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Aristotle - Metaphysics
Atec Февраль 16 2008 19:57:08
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. But we must articulate our
meaning before we begin to inquire; if not, the inquiry is on the
border-line between being a search for something and a search for
nothing. Since we must have the existence of the thing as something
given, clearly the question is why the matter is some definite
thing; e.g. why are these materials a house? Because that which was
the essence of a house is present. And why is this individual thing,
or this body having this form, a man? Therefore what we seek is the
cause, i.e. the form, by reason of which the matter is some definite
thing; and this is the substance of the thing. Evidently, then, in the
case of simple terms no inquiry nor teaching is possible; our attitude
towards such things is other than that of inquiry.
Since that which is compounded out of something so that the
whole is one, not like a heap but like a syllable-now the syllable
is not its elements, ba is not the same as b and a, nor is flesh
fire and earth (for when these are separated the wholes, i.e. the
flesh and the syllable, no longer exist, but the elements of the
syllable exist, and so do fire and earth); the syllable, then, is
something-not only its elements (the vowel and the consonant) but also
something else, and the flesh is not only fire and earth or the hot
and the cold, but also something else:-if, then, that something must
itself be either an element or composed of elements, (1) if it is an
element the same argument will again apply; for flesh will consist
of this and fire and earth and something still further, so that the
process will go on to infinity
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