be, whether Socrates or Plato
or anything else.
Both readings have trouble motivating the problem philosophically. The
trouble with the complete reading is that the proposal that things come to
be from “what is” appears untouched by the objection raised against it,
4
Some commentators have denied this in an effort to resolve an apparent difficulty
presented by Aristotle’s solution of the problem. For more on this see section IV
below.
5
For the first reading see e.g. Wagner 1967, Loux 1992, and Horstschäfer 1998;
for the second see e.g. Ross 1936, Code 1976, Waterlow 1982, and Lewis 1991.
334 SEAN KELSEY
namely that “it is already.”6 Why should it follow, just because Socrates
comes to be from something that “is” (period), that he already was, before
he came to be? Surely he might have come from some other thing that
“is,” for example from an egg or a seed. As for the incomplete reading,
here the trouble is just the reverse; the proposal that things come to be
from “what is not” appears untouched by the objection to it, namely that
“something must underlie.”7 Why should it follow, just because Socrates
comes to be from something that is not Socrates, that he comes to be from
nothing at all (or from nothing that “underlies”)? In the face of these
difficulties, it is tempting to try a sort of hybrid reading combining the
virtues of both (so Simplicius 236.20-22); read this way, the problem
would argue that Socrates can come to be neither from what is (namely,
from what is Socrates), because “he is already,” nor from what is not (that
is, from what is not, period), because “something must underlie.” How-
ever, the trouble now is that the supposed dichotomy between “what is”
and “what is not” – in this case, between Socrates himself and nothing at
all – does not appear to be exhaustive.8
It is not obvious then why Aristotle finds the original problem so
difficult. Motivating the problem demands three things: that the dichotomy
between what “is” and “is not” seem exhaustive, that the proposal that
things come from “what is” seem open to the objection that “it is already,”
and that the proposal that things come from “what is not” seem open to
the objection that “something must underlie.” The trouble is that none of
the readings we have considered can deliver more than two of these.9
6
So Ross 1936, 494 ad 191a28.
7
So Loux 1992, 288; Horstschäfer 1998, 388.
8
I also think that such a reading is implausible as a way of taking the phrase μ §j
ˆntow μ §k mØ ˆntow.
9
It does not help to say that the problem would have a grip on someone already
convinced of Eleaticism (so Horstschäfer 1998, 390). The question is not why the prob-
lem might seem compelling to Parmenides, but why it might seem compelling to Aristotle.
Besides, Aristotle knows that not everyone who recognized the problem was an
Eleatic. Moreover, he thinks that those who were Eleatics thought that Eleaticism was
a consequence of the problem, not one of its presuppositions (191a31-33). Finally, if
he thought the problem turned on Eleaticism, he ought to think we can solve the prob-
lem simply by rejecting Eleaticism, and thus without having to make any appeal to
the special resources of his new account of the principles.
II. A new reading

I believe that it is possible to read the problem in a way that meets all
three demands, but seeing this requires a shift in how we have been think-
ing about coming to be so far, and in particular in how we have been
thinking about its terminus ad quem.
So far we have been speaking of “what” comes to be as if it were
always some particular individual; this is common in the literature and in
a certain respect natural. After all, at least when successful, coming to be
always does leave us with a particular individual, such as Socrates or Plato
or Alexander. Nonetheless, there is another way of thinking about the mat-
ter, according to which “what” comes to be is not a particular individual,
but rather a particular kind of thing. This too is natural. For example, sup-
pose I am building a chair from some wood I have lying around in the
garage, and you come in and ask me what I am building. Maybe it is pos-
sible to take this as asking for which individual I am building (the answer
would be “this chair” or “this one”). But another perfectly good way of
taking it is as a request for the kind of thing I am building (the answer
would be “a chair,” or “a piece of furniture”). In this sense, what I am
building, and so what the wood is becoming, is not a particular individ-
ual, but rather a particular kind of thing. In this sense, as Aristotle would
put it, “what” the wood is becoming is not tÒde but toiÒnde – not this,
but such.10
Suppose we think of the terminus ad quem of coming to be in this way,
not as a particular individual, but as a particular kind of thing. This shift
in focus makes a difference for how we understand the original problem,
and in particular for how we understand the objection to the idea that
things come to be from “what is.” If we think of the terminus ad quem
as this or that individual, it will be natural to understand this objection as
appealing to a certain general principle, that nothing can become the indi-
vidual thing it already is. Understood this way, the difficulty is to see why
it follows from the fact that something is, that it already is the very indi-
vidual it will become (or alternatively, why it follows from the fact that
something is not that individual, that it is not anything “underlying”).
However, suppose we instead think of the terminus ad quem as this or
that kind of thing. It will then be natural to understand the objection as
10
Cf. Owen 1978-9 (pp. 291-94 in the reprint). Perhaps there is also a sense in
which it is becoming both: not just tÒde, and not just toiÒnde, but “tÒde toiÒnde,”
i.e. tÒde ti.
336 SEAN KELSEY
appealing to a different principle, that nothing can become the kind of

thing it already is. Heard this way, the difficulty is to see why it follows
from the fact that something is, that it already is of a kind it will become
(or alternatively, why it follows from something’s not being of that kind,
that it is not anything “underlying”).
The advantage of understanding the problem in this second way is that
these are questions we can answer, provided the kind in question is sufficiently
general. For example, when Socrates comes to be, one of the things he
becomes is a human being – that is the kind of thing he is. However, since
human beings are a kind of animal, and animals are a kind of substance,
it follows that when Socrates comes to be, another thing he becomes is
an animal, and still another a substance. Suppose then we ask what sort
of thing it is that substances such as Socrates come to be from. Either it
is a substance or it is not a substance. If it is a substance, then it will
become something that it already is, namely a substance. If it is not a sub-
stance, it will not “underlie” (for Aristotle, only substances “underlie”).11
So, it is easy to see why it follows from something’s being, that it already
is at least a kind of thing that it will become. When substances come to
be, at least one thing they become is a substance. Similarly, it is also easy
to see why it follows from something’s not being any of the kinds it will
become that it is not anything “underlying.” The difficulty now is to
explain why Aristotle would find the former result objectionable. Does
Aristotle really think it plausible to suppose that nothing can become any
kind of thing it already is (not even the very general kind substance)?
Happily, the answer to this question is “yes”. The principle that “noth-
ing can become what it already is,” where “what” things are is of a kind,
is one that Aristotle unquestionably endorses. To be sure, he does allow
that this principle admits of a kind of exception. Indeed, this can happen
in a couple of ways. For example, suppose I build a chair from some wood
salvaged from an old table and then move it into the living room from
the garage. One might argue that, in so doing, I have violated the principle
twice. First I made a piece of furniture (a table) into a piece of furniture
(a chair). Then I did it again, making a piece of furniture (in the garage)
11
See e.g. Phys. I 7, 190a35-b1, where Aristotle says that substance alone is not
predicated of an underlying subject and that everything else is predicated of it. Many
have objected to me that Aristotle does not believe that substance alone “underlies,”
on the grounds that he believes that matter “underlies” and that matter is not sub-
stance. But of course it is the doctrine of Physics I and elsewhere that in a way mat-
ter is substance (see e.g. Phys. I 9192a5-6) – indeed, that’s a good deal of the point.
into a piece of furniture (in the living room). And, in fact, Aristotle is
going to allow both examples as a kind of exception to the general prin-
ciple, at least in a way. However, he is also going to insist that, in another
way, strictly and properly speaking, these examples are not really excep-
tions to the principle at all. Aristotle knows as well as you and I that
when I move a chair into the living room, what the chair really becomes
is not a piece of furniture, but in the living room.12 And, though this is
perhaps less obvious, it is at any rate Aristotle’s view that when I make
a chair from a table, “what” the chair really comes from is not a table
but wood.13 So, yes, Aristotle will allow that things can become what they
already are, in a way. Thus he will also allow that the general principle
on which I have suggested the problem turns does, in a way, admit of
exceptions. Indeed, as we will see, he thinks that recognizing these excep-
tions takes us part of the way – but only part of the way – towards resolv-
ing the difficulties the problem raises. Nonetheless, we must not lose sight
of the conditions Aristotle places on these exceptions. They are allowable,
but only when the kind in question is not really what the coming to be is
from, or when it is not really what the coming to be is “of” or “to.” Given
these conditions, our so-called “exceptions” hardly jeopardize Aristotle’s
commitment to the principle at issue. On the contrary, they serve precisely
to underline how fundamental that commitment is. For Aristotle, nothing
can become what it already is, not strictly and properly speaking – no
matter how general the kind in question. As he puts it later: “if something
is going to become an animal non-incidentally, it will not be from an ani-
mal, and if something that is, not from something that is” (191b23-25).14
Where does this leave us in relation to the readings we began with,
namely complete and incomplete? I am proposing that we interpret the
12
It is common to characterize such points as being about how the termini of
coming-to be are best described (so e.g. Waterlow 1982, Graham 1987, Lewis 1991,
Loux 1992). I prefer to think of them as points about what the termini of coming-
to-be really are.
13
This last is a point about what kind of thing the chair comes from, not about
which individual it comes from. One way to make the point intuitively clear is to con-
sider that as a rule chairs are made from wood, and that the case envisaged is no
exception. (One reason I make the point in this roundabout way is to avoid pre-
judging whether Aristotle believes that the terminus a quo must always survive into
the final product. Another is to avoid simply assuming the point at issue, namely that
Aristotle regards a table’s being a piece of furniture as an obstacle to its becoming
one.)
14
eﬁ d° ti m°llei g¤gnesyai z“on mØ katå sumbebhkÒw, oÈk §k z–ou ¶stai, ka‹
e‡ ti ˆn, oÈk §j ˆntow.
338 SEAN KELSEY
dichotomy between what “is” and “is not” as between what is and is not
substance.15 In a way this could be seen as exemplifying either reading.
We might regard it as a version of the complete reading, augmented by the
assumption that what it is for something to be (or to come to be) “period”
is for it to be (or to come to be) substance. Alternatively, we might regard
it as a version of the incomplete reading, one that fills in the blanks with
a predicate, namely the very general predicate “substance.”
All this notwithstanding, there is a way in which the current proposal
is unlike any available in the literature: it is able to explain why Aristotle
finds the original problem so difficult. The proposal again is that the
dichotomy between “what is” and “what is not” is a dichotomy between
what is and is not substance. This makes it easy to see why it would seem
exhaustive to Aristotle. It also makes it easy to see why the idea that
things come to be from “what is not” would seem open to the objection
that “something must underlie.” The apparent difficulty is to explain why
the idea that things come to be from “what is” would seem open to the
objection that “it is already.” This difficulty is removed by the suggestion
that the principle implicit in this objection, that “nothing can become what
it already is,” is a principle about kinds. It is this suggestion that is the
real heart of the reading proposed here. It enables us to explain why
Aristotle finds the original problem compelling, by making the problem
turn on a principle he endorses.
III. Aristotle’s solution(s)

