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Aristotle - Metaphysics
Atec Февраль 16 2008 19:57:08
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3
Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for
we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first
cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we
mean the substance, i.e. the essence (for the 'why' is reducible
finally to the definition, and the ultimate 'why' is a cause and
principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third the source
of the change, and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the
purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and
change). We have studied these causes sufficiently in our work on
nature, but yet let us call to our aid those who have attacked the
investigation of being and philosophized about reality before us.
For obviously they too speak of certain principles and causes; to go
over their views, then, will be of profit to the present inquiry,
for we shall either find another kind of cause, or be more convinced
of the correctness of those which we now maintain.
Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which
were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things.
That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they
come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance
remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the
element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think
nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is
always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely
when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when
loses these characteristics, because the substratum, Socrates
himself remains
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