Aristotle on the matter of corpses in Metaphysics H5

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1 Aristotle on the matter of corpses in Metaphysics H5 Alan Code (I) An Alleged Difficulty for Aristotle s Conception of Matter Aristotle s Metaphysics employs a conception of matter for generated items according to which the matter of an X is something that exists before the X, and is that from which the X comes-to-be. 1 Furthermore, for Aristotle there are both actual beings and potential beings, and the matter for an X is a potential X. The matter for a horse, for instance, is a potential horse. The potential horse might never become an actual horse, but if and when it does, it does so because the matter (i.e., the potential horse) possesses the form of a horse. When the form is present to the matter, this potential horse constitutes an actual horse. In De Anima, II.1, his hylomorphic analysis of sublunary living substances treats the matter, or what is potentially living a horse s life, as organic body, 2 and the form that makes the matter an actual horse is described as the first actuality of such a body. 3 The body is what is potentially alive. However, John Ackrill and others 4 have argued that according to this conception of the body of a living thing, the body is not alive merely contingently. This would seem to contradict the thesis from the Metaphysics that the matter for a living substance is a potential F that exists before that substance does. Ackrill argues that the body that is potentially 1 See, for instance, Metaphysics Z7, 1032b a1, with a a27-b a See Ackrill 1972 and Frey

2 alive is not able to exist after the death of the plant or animal of which it is the body. One of the texts adduced in support of this view is: We must not understand by that which is potentially capable of living what has lost the soul it had, but only what still retains it; but seeds and fruits are bodies which are potentially of that sort. 5 The corpse of a horse that has died has no capacity to be brought back to life. Neither it, nor the parts of which it is composed, are potentially living an equine life. This is thought to support the views that whatever it is that remains after the horse has died is not an organic body that served as its matter, and that the matter for a horse cannot exist after the death of the horse. What is this organic body? Commentators often have often understood it to be a body having organs. Ackrill, for instance, writes as follows: Aristotle characterises the animal s body as potentially alive and as having organs such organs, clearly, as eyes, hands, heart, etc. 6 If an organic body is a body having non-uniform organs such as these, then since these kinds of organs cannot exist without soul, 7 it would follow that 5 De Anima II.1, 412b25-27, from The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. 6 p See Metaphysics Z11, 1036b Something is not a hand (except homonymously) without soul, since without soul it would not be able to perform the function of a hand. His view is not simply that a hand is not a part of a man if it is not ensouled, and hence unable to perform the function of a hand. This would incorrectly leave open the possibility that some hand that is now a part of a human could at a later time exist without soul, though in that case it would no longer be a part of man. However, the hand that is currently a part of some human cannot exist when the man dies, or when it is severed 2

3 the organic body itself cannot exist without soul. This would effectively block the possibility that an organic body of the relevant sort could be potentially alive only contingently. Since the animal itself has organs such as eyes and the like, on such a view it is hard to see how Aristotle could distinguish the animal from its body. If the organic body cannot exist without its non-uniform parts, and these cannot exist without soul, then it cannot exist after the death of the horse. Equally, it would not exist prior to the animal either, and so it is able to exist at all and only those times at which the composite substance exists. Since an animal s organic body is its matter, this requires that the matter exists only when the composite itself exists. Additionally, as the body that potentially has life, the matter of an animal exists only when that potentially is realized. (II) Two Aristotelian Puzzles about Matter Having claimed that there is matter only for things that are generated and that change into one another, Aristotle raises two puzzles about the matter for such changes. The first is a puzzle about the manner in which that matter is related to contraries. Suppose that sickness and health are contraries and that the body is the matter that is potentially healthy. Is the body also potentially sick? Likewise, if water is the matter for wine and is potentially wine, is it also potentially vinegar? from the body. A dead hand, or severed hand, is not the same entity as the living hand. It is a hand in name only. We can see the same view in Meteorology IV.12: 329b31-330a2. 3

4 Aristotle does not develop the puzzle before answering it, but let us pause to consider why it might seem problematic to treat the body as potentially sick or the water as potentially vinegar. Suppose that makes something potentially F in the first place is the possession of a dunamis or capacity. Just as an eye potentially sees because it possesses sight, the capacity to see, a body is potentially healthy because it possesses a certain capacity -- a capacity to be healthy. This is a capacity to receive a certain form. Furthermore, if the matter that is potentially healthy also is potentially sick, and being potentially F always requires an appropriate dunamis by reference to which something is potentially F, then if it is potentially sick it must also have some dunamis or capacity to be sick. But is this the right way to look at the situation? The human body has an ability to be in a healthy condition, and being healthy is the exercise of that ability. However, there is not some other ability that it also has, the exercise of which constitutes its being sick. However, lacking such an ability, how is it that it can be potentially sick? His answer involves distinguishing a form and a corresponding privative condition, or sterêsis. Health is a form and also what he calls a hexis, a state or condition that the body is in when we call it healthy. A body is spoken of as potentially healthy because of its relation to this state. It has the ability to be in that state. However, illness is not some other form or hexis that a body might be in, but rather is the privation of that condition in the kind of body that is of such a nature to be receptive of health. This privation is not merely the absence of health in the 4