I have presented a reading of the problem Aristotle discusses in Physics
I 8 which would explain why he finds the problem difficult. I now want
to present a reading of his solution which would explain why he thinks
that it depends on the account of the principles that he has developed in
Physics I 7.
In fact Aristotle offers two “ways” (trÒpoi) out of the problem, the first
developed at length, the second mentioned only in passing (191a34-b27,
b27-29). Before getting into the details, it will be useful in keeping our
bearings to have considered in a general way how these two solutions are
supposed to be related. Suppose then we think of the problem as placing
15
An alternative proposal, in keeping with the spirit of the one offered above, would
be to read the dichotomy as between “what is” and “is not” a being, sc. in any of the
categories. (Cf. GC I 3, 317a32-b13, which suggests that the problem can be run either
way.)
certain conditions on what substances come from – call this “substance-

material” – and then arguing that these conditions cannot be jointly
satisfied. The first condition says that substance-material must “underlie”;
the second says that it must not “already be” what it will become. If we
try to satisfy the first condition, by saying that substance-material is sub-
stance, we fall foul of the second, which says that it cannot already be
what it will become (namely substance). If we try to satisfy the second
condition, by saying that substance-material is not substance, we fall foul
of the first, which says that it must underlie (for Aristotle, only substances
underlie). To solve this problem, we must either deny one or both of these
conditions, or else show how they can be reconciled. Very briefly, Aristotle’s
first solution denies both conditions (it comes in two parts, one given to
each), while his second solution attempts to reconcile them. In a way these
solutions are independent of one another, inasmuch as each is sufficient
to undo the original problem.16 In another way they are complementary,
inasmuch as both are necessary for any complete resolution of the difficul-
ties the problem raises.
I will discuss these solutions in turn (I take the first solution in pieces,
one to each of its two parts), and in the case of each solution, besides
saying something about what it means, I want to do three things. First I
want to explain how it speaks to the original problem. Then I want to
explain why Aristotle must regard it as indispensable for any full resolu-
tion of the difficulties the problem raises. Finally I want to explain how
it draws on material from Physics I 7.
III.1. First solution, first part: genesis from “what is not”

The first part of Aristotle’s first solution to the problem says that there is
an ambiguity in the premise that nothing can come to be from “what is
not” (191a34-b17). Aristotle says that this premise can be understood in
two ways. The strictest or most proper way to understand it, he thinks, is
as saying that nothing can come from what is not “unqualifiedly” (èpl«w),
or “qua what is not” (√ mØ ˆn). But, he thinks, it is also possible to under-
stand this premise in another way, as making a point about what things
can come to be from even “incidentally” (katå sumbebhkÒw). Understood
this second way, the premise says that nothing can come from “what
is not” in any way: not qua “what is not,” and not qua anything else,
either. With this distinction in place, Aristotle concedes the premise as
16
This point was driven home to me by David Ebrey.
340 SEAN KELSEY
understood in the “strictest” or “most proper” way (mãlista kur¤vw), but

then denies it as understood in the other way (191b13-17). He hopes
thereby to show that the fact that something “is not” need not be an obsta-
cle to its being what things come from, at least not “in a way” (pvw),
namely, incidentally.
What are we to make of this? Earlier I proposed that we understand
the premise “nothing can come to be from what is not” to mean that sub-
stances cannot come to be from what are not substances. So understood,
I take it that, when interpreted in the “most proper” way, this premise says
something about the kind of thing substances can come from;17 in partic-
ular, the premise says that, whatever it is to be what substances come
from, it is not simply not to be substance. Aristotle wants to concede that,
understood this way, the premise is correct: it cannot be what it is to be
substance-material simply not to be substance (not even some particular
kind of substance – for example, the particular kind of substance the mate-
rial in question will become).18 However, Aristotle also wants to insist
that this fact about the kind of thing substance-material is does not pre-
vent concrete instances of substance-material from happening not to be
substance, any more than the fact that it is not what it is to be furniture-
material simply not to be furniture prevents concrete instances of furni-
ture-material from happening not to be furniture.19 Moreover, when
substance-material happens not to be substance (for example, when it hap-
pens not to be substance of the particular kind it will become), there is a
way in which whatever comes to be from it will also come to be from
what is not substance (namely, from what is not a substance of that kind).
So, for example, suppose I build a chair from some materials that happen
not to be a chair. There is a way in which the chair comes to be from
“what is not furniture” (namely, it comes to be from what is not a chair);
the chair comes to be from what is not furniture inasmuch as it comes to
17
See note 13 above.
18
If it were, then substance-material would not be the sort of thing that “under-
lies.” Moreover, its destiny (sc. to become substance) would then be its destruction
(cf. Phys. I 9, 192a20-25). In addition, it would then be difficult to see in what
sense substance-material could be “present in” (§nupãrxein) what it becomes
(cf. 192a30-32).
19
As we will see, there is something that prevents substance-material from hap-
pening not to be substance of any kind – an important difference between substance
and furniture. However, what prevents this is not that substance-material must be the
sort of thing that “underlies” (Ípoke›tai), but rather that only substances are “sepa-
rable” (xvristÒn).
be from some material that happens not to be furniture. In Aristotle’s