5 body, but is the destruction (or, I would suggest, rather the result of the destruction) of health in a body. 8 Additionally, he describes the destruction as against the nature. There are two ways one might take this, according to whether the nature in question is the nature of the body or the nature of health, but arguably they come to the same thing. Health is the good condition of the body, and as such this is a natural condition of the body. The privation of health is contrary to this good condition, and so is against both the nature of the body and the nature of health. Despite the fact that wine and vinegar are not opposites in the way that health and sickness are, he cites this as another instance of the puzzle as to how matter is related to opposites, and the same kind of solution is supposed to apply here as well. Hence water is wine by virtue of the possession of a form and a positive state or condition that water is able to possess. In accordance with his solution to the puzzle, water is vinegar not by possessing the form of vinegar, for there is no such form. It is rather that water is vinegar due to the destruction of the form of wine. As a result of this destruction the water is characterized by privation or lack of a form. Additionally, this destruction is against the nature--either the nature of the form or the nature of water. If this is parallel to the other case, then the form of wine would be a good condition for which water is naturally suited, and as such a natural condition of water. The privation is not simply the absence 8 This would seem to rule out the possibility that something could be chronically ill from birth. A diseased state requires some kind of falling away from a good condition, even if that good condition is merely some part of health, as opposed to its entirety. 5

6 of this good condition, but is the condition that water is in as a result of that form having been destroyed in that water. Aristotle immediately raises a second puzzle about the matter for such things as follows: and there is also a certain puzzle as to why wine is not the matter of vinegar nor potentially vinegar (and yet vinegar comes to be from it) and why a living thing is not potentially a corpse. 9 Just as wine passes away into vinegar, so too an animal passes away into a corpse. What once was wine is no longer wine, but has become vinegar; likewise what once was a living thing is no longer alive and has become a corpse. There is something X that once was wine and now is vinegar; likewise, there is something Y that once was a living animal and now is just a corpse. In each case the passing away of one thing is the coming to be of something else. The argument is this: (1) a) Vinegar comes to be from the matter of vinegar and what is potentially vinegar. b) A corpse comes to be from the matter of a corpse and what is potentially a corpse. (2) a) Vinegar comes to be from wine. b) A corpse comes to be from a living thing. 9 Metaphysics VIII. 5, 1044b

7 So: (3) a) Wine is the matter of vinegar and potentially vinegar. b) A living thing is the matter of a corpse and potentially a corpse. This is problematic if there is reason to accept the premises as true and yet reject the conclusion as false. The first premise embodies the idea sketched in the first paragraph of this paper that whenever an F comes into being, it comes into being from something X that already exists. Elsewhere Aristotle discusses various uses of the expression from which, and distinguishes the sense in which something comes to be from a lack or privation from a sense in which it comes to be from something that which persists through the change. For instance, in Physics I.7 he tells us that we can use the from which locution in connection with the privation or the form, as when we say such things as that the musical comes to be from the unmusical. In those cases in which that from which something comes to be is designated by reference to a form or its privation, that from which the product comes to be is not something that persists. However, there are also cases in which an item described as that from which a product comes to be does persist. 10 In those cases this persisting item is neither privation nor form, but rather is the matter that at successive times is characterized by possession of form and the corresponding privation. This second aporia arises only if the expression from which is used in the same way in both premises. Thus 10 See Metaph. VII.7,1033a5-23 and Physics I.7,190a

8 one could solve the puzzle by showing that there is no single reading of the locution from which that makes both of our premises 1ab and 2ab true. In accordance with the solution to our first aporia we may say that this matter is both potentially F and potentially deprived of F. In general, prior to the coming to be of an F there must be some X that is potentially F but not yet F. Prior to the coming to be of vinegar there is something that is not yet vinegar, but is potentially vinegar; prior to the production of a corpse there is something that is not yet a corpse but is potentially a corpse. Additionally, the destruction of a G requires that there is something that prior to the destruction is G, but is no longer G. Suppose that the living thing in question is a horse. Prior to the destruction of the horse there is some Y that is a horse, but is potentially not horse. This Y is something that exists before the corpse is produced, and at that prior time this Y was a horse. It is also something that continues to exist even after the horse has died, and when that Y is no longer a horse Y is a corpse. In both of these cases something has perished and what has perished did not persist through the change. What persists is rather some matter that is potentially characterized both by a form and a privation of that form. (III) Aristotle s Solution and Accidental Destruction Here is how Aristotle explains why the wine is not potentially vinegar and the living thing is not potentially a corpse: In fact they are not, but the corruptions in question are accidental, and it is the matter of the animal that is itself in virtue of its corruption the 8