language, it comes to be from what is not furniture “incidentally” – not
qua not furniture, but qua something else (call it “furniture-material”).
Similarly, when a substance comes to be from material that happens not
to be substance (namely, of the particular kind the material in question
will become), then in a way that substance comes to be from what is not
substance (again, of the particular kind it will become) – not insofar as it
is not a substance of that particular kind, but insofar as it is something
else, namely substance-material.
So much for what Aristotle is trying to say in this part of his solution
to the original problem. He wants to concede that earlier thinkers were
absolutely correct to insist that if substances do come into being, it can-
not be the very nature of the material they come from simply not to be
substance. (Just to be clear, he wants to concede not only that it cannot
be the nature of substance-material simply not to be substance of any kind,
but also that it cannot be its nature simply not to be substance of just
some particular kind; for example, he wants to concede that if air comes
to be, it cannot be the nature of the material it comes to be from simply
not to be air.) However, in addition to making this concession to the orig-
inal problem, Aristotle also wants to object that this fact about the nature
of substance-material does not prevent its concrete instances, in addition
to being substance-material, from happening also not to be substance (in
particular, it does not prevent substance-material from happening not
to be substance of the particular kind it will become). So, for example, if
air comes to be, the fact that it cannot be the nature of the material it
comes from simply not to be air does not prevent this material, in addi-
tion to being “air-material,” from happening also not to be air. In this
way, Aristotle wants to object, substances can come from what is not
substance – not insofar as it is not substance, but insofar as it is some-
thing else (namely, a certain kind of material, the nature of which he has
yet to disclose).
I want to make three points about this part of Aristotle’s solution. First,
it speaks to the original problem by denying one of the conditions the
problem sets on what substance-material can be: namely, that it must be
something that “underlies” (191a31). Aristotle concedes that this is a con-
dition on the kind of thing substance-material can be – on what substances
can come from “unqualifiedly” (191b13-14). That is, he agrees that it
cannot be what it is to be substance-material not to be substance. How-
ever, he wants to deny that this is also a condition on what substance-
material can even happen to be – on what substances can come from even
342 SEAN KELSEY
“incidentally” (191b14-16). Aristotle says that there is a way in which

substances can come from “what is not” – that is, from what is not sub-
stance. Given that only substances underlie, this is to say that there is a
way in which substances can come from what is not the sort of thing that
“underlies.”
The second point I want to make about this part of Aristotle’s solution
is that it is a necessary component of any full resolution of the difficulties
the problem raises for him. This is because Aristotle’s other commitments
require him to hold that, when substance-material is ready to become sub-
stance, it cannot then even happen to be a substance of the particular kind
it is to become.20 This is the familiar doctrine that substances always come
from their “privation” (st°rhsiw) or “absence” (épous¤a) (Phys. I 7,
191a4-7).21 This doctrine is a consequence of the idea that substances
come to be by way of very specific sorts of change induced in the mate-
rials they come from: “some of them by change of shape, like a statue,
some by addition, like things which grow, some by subtraction, as a
Hermes comes to be out of the stone, some by composition, like a house,
some by alteration, like things which change in respect of their matter”
(Physics I 7, 190b5-9). It is this idea that requires Aristotle to hold that,
in a way, substances always come from their privation (“which is what
is not per se,” ˜ §sti kayÉ aÍtÚ mØ ˆn, I 8, 191b15-16). For if some
substance-material did happen already to be a substance of the particular
kind it is to become, then it would already be of the specific size and
shape and quality and so on that it must come to be, in order to become
that kind of substance. Thus if substance-material is going to become a
particular kind of substance, by changing in certain very specific kinds of
way, then it cannot already be a substance of that particular kind, not even
incidentally – for that would be an obstacle to its changing in just those
ways.22 This in turn forces Aristotle to allow that in a way it is possible
20
Distinguish this point from the principle on which the original problem turns.
That principle says that nothing can become any of the kinds of thing it already is; it
is a point about what things can come to be from “unqualifiedly.” The point here is
that nothing can become the specific kind of thing it already is; it is a point about
what things can come to be from even “incidentally.” (If you like, the point here places
a limit on the “exceptions” to the earlier principle.)
21
I understand privation as the absence or lack of a particular kind (as opposed
to a particular individual). This is in keeping with my understanding of the original
problem. It is also in keeping with the details of Aristotle’s text (see esp. Phys. I 7,
191a14-15).
22
For example, suppose I am at the local science museum, waiting my turn to build
for substances to come from what is not substance (namely, from what is
not a substance of the particular kind it is to become).
The third and final point I want to make about this part of Aristotle’s
first solution is that it quite plainly draws on innovations in the account
of the principles he develops in Physics I 7. To see this, recall that
Aristotle comes to this chapter having inherited a number of problems
arising from the previous discussion. One problem is that there are appar-
ently compelling reasons both for thinking that the principles must be
opposites, and also for thinking that they cannot be opposites (among
other reasons, because opposites are not substance, and therefore do not
underlie).23 Aristotle’s solution to this problem has two parts. On the one
hand, he takes the view that strictly speaking there are just two principles,
“subject” (Ípoke¤menon) and “form,” neither of which is an opposite
(cf. 190b17-20, 32, 191a17-18).24 On the other hand, he also takes the view
a catenary arch, and the patron ahead of me finishes his and leaves it standing. Making
an arch requires putting the blocks provided in a certain order, dictated by the logic
of the arch; since these blocks happen to be in that order already, to put them into it
I must first take them out. In this way, the fact that the blocks happen to be an arch
already is an obstacle to my making them into one. (The obstacles are not always so
easy to overcome: consider becoming a Hermes or a house or an animal or bronze.)
Nor would the case be substantially altered were I to devise a way to disassemble the
arch piecemeal, one block at a time. The reason the blocks are not ready to make into
an arch is not just that the first thing to do is take down the old one, but also and cru-
cially that the work still in front of me cannot even happen to be a step in the process
of assembling an arch. This is because the changes it calls for are precisely and dia-
metrically opposed to the ones called for by the process of assembly (Cf. Metaph.
Y 7, 1049a9-11, on being something potentially, and Phys. V 4, on the ways changes
can be “one”). It is this that renders the blocks “unready” to become an arch, and it
would not be altered by my disassembling the arch one block at a time, assembling a
new one as I go along. (Suppose I want to build a house from a deck of cards, but
the only cards I have happen to be a house already. I carefully take down the old
house, one card at a time, building the new one as I go along, on just the same model
as the old, but with no card functioning in the new house as it did in the old (this is
by contrast with the catenary arch). Here, breaking the construction into stages, we
can say that the cards from which the roof was built were not a roof, and so on.)
23
Phys. I 5, 188a31ff.; I 6, 189a27-34. Although the considerations Aristotle raises
in I 6 are introduced as reasons for not making opposites the only principles, they are
equally reasons for not making them principles at all.
24
The fact that neither principle is an opposite is shown by the fact that Aristotle
regards both of them as a kind of substance (191a8-13). It is true that he concludes
Physics I 7 by saying it is not yet clear whether the form or the subject is substance
(191a19-20). But this can hardly be because it is not yet clear whether the principles
of substance are substance; in Physics I 6 Aristotle gives compelling reasons for think-
ing that, if there are principles of substance, they must be substance (nor are these
344 SEAN KELSEY
that, in a way, incidentally, the principles are opposites, inasmuch as the

“subject,” in addition to being a kind of subject for the other, also happens
to be its opposite (see 190b24-27, 30-35, 191a4-7).25 So, in Physics I 7,
Aristotle concedes that the principles cannot be opposites, not strictly
speaking, but then insists that this does not prevent them from happening
to be opposites (even necessarily so). But this is just the move he makes
here in Physics I 8, where he concedes that it cannot be what it is to be
substance-material not to be substance, but then insists that this does not
prevent substance-material from happening not to be substance (even nec-
essarily so). In this way, this first part of his first solution to the problem
about coming to be depends crucially on innovations introduced in the
account of the principles he develops in Physics I 7.
III.2. First solution, second part: genesis from “what is”

I now turn to the second part of Aristotle’s first solution of the original
problem, which is addressed to the premise that nothing can come to be
from “what is.” This part of his solution is presented in a compact and
difficult passage (191b17-27) which has been interpreted in a number of
different ways. Here I just lay out my own view of this part of his solu-
tion, clean and simple. In Section IV I show how this view makes sense
of the details of the passage in which it is presented.
Aristotle prepares us to expect this second part of his first solution to
be parallel to the first part, and that is how I will interpret it (see 191a34-
b4, 17, 24-25). So, as before, I take the second part of the solution to
expose an ambiguity in one of the problem’s premises: this time, in the
premise that nothing can come to be from “what is.” Understood in the
strictest way, this premise says that nothing can come to be from what is
reasons subsequently retracted or modified). My suspicion is that the reason Aristotle

says that it is not yet clear whether the form or the subject is substance is that he has
not yet made it clear whether substances really do come to be (and therefore whether
there really are any principles from which they do so). Here I am moved by the fact
that he puts his conclusion in the form of a conditional: “it is clear then that, if there
really are causes and principles of things due to nature, from which first they are and
have come to be, not incidentally but each what it is called in accordance with its sub-
stance – [it is clear] that everything comes from both the subject and the form”
(190b17-20).
25
Or, if not its opposite, then at least its privation or absence. In either case we
have a concession to the reasons for thinking the principles must be opposites (see
Phys. I 5, 188a36 and ff., and note that “privation” also meets the strictures against
tÚ tuxÒn which Aristotle appeals to there).
“unqualifiedly,” or “qua what is.” Understood another way, it says that

nothing can come to be from “what is” even incidentally, that is, not just
qua “what is” but even qua something else. Again as before, I take this
part of Aristotle’s solution to concede the premise as understood in the
strictest way, but then to deny it when understood in the other way
(191b17-19, 23-25). As I understand it, Aristotle hopes thereby to show
that the fact that something “is” need not be an obstacle to its being what
things come from, at least incidentally.
We can make sense of this along the lines drawn above. As before,
I take it that the “most proper” way of taking the premise that nothing
comes to be from “what is” is as a premise about the kind of thing sub-
stances come from: that is, the premise says that whatever substance-
material is, it cannot be any kind of substance. Aristotle wants to concede
that, understood this way, the premise is correct: it cannot be what it is
to be substance-material simply to be substance. However, Aristotle also
wants to insist that the fact that it is not in the very nature of substance-
material to be substance does not prevent concrete instances of substance
material from happening to be substance. It no more prevents this than
the fact that it is not in the nature of furniture-material to be furniture
would prevent concrete instances of furniture-material from happening to
be furniture (as they are when I make a chair from some materials which,
in addition to being materials for a chair, happen also to be a table).26
Moreover, when substance-material does happen to be a substance, there
is a way in which whatever comes to be from it will also come to be from
a substance. So, for example, suppose I build some furniture (a chair) from
material that happens to be furniture (a table) already. There is a way in
which the piece of furniture I build comes to be from furniture, inasmuch
as it comes to be from some material that happens to be furniture. In
Aristotle’s language, it comes to be from furniture “incidentally” – not
26
As we have seen, there is something that prevents substance-material from hap-
pening to be a substance of the specific kind it is to become (in this respect, substance
is no different from furniture). However, what prevents this is not the principle that
the material for coming-to-be cannot as such be anything it will become, but rather
the very different principle that the material for coming-to-be cannot even happen to
be the specific kind of thing it will become. (The first principle has to do with what
things come to be from unqualifiedly; the second has to do with what they can come
to be from even incidentally. The reason for the second principle is that if some mate-
rial happened already to be of the particular kind it was to become, this would be an
obstacle to its changing in the specific ways whereby things of that kind come to be
(see above, p. 342 and n. 20).)
346 SEAN KELSEY
qua furniture (furniture is not the kind of thing furniture comes from), but
qua furniture-material. Similarly, when a substance comes to be from
material that happens to be substance, then in a way it comes to be from
substance – not qua substance, but qua substance-material.
As before, I want to make three points about this second part of
Aristotle’s first solution. First, it is like the first part of the solution in that
it too speaks to the original problem by denying one of the conditions the
problem sets on what substance-material can be: this time, the condition
that substance-material cannot be anything it will become (191a30). Aristotle
concedes that this is a condition on the kind of thing substance-material
can be – on what substances can come to be from “unqualifiedly”
(191b13-14). That is, Aristotle concedes that it cannot be what it is to be
substance-material to be any kind of substance. (Indeed, if he did not
agree to this, the problem would have no grip on him.) However, despite
making this concession, Aristotle wants to deny that the principle “noth-
ing can become what it already is” is also a condition on what substance-
material can even happen to be – on what substances can come from even
“incidentally” (191b14-16). Aristotle says that there is a way in which
substances can come to be from substances. However, given that when
substances come to be, one of the things they become is a substance, this
is just to say that there is a way in which substances can come from some-
thing that already is one of the things it will become, namely a substance.
Substances can come from substances “incidentally,” and they do so
whenever the material that they do come to be from unqualifiedly also
happens to be substance. For example, if air and water are substances,
then air comes from a substance “incidentally” whenever the material that
it comes from unqualifiedly, in addition to being a certain kind of mate-
rial (call it “air-material”), happens also to be water.
The second point I want to make about this second part of Aristotle’s
solution is that it is like the first part in that it too is necessary for any
full resolution of the difficulties the original problem raises for him. Once
again this is because of Aristotle’s other commitments. For Aristotle, the
prospect of substance-material that does not also happen to be substance
presents us with two alternatives. First, since it is not any kind of sub-
stance, we could say that neither is it of any determinate quantity or qual-
ity and so on. Alternatively, despite the fact that it is not any kind of
substance, we could say that it is of a determinate quantity and so on,
though this quantity is not the quantity “of” any actual substance. Both
of these alternatives are unacceptable to Aristotle. He regards the first as
tantamount to allowing that substances come from nothing; he regards the
second as a repudiation of the doctrine that only substances are “separa-

ble” (xvristÒn). Since Aristotle finds both alternatives unacceptable, he
must and does insist that substance-material does always happen to be
some kind of substance.27 This in turn forces him to allow that, in a way,
it is possible for substances to come from substances, in apparent viola-
tion of the principle that nothing can become what it already is (in this
case, a substance). For Aristotle, substances must come from substances –
not insofar as the latter are substances, but “incidentally.” The reason for
this (again) is that substances alone are “separable.”
The third and final point I want to make is that this second part of
Aristotle’s solution also draws on material from Physics I 7, by exploit-
ing again the very move exploited in the solution’s first part. There
Aristotle allows that in a way things can come to be from “what is not,”
though he concedes that what they come from unqualifiedly must be the
sort of thing that underlies. Here he allows that in a way things can come
to be from “what is,” though he concedes that what they come from
unqualifiedly must not already be anything it is to become.
III.3. Second solution: dÊnamiw and §n°rgeia

So much then for the two parts of Aristotle’s first solution, which he
develops at length in Physics I 8. I now turn to discuss his second solu-
tion, which he mentions only in passing (191b27-29). Aristotle’s first solu-
tion tells us a lot about what kind of thing substance-material is not: it
tells us that it is not the nature of substance-material to be substance, and
that it is not its nature not to be substance, either. By the same token,
however, Aristotle’s first solution does not tell us anything about the kind
of thing substance-material is – about what substances come from
“unqualifiedly.” As I understand it, this is the question addressed by his
second solution.28
Aristotle does not spell out this second solution in any detail, but just
gives the distinction on which it turns: “it is possible to speak of the same
things in accordance with potentiality and with actuality” (191b28-29).
27
See GC I 3, 317b19-33, also De Cael. III 3, 302a7-9. It is a question whether
substance-material must always happen to be a single individual (e.g. an animal), or
whether it would be enough if it happened to be stuff of some substantial kind (e.g.
air or water). That depends on the requirements Aristotle places on being “separable”
(xvristÒn). I take no stand on that here. (For some discussion see Dancy 1978, 399ff.;
Kung 1978, 146ff.)
28
So also Aquinas, I.xiv.126ff.
348 SEAN KELSEY
I take it that these different ways of speaking are supposed to answer to

different ways of being one and the same kind of thing. So, for example,
consider seeds and plants (the example is taken from Phys. I 7, 190b3-5).
Obviously there is a way in which plants are plants. However, Aristotle
thinks there is also a way in which seeds are plants too. After all, it is
hard to see what other kind of thing seeds could be – certainly not ani-
mals or minerals! Nor are seeds their own kind of thing, seeds, as if
being a seed were on all fours with being a plant or animal or mineral.
Nor again is it as if seeds simply fall outside the Aristotelian scheme all
together, as if there were simply no saying what they are, because they
fail to exemplify any determinate kind. For Aristotle, seeds do exemplify
a determinate kind – they have a perfectly respectable place in the sys-
tem of nature. They have this place by exemplifying the kind plant – not
in actuality, but potentially. Moreover, Aristotle thinks, it is from precisely
this sort of thing – from what exemplifies the kind plant in this way –
that plants come to be unqualifiedly. That is, plants come from what are
plants potentially, not insofar as they happen not to be plants in actual-
ity, nor insofar as they happen to be some other kind of thing in actual-
ity (for example, a compound of the four elements), but just insofar as
they are, essentially, plants – not in actuality, but potentially. The same
is true for substances more generally. For Aristotle, substances come from
what are substances potentially, not insofar as they happen not to be sub-
stances (namely, of the particular kind they will become), nor insofar as
they happen already to be substances (namely, of some other kind), but
just insofar as they are, essentially, substances (namely, of the particular
kind they will become) – again, not in actuality, but potentially.
As before, I want to make three points about this second solution. First,
it speaks to the original problem by trying to show how both of the con-
ditions the problem places on what substances come from can be satisfied.
So long as being a substance potentially is enough to qualify something
as “underlying,” the idea that substances come from what is substance
potentially will satisfy the problem’s first condition, which is that the
material from which substances come to be should be the sort of thing
that “underlies.”29 So long as being a substance potentially is not ipso facto
29
Note that even if being a substance potentially is enough to make something
“underlie” (Ípoke›tai), it had better not be enough to make it “separable” (xvristÒn).
If it were, there would be no need for Aristotle to insist that in a way substances come
from substances, as he does in the first solution. For in that case there would be no
necessity that concrete instances of substance-material, in addition to being substance-
material, also happen to be substances in actuality.
enough to qualify something as a substance in actuality, the idea that sub-

stances come to be from what is substance potentially will also satisfy the
problem’s second condition, which is that substances come to be from
something that is not already (namely, in actuality) anything it is to become.30
Second, this second solution is also essential to any full resolution of
the difficulties the problem raises for Aristotle. Recall that Aristotle’s first
solution concedes that the conditions which the problem places on what
substances come from, though they do not constrain what substances can
come from incidentally, really do constrain what they can come from
“unqualifiedly.” Given this, Aristotle must think that there is a way to rec-
oncile these conditions; otherwise there would not be anything that sub-
stances come to be from unqualifiedly, in which case they simply would
not come to be at all. (This is the idea that what holds “incidentally” is
parasitic on what holds “unqualifiedly” or “per se,” for which see for
example Phys. II 3, 198a8-9.) So, Aristotle must find something that meets
both conditions, if he wants to settle fully and completely the difficulties
the problem raises. Moreover, given that he thinks only substances under-
lie, it is not easy to see how else he can do this except by positing a way
of being a substance that is enough to qualify something as underlying,
but not so much as to make it actually anything it is to become (and in
particular a substance). But to posit this just is to posit a distinction
between being a substance potentially and being a substance in actuality.
Finally, this second solution is like both parts of the first solution in
that it too draws on the account of the principles Aristotle presents in
Physics I 7. It is true that Aristotle does not there use the language of
potentiality and actuality. However, he does say that everything comes
from something “underlying,” and also that this underlying something is
substance, though not in the way that the “form” (tÚ e‰dow) is – that is,
not in the way that what it becomes is.31 But to characterize anything in
this way is to admit that there is another way of being a substance, inter-
mediate between being one fully and completely and not being one at
all. And to say that to be a substance in this other way is precisely what
30
To say that it is not the essence of something to be substance in actuality is not
to say that it is its essence not to be substance in actuality. (Were Aristotle’s view
that it is the essence of substance-material not to be substance in actuality, his view
would be open to the latter difficulties raised above in note 18.)
31
190b23-27, 191a8-13; cf. I 9, 192a3-6. Note that there is no objection to identi-
fying what matter becomes with tÚ e‰dow – pace Simplicius 240.5-10 – when “what”
it becomes is of a kind (toiÒnde).
350 SEAN KELSEY
it is to be the “underlying subject” from which substances come to be32 –

this just is the second solution, absent the language of potentiality and
actuality.
IV. A difficult passage

This completes my account of the solutions Aristotle offers to the prob-
lem about coming to be he discusses in Physics I 8. The account is dis-
tinctive in how much it has Aristotle concede to the original problem.
Most interpretations have Aristotle say, or at least leave room to say, that
things do come to be from something that “is” (not from themselves, but
from some other thing that is). That is, they have him say or leave room
to say that, strictly speaking, substances come to be from other substances
(for example, that air come to be from water or statues from bronze). By
contrast, the account developed above has Aristotle say that, strictly
speaking, nothing comes to be from anything that “is”; in particular, it has
him concede to the problem that strictly speaking substances cannot come
to be from substances – not even from different ones.
In part, this element of the interpretation developed here is motivated
by my understanding of the original problem. As I see it, the problem
turns on the principle that nothing can become what it already is – that
is, nothing can become any kind of thing it already is (not even the very
general kind, substance). Given this, I cannot have Aristotle solve the
problem by saying that substances come from other substances; that would
be for him to abandon the principle which explains why he finds the prob-
lem compelling in the first place. However, besides being dictated by my
understanding of the original problem, I believe that this element of the
present interpretation also fits the details of the passage in which Aristotle
presents the part of his solution which is addressed to the question of whether
“what is” can come to be from “what is” (191b17-27). Earlier I mentioned
that this is a difficult and controversial passage which has been interpreted
in a number of ways (Section III.2). Here I argue that the present account of
this part of Aristotle’s solution to the problem he discusses in Physics I 8
makes better sense of the passage’s details than any currently on offer.
32
Cf. the summary at 191a17-19: “from what we have just said it is clear . . . what
the underlying subject is” (§k t«n nËn fanerÚn . . . t¤ tÚ Ípoke¤menon). I take it the
reference is to 191a7-12, which begins with the remark that “the underlying nature is
knowable only by analogy” (≤ d¢ Ípokeim°nh fÊsiw §pisthtØ katÉ énalog¤an). That
is, it is only thus that we can say what it is.
The passage we are concerned with reads as follows:

And similarly [we too say that]33 neither is coming to be from what is nor yet
does what is come to be, except incidentally. But in this way even this happens,34
just as if (for example) animal should come from animal, that is, some particu-
lar animal from some particular animal, for example if dog should come from
horse.35 For the dog would come not only from some particular animal, but also
from animal, but not qua animal; for that belongs already. And if something is
going to become animal non-incidentally, it will not be from animal, and if what
is, not from what is. Nor yet from what is not; for we have said what “from what
is not” means, namely qua what is not. And further we are not doing away here
with the dictum “everything is or is not.” (191b17-27)
As I see it, the key to interpreting this passage correctly is to preserve the
parallelism – a parallelism for which Aristotle himself prepares us –
between its treatment of “what is” and Aristotle’s earlier treatment of
“what is not” (see 191a34-b4, 17, reinforced at b24-25). In the earlier
treatment of “what is not,” Aristotle concedes that strictly speaking noth-
ing comes from “what is not,” and then objects that in another way things
do come to be from what is not, namely incidentally. Here then we expect
him in parallel fashion first to concede that strictly speaking nothing
comes from “what is,” and then to object that in another way things do
come to be from what is, namely incidentally. In my view, this is exactly
what he does do. However, it is generally felt that there are obstacles to
taking the passage in this way, so that it parallels Aristotle’s earlier treat-
ment of coming to be from “what is not.” In what follows I first try to
remove these obstacles; I then offer a new reading of the passage which
leaves the expected parallelism intact.
33
Supplied because the clause still depends on the ≤me›w d¢ ka‹ aÈto¤ famen at
191b13 (thus Ross 1936, 495 ad 191b17-18).
34
“even this happens” (ka‹ toËto g¤gnesyai). This could also be translated “even
this [sc. tÚ ¯n] comes to be.”
35
“for example if dog should come from horse.” This is bizarre, and Ross (fol-
lowing Laas) emends the text to read: “for example if dog should come [from dog or
horse] from horse.” Read this way, and interpreted as Ross intends, the situation we
are being asked to envisage is the perfectly ordinary one of dogs begetting dogs and
horses begetting horses. However, this is not at all suited to the context (it also makes
it difficult to explain the optative). Here I follow the text as given in the mss. (so also
recently Loux 1992 and Horstschäfer 1998).
352 SEAN KELSEY
IV.1. Removing the obstacles

The obstacles to reading our passage in the way I propose are essentially
two. The first obstacle is textual and it comes right at the beginning of
the passage:
And similarly [we too say that] [i] neither is coming to be from what is nor yet
[ii] does what is come to be, except incidentally. (191b17-18)
In this opening Aristotle appears to be making two points. The first is

that nothing comes to be from “what is” – that is, that “what is” is not
coming-to-be’s terminus a quo. This is the point we were expecting and
it clearly parallels Aristotle’s earlier concession that nothing comes to be
from “what is not.” The second point is that “what is” does not come to
be. This is usually interpreted to mean that there is no coming to be of
“what is” – that is, that “what is” is not coming-to-be’s terminus ad quem.
Interpreted this way, this second point is not a point we were expecting;
it has no parallel in the earlier discussion, where Aristotle simply does not
consider whether anything could become “what is not” – whether “what
is not” could be coming-to-be’s terminus ad quem. On the face of it, then,
Aristotle’s treatment of “what is” appears to diverge from his treatment
of “what is not” right at the very outset.
In fact this appearance can be dispelled easily enough. It is true that it
is natural to read the opening of our passage as saying that “what is” can-
not play the role in coming to be of either the terminus a quo or the ter-
minus ad quem. However, it is also natural to read this opening in another
way, as saying only that “what is” cannot play the role of terminus a quo.
To see this, remember that in Physics I 7 Aristotle says that we speak of
the terminus a quo of coming to be in two ways, both as “what coming
to be is from” and as “what comes to be” (190a5-6, 21f.). (For example,
we speak of it as “what coming to be is from” when we say that the
knowledgeable come to be from the ignorant; we speak of it as “what
comes to be” when we say that the ignorant come to be knowledgeable.)
Second, note that Aristotle himself speaks of the terminus a quo in both
of these ways earlier in Physics I 8, in his very statement of the original
problem. There he says that nothing can come to be “from what is” (§j
ˆntow), because it is impossible for “what is to come to be” (oÎte går tÚ
¯n g¤gnesyai) (191a28-30); here the context makes clear that when he says
that it is impossible for “what is to come to be,” what he means is that
it is impossible for “what is” to be the terminus a quo. Taken together,
these considerations positively invite us to take the opening of our passage
likewise as speaking, not about both the terminus a quo and the terminus
ad quem, but rather about only the terminus a quo. Read this way, our
opening says that regardless of how we refer to the terminus a quo –
whether as “what the coming to be is from” or as “what does the coming
to be” – it is not in any case something that “is.”36 This reading has the
advantage over the usual one in that it preserves the expected parallelism
between the present treatment of “what is” and Aristotle’s earlier treat-
ment of “what is not.”
So much for the first, textual obstacle to reading our passage in a way
that preserves the parallelism with Aristotle’s earlier treatment of “what
is not.” The second obstacle is more philosophical. Many commentators
are taken aback by Aristotle’s concession that nothing comes to be from
“what is” and look for ways to explain it away. “Isn’t it precisely his
view,” they reason, “that things do come to be from what is? Doesn’t he
think that things come to be from matter, and that matter is something
that is? After all, matter is hardly something that is not – that honor goes
to privation (see Phys. I 8, 191b15-16). What else is there for it to be,
then, except something that is?” This is a natural line of thought and I
think it can be seen behind many readings of our passage.37 Here I give
four examples by way of illustration. [1] The sense of “from” in which
Aristotle concedes that nothing comes to be from “what is” is not the same
as that in which he conceded earlier that nothing comes to be from “what
is not.” There he had in mind the sense of “from” in which things come
to be from matter, while here he has in mind the sense in which they come
to be from privation; in the sense of “from” in which he thinks everything
comes from matter, Aristotle does not concede that nothing comes from
“what is.”38 [2] When Aristotle concedes that nothing comes to be from
either what is or what is not, the sense of “from” he has in mind is the
same in both places (this is by contrast with reading [1]); however the
sense of “from” he has in mind is a “fused” sense – the sense in which
things come to be “from” both matter and privation. The reason Aristotle
concedes that nothing comes to be either from “what is” or from “what
is not” is that, in this fused sense of “from,” everything comes from both;
in the sense of “from” in which everything comes to be from matter alone,
36
So also Ross, who translates: “and similarly we deny that anything comes into
being out of the existent or that the existent comes to be anything” (Ross 1936, 495
ad 191b17-18).
37
I find it explicit in Lewis 1991, 230ff. and Loux 1992, 308.
38
Cf. Mansion 1946, 76.
354 SEAN KELSEY
Aristotle never concedes that nothing comes to be from “what is.”39

[3] The sense of “from” is the same in both places and in both places it is
the sense in which things come to be from matter alone. But where before
the point was that “what is not” cannot be coming-to-be’s terminus a quo,
here the point is that “what is” cannot be its terminus ad quem; Aristotle
never does say that “what is” cannot be coming-to-be’s terminus a quo.40
[4] Aristotle does say that “what is” cannot be coming-to-be’s terminus a
quo (and also that it cannot be its terminus ad quem). But he does not
mean that things that “are” do not come to be from things that “are” (from
other ones). What he means is that things that are do not come to be from
things that are just and precisely insofar as they “are.” This does not pre-
vent him from holding that particular things that are come to be from other
things that are qua the particular things that they are (for example, that
air comes to be from water, not qua “being,” but qua water).41
All these readings try to soften or explain away Aristotle’s concession
that nothing comes to be from what is. But though some may find this
desirable philosophically, it is hardly required as a matter of interpreta-
tion. It is true that Aristotle thinks that strictly speaking everything comes
from matter, and that matter is something that “is” – to a degree. Matter
is “more” something that is than privation is; unlike privation, it “is” and
is “one”; unlike privation, it is “near” being and in a way is substance,
and not merely incidentally (Phys. I 7, 190b25-27, 191a7-14; I 9, 192a3-6).
However, Aristotle emphatically does not think that matter is any of these
things in the way that what it will become is – as he puts it in Physics I
7, in the way that oÈs¤a and tÒde ti and tÚ ˆn are (191a7-12). Indeed,
supposing that he did think that matter was all these things in the way
that what it becomes is, it then becomes very hard to see why he
feels that he must posit two ways of being substance, “potentially” and
“in actuality,” such that to be substance in the former way is to be “more”
substance than privation (which is substance oÈdam«w, in no way), but
not so much as substances themselves (as oÈs¤a and tÒde ti and tÚ ˆn)
39
Cf. Lewis 1991, 233, 239-40. Lewis says that his own reading does involve
a shift in senses of “from,” though one that is “harmless” and “unobjectionable”
(233, 240). I do not see why this has to be so. He should be able to use the idea of
a “fused” or “mixed” sense of “from” to avoid having to posit a switch, at least within
Physics I 8.
40
Cf. Waterlow 1982, 17-18 and n.13.
41
So in effect Simplicius 240.5-7; Solmsen 1960, 76 n.8; Wagner 1967, 440;
Charlton 1970, 80; Loux 1992, 312-17; Horstschäfer 1998, 412-20.
(Phys. I 8, 191b27-29; I 7, 190b25-27; I 9, 192a3-6; I 7, 191a7-14). This

is a position that gets him into difficulties, even by his own lights (see
especially GC I 3, 317b13-33). Why would Aristotle occupy this position,
if he thought it enough to say that substances come to be from other
substances?
These considerations remove the second obstacle to reading the passage
in a way that I propose. There is nothing in Aristotle’s own remarks about
matter that requires us to save him from the concession that nothing comes
to be from “what is.”
IV.2. A new reading

It remains to see how to read our passage in a way that does preserve the
expected parallelism between Aristotle’s treatments of “what is” and
“what is not.” I will take it in three pieces.
First comes the opening, which reads again as follows:
And similarly [we too say that] neither is coming to be from what is, nor yet
does what is come to be, except incidentally. (191b17-18)
I propose to take this in the second of the two ways considered above, as
saying that no matter how the terminus a quo is characterized – whether
as “what the coming to be is from” or as “what does the coming to be” –
it is not something that “is” (except incidentally). On this reading every-
thing so far is just as we expect: Aristotle concedes that strictly speaking
nothing comes to be from what is and then immediately objects that in
another way things do come to be from what is, namely incidentally.
The passage continues with an illustration asking us to consider how it
would be if animals came to be from animals, for example if dogs came
to be from horses:
But in this way even this happens, in the same way as if (for example) animal
should come from animal, that is, some particular animal from some particular
animal, for example if dog should come from horse. (191b18-21)
What exactly are we being asked to envisage here? As I understand it,

Aristotle thinks that, in the actual world, substances come to be from
something that, in addition to being “substance-material,” also happens to
be substance; for example, he thinks that air comes to be from something
that, in addition to being “air-material,” also happens to be (say) water or
fire. Since the case we are being asked to envisage is supposed to illus-
trate this, it is presumably a case in which animals come to be from things
356 SEAN KELSEY
that, in addition to being “animal-material,” also happen to be animals:

for example, a case in which dogs come to be from things that, in addition
to being “dog-material,” also happen to be horses. Aristotle continues:
For [i] the dog would come not only from some particular animal, but also from
animal, but [ii] not qua animal; for that belongs already. (191b21-23)
Here Aristotle makes two points, one corresponding to each of the points
he made in the opening of our passage and which he is now trying to
illustrate. The first point is that if there were a way in which dogs came
to be from horses, there would also be a way in which they came to be
from animals (after all, there would be a way in which they came to be
from horses, and horses are animals). This first point corresponds to
Aristotle’s objection to the original problem, which was that there is a
way in which things do come to be from “what is” (namely, incidentally).
The second point is that if there were a way in which dogs came to be
from horses, and therefore from animals, nevertheless dogs would not
come to be from horses “qua animal.” (Remember that, in the case envis-
aged, neither would they come from horses “qua horse” – the case we are
envisaging is one in which dogs come to be from horses incidentally.)42
This second point corresponds to Aristotle’s concession to the original
problem, which was that nothing comes to be from what is “qua thing
that is.”43 With these points in hand, Aristotle then closes the illustration
by making its relation to the original problem explicit: “And if something
is going to become animal non-incidentally, it will not be from animal,
and if what is, not from what is” (191b23-25).
Third and finally our passage is brought to a close with two conclud-
ing remarks:
42
Most commentators take Aristotle to be envisaging a case in which dogs came
from horses qua horse (an exception is Philoponus, at 180.10-16). As I see it, this is
excluded by his contention that they would not come from horses qua animal. (After
all, horses do not just happen to be animals, they are a kind of animal.) Loux sees
this objection, though in the end he decides to live with it (Loux 1991, 314).
43
Note that the reason Aristotle gives for the second point – “that belongs already,”
(191b22-23) – echoes the reason he gives earlier for saying that nothing can come
from “what is,” namely that “it is already,” (191a30) (so also Horstschäfer 1998, 414
n.46). (Ross is led into difficulties here, because he is worried that “it does not give
a good sense to say ‘a dog would come into being from an animal, but not from an
animal qua animal; for that is already present’” (Ross 1936, 496). The fact is that it
makes as much sense to say here that animals cannot become animals because they
already are animals as it did to say earlier that beings cannot become beings because
they already are beings.)
[i] Nor yet [will what is come to be] from what is not; for we have said what
“from what is not” means, namely qua what is not. And further [ii] we are not
doing away here with the dictum “everything is or is not.” (191b25-27)
The first remark – that neither does “what is” come to be from “what is
not” – simply repeats the concession Aristotle made earlier in the first part
of his first solution; in so doing, it reinforces the idea that his treatments
of “what is” and “what is not” are meant to proceed in parallel. The sec-
ond remark assures us that, in denying that anything comes to be either
from what is or from what is not, we have not violated the dictum that
everything is one or the other. The reason Aristotle thinks he can offer
this assurance is that he has just been saying that in a way, incidentally,
substances do come to be both from what is and from what is not: from
what happens to be a substance of some kind, and from what happens not
to be a substance of the specific kind it is to become. The reason he thinks
he should offer this assurance – the reason the reader should find it
welcome – is that he has also just been saying that strictly speaking sub-
stances do not come to be from either.
In closing I want to make two points about the reading of our passage
(191b17-27) developed in this section. The first point is that this reading
makes Aristotle’s treatment of “what is” respect the principle on which I
have suggested the problem turns, by having him concede that, strictly
speaking, things that “are” do not come to be from anything that “is” (not
even from different things that are) – any more than, in the case Aristotle
asks us to envisage, animals would come to be from animals (even from
different ones). In the case Aristotle asks us to envisage, animals would
come to be from animals, not strictly speaking, but only incidentally. The
second point I want to make is that the reading developed here makes
Aristotle’s treatment of “what is” exactly parallel to his earlier treatment
of “what is not.” It is in this respect especially that I think it fits the details
of our passage better than other readings currently on offer.44
44
The parallelism might be preserved by a version of reading [2], which has
Aristotle operating with a “fused” sense of the preposition “from” (see note 39 above).
But such a reading is objectionable on other grounds. There is nothing in Physics I 8
to suggest that Aristotle thinks that it is only incidentally that things come to be from
matter alone. Moreover, in Physics I 7 Aristotle says explicitly that, by contrast with
privation, things come to be from matter non-incidentally (190b23-27).
358 SEAN KELSEY
Conclusion
In this paper I have presented a reading of the problem Aristotle discusses
in Physics I 8 and of the solutions whereby he thinks the difficulties
it raises can be resolved. I have not argued that this is the only reading
possible. Still, I have shown how this reading would explain why Aristotle
would find the problem compelling, and also why he would think that the
difficulties it raises cannot be completely resolved except by the solution(s)
he proposes, and also how these solutions draw on his account of the prin-
ciples in Physics I 7, and also how this reading allows us to make sense
of a difficult and controversial passage, neatly and seamlessly. These are
the reading’s virtues and they do add up to an argument for it – in my
view a powerful one.
The central and guiding innovation of this reading is the idea that the
principle on which the problem turns, that “nothing can become what it
already is,” is a principle about kinds. It is this idea that explains why the
difficulties the problem raises are so acute for Aristotle and why he must
think they can only be resolved in the specific ways he proposes.45 Now,
many readers will find this principle very implausible. It is certainly not
the seeming tautology about individuals on which the problem is often
thought to turn. Indeed, some may find it so implausible as to raise a con-
cern that if I have been able to explain why the problem has some pur-
chase on Aristotle, this is only because I have not been afraid to saddle
him with an absurdity (nothing hard about that). I hope that upon
reflection this concern will seem unwarranted. It is true that, in the hands
of some thinkers, the principle is very rigid, with powerful and counter-
intuitive consequences: certainly that there is no coming to be of sub-
stance, perhaps that there is no coming to be of anything (no change of
any kind). However, in Aristotle’s hands the principle is very supple. It
can allow that substances come to be from substances in a way, namely
“incidentally” ( just as it can allow that, in a way, furniture sometimes
comes to be from furniture, as when I make a chair from a table). In this
way the principle does not require that if substances come to be, they must
do so from what is nothing at all – a requirement that would effectively
rule out that substances ever come to be. At the same time, this flexibility
45
I take for granted some familiar Aristotelian theses about substance, e.g. that they
come to be by way of specific kinds of accidental change, and that only substances
are “separable” (xvristÒn), and that only substances “underlie” (Ípoke›tai). I also
take for granted the dependence of what holds only incidentally on what holds
unqualifiedly.
notwithstanding, the principle remains powerful enough to constrain

Aristotle’s philosophy in fundamental ways. Specifically, it forces him to
make a fundamental distinction between potentiality and actuality, as the
only way to say what kind of thing substances do come to be from.46
It remains a question why Aristotle finds it natural to accept such a
principle (and not just Aristotle, but his predecessors as well). My suspi-
cion is that, at least in Aristotle’s case, this has something to do with how
he thinks about what it is for things to be what they are. Consider the fol-
lowing analogy. Suppose someone took the view, contrary to the principle,
that it was in the nature of experts to become experts: for example, of
doctors to become builders. Suppose further that they took this to mean
something like the following, that if your career as a doctor went well,
then one of the things you would do is become a builder, or in other
words, that becoming a builder partly constitutes success as a doctor.
There is a kind of tension in such a view. On the one hand, it treats med-
icine and construction as if each were a fully-fledged kind of expertise in
its own right – coordinate species under a single genus. On the other hand,
it also says that part of what it is to be a good practitioner of the one is
eventually to become a practitioner of the other. This makes it sound as
if medicine and construction were not coordinate species under a single
genus, but rather different levels or degrees one might attain in the prac-
tice of a single expertise. My suspicion is that this is something like the
way in which Aristotle hears the view that substances come to be strictly
speaking from other substances: for example, that air comes to be strictly
speaking from water. For Aristotle, this would mean that part of what it
is for water to succeed at being water is precisely for it to turn into some
other kind of thing, namely air. This would be problematic, not merely
because becoming air necessarily spells destruction for water – becoming
a builder does not necessarily spell destruction for a doctor – but also
because it is in tension with the idea that both water and air already are
perfectly good, fully-fledged kinds of substance in the first place.47
If that is right, it suggests that the reason Aristotle thinks that “nothing
can become what it already is” has something to do with his conceiving
46
We should not be too quick to assume that this is just hitting the problem with
jargon. Let’s leave aside for a moment the principle that requires Aristotle to invoke
the distinction here. Do we really want to try to say what kind of thing seeds are with-
out some such distinction at our disposal? (This is not to say we should accept the
distinction, but just that there is an intuitive cost to doing without it.)
47
If they were not, but water stood to air e.g. as acorn stands to oak tree, then
becoming air would not be the destruction of water. For in that case the kind of thing
360 SEAN KELSEY
of what it is for things to be what they are in fundamentally normative

terms. But really this is just a suspicion. My intention in this paper has
not been to explain why Aristotle accepts this principle, but just to bring
this question into focus.48
Department of Philosophy
University of California, Los Angeles
Works Cited
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. In Octo Libros Physicorum Aristotelis Expositio. Ed. P. M.
Maggiòlo, O.P. Rome: Marietti, 1954.
Charlton, William. 1970. Aristotle’s Physics Books I-II. Clarendon Aristotle Series.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Code, Alan. 1976. “Aristotle’s Response to Quine’s Objections to Modal Logic.”
Journal of Philosophical Logic 5: 159-86.
Dancy, Russell. 1978. “On Some of Aristotle’s Second Thoughts about Substances:
Matter.” Philosophical Review 87: 372-413.
Graham, Daniel W. 1987. Aristotle’s Two Systems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Horstschäfer, Titus Maria. 1998. Über Prinzipien: Eine Untersuchung zur Metho-
dischen und Inhaltlichen Geschlossenheit des ersten Buches der Physik des Aristoteles.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Kung, Joan. 1978. “Can Substance Be Predicated of Matter?” Archiv für Geschichte
der Philosophie 60: 140-59.
Lewis, Frank A. 1991. Substance and Predication in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Loux, Michael J. 1992. “Aristotle and Parmenides: An Interpretation of Physics A8.”
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 8: 281-319.
Mansion, Augustin. 1946. Introduction a la Physique Aristotélicienne. 2nd edn.,
revised and expanded. Paris: J. Vrin.
Owen, G. E. L. 1978-9. “Particular and General.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 79: 1-21. Reprinted in M. Nussbaum (ed.), G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science,
and Dialectic (Ithaca, 1986), 279-94.
Philoponus, John. In Aristotelis Physicorum Libros Tres Priores Commentaria. Ed.
H. Vitelli. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. XVI. Berlin: G. Reimer,
1887.
water is would be air (sc. potentially), in which case its becoming air would spell not
its destruction as a thing of that kind, but rather its fulfillment.
48
For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I would like to thank Joseph
Almog, Andreas Anagnostopoulos, Jonathan Beere, Tyler Burge, John Carriero, John
Cooper, Verity Harte, Errol Katayama, Gavin Lawrence, Stephen Menn, Michael Pakaluk,
John Palmer, David Sedley, Allan Silverman and Matthew Walz. In addition I would
like especially to thank Pamela Hieronymi, for many hours of conversation about the
material in this paper, and David Ebrey, not least for his extensive written comments
on several earlier drafts. The paper’s remaining faults are of course my own.
Ross, W. D. 1936. Aristotle’s Physics. A revised text with introduction and commen-
tary by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Solmsen, Friedrich. 1960. Aristotle’s System of the Physical World. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Simplicius. In Aristotelis Physicorum Libros Quattuor Priores Commentaria. Ed.
H. Diels. In Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, vol. IX. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882.
Wagner, Hans. 1967. Aristoteles Physikvorlesung. In E. Grumach (ed.), Aristoteles,
Werke in deutscher Übersetzung, Bd. 11. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Waterlow, Sarah. 1982. Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Wieland, Wolfgang. 1970. Die Aristotelische Physik. 2nd edn. Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck and Ruprecht.

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Physics I 8 is given to a problem about the possibility of coming to be

Accepted January 2006

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Phronesis LI/4

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 331

thinks the problem is pretty difficult, a suggestion which is confirmed by

332 SEAN KELSEY

in the case of each I first offer an interpretation of what the solution is

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 333

334 SEAN KELSEY

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 335

II. A new reading

336 SEAN KELSEY

appealing to a different principle, that nothing can become the kind of

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 337

338 SEAN KELSEY

III. Aristotle’s solution(s)

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 339

certain conditions on what substances come from – call this “substance-

III.1. First solution, first part: genesis from “what is not”

340 SEAN KELSEY

understood in the “strictest” or “most proper” way (mãlista kur¤vw), but

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 341

be from some material that happens not to be furniture. In Aristotle’s

342 SEAN KELSEY

“incidentally” (191b14-16). Aristotle says that there is a way in which

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 343

344 SEAN KELSEY

that, in a way, incidentally, the principles are opposites, inasmuch as the

III.2. First solution, second part: genesis from “what is”

reasons subsequently retracted or modified). My suspicion is that the reason Aristotle

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 345

“unqualifiedly,” or “qua what is.” Understood another way, it says that

346 SEAN KELSEY

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 347

second as a repudiation of the doctrine that only substances are “separa-

III.3. Second solution: dÊnamiw and §n°rgeia

348 SEAN KELSEY

I take it that these different ways of speaking are supposed to answer to

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 349

enough to qualify something as a substance in actuality, the idea that sub-

350 SEAN KELSEY

it is to be the “underlying subject” from which substances come to be32 –

IV. A difficult passage

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 351

The passage we are concerned with reads as follows:

352 SEAN KELSEY

IV.1. Removing the obstacles

In this opening Aristotle appears to be making two points. The first is

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 353

354 SEAN KELSEY

Aristotle never concedes that nothing comes to be from “what is.”39

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 355

(Phys. I 8, 191b27-29; I 7, 190b25-27; I 9, 192a3-6; I 7, 191a7-14). This

IV.2. A new reading

What exactly are we being asked to envisage here? As I understand it,

356 SEAN KELSEY

that, in addition to being “animal-material,” also happen to be animals:

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 357

358 SEAN KELSEY

ARISTOTLE PHYSICS I 8 359

notwithstanding, the principle remains powerful enough to constrain

360 SEAN KELSEY