9 potency and matter of a corpse, and it is water that is the matter of vinegar. 11 In each case something passes away, and the item that passes away does not persist through the change. The item that passes away is not the matter that is potentially vinegar or a corpse, respectively. When he says that the corruptions are accidental he does not mean that it is merely an accident that wine turns into vinegar or that living things become dead things. Rather he is making that point that the item that the change is accidental with respect to is the substratum for that change. For instance, in the wine to vinegar case, the subject for the change is the water that first constitutes wine and later constitutes vinegar. The destruction of the wine is an accidental modification of the water that serves as the matter for the change. The matter for wine is also the matter for vinegar, and it is matter for the latter by virtue of the corruption of form that takes place in it. Likewise, the matter for a living thing is also the matter for corpse, and is so by virtue of the corruption of form that takes place in it. Thus according to this solution, the matter into which some object passes away is only contingently in possession of the form of that object. On this conception of matter the matter for an animal is not something that exists only when soul is present, or only when the animal itself exists. There is a sense in which our second premise 2ab is true, and to convey this he compares it to the way in which night comes to be from day. In this case the substratum is the air, and the air constitutes day when light is present to it, and it constitutes night when the air is characterized by the privation of light. The air itself is contingently related to the light or 11 Revised Oxford Translation, 1044b a2. 9

10 darkness that characterize it at any given time. Light and dark are contraries, and the air is potentially both in the way that water is potentially both wine and vinegar. (IV) Reciprocal Change The topic that has been under discussion, and for which these puzzles were devised, is reciprocal change. He now goes on to apply these results to this main topic and concludes that And all the things which change thus into one another must go back to their matter; e.g. if from a corpse is produced an animal, the corpse first goes back to its matter, and only then becomes an animal; and vinegar first goes back to water, and only then becomes wine. 12 This is sometimes taken to imply that whenever the passing away of one thing is the production of another there must always be an intermediary transitional stage at which the original object reverts to its matter. For instance, if an animal comes to be from the corpse, then first the corpse reverts to its matter. This matter can then, as the result of an additional step, become an animal. There is some matter Y such that Y used to be a horse, later Y was a corpse and still later the corpse reverts back to Y, and then Y is a new animal of some sort. Aristotle does not here give an example, but commentators have their suggestions. David Bostock suggests a case of a

11 spontaneous generation, that of maggots coming to be from dead animals. 13 However, Bostock also disputes Aristotle s claim that an intermediary, transitional stage in necessary for these reciprocal transformation in both directions. To see why Aristotle requires the transitional stage in the vinegar to wine and the corpse to animal cases it is useful to see how he thinks these differ from their reverse changes. Ross wrongly holds that Aristotle does not think that the reverse changes differ on this point, and claims that Aristotle commits himself to the view that the change of one thing into another always involves an intermediate, transitional state in which there is a reversion to matter. He writes there is no direct transition from the normal product to the abnormal product, nor vice versa; the given product must first be reduced to its constituent matter. 14 Hence when the living thing dies, it must first revert to matter before becoming a corpse, and when wine becomes vinegar, it must first become water, before it becomes vinegar. However, as shall become clear in a moment, there is a reason why the transitional state is needed in the transition from the abnormal to the normal product, and that reason does not apply to the change in the other direction. Whatever the examples may be, one feature that is crucial to this kind of case is that the same Y is the matter for all three products: 13 p vol.2. p

12 There is a matter Y such that: and (i) Y was the matter for a horse, (ii) Y was later the matter for a corpse, (iii) Y was in a reverted transitional state, (iv) Y is now the matter for some new animal. With the possible exception of stage (iii) the matter constitutes some product where the relation between that matter and what it constitutes is temporary and contingent. At stage (i) this matter is living, but is so only contingently, and can continue to exist as the matter of a corpse. In the transitional stage (iii) Y is no longer a corpse, but not yet a new animal. What can we say about the condition of the matter at this transitional stage? Perhaps Bostock is right and he is thinking of spontaneous generation, but Aristotle gives no indication that the point is restricted to this special type of case. Also, although he does not give us a description of this transitional stage, he does provide one for his other example -- that of wine coming to be from vinegar. The two types of case are intended to exemplify the same general point, and in the vinegar to wine case there is a much more straightforward explanation than something like spontaneous generation. There the matter is water, and the respective stages are: (i) Y was the matter for wine, (ii) Y was later the matter for vinegar, (iii) Y was in a reverted transitional state of being water, and (iv) Y is now the matter for some new wine. 12

13 During the transitional stage the water is not said to be the matter of some product, but is described just as water. The designation that applies to it, namely water, characterizes it in terms of what it is in its own right, independently of its constituting some product. How is it that water can be turned back into wine? Wine is produced out of grapes that ferment, and so to get back to wine the water must be taken in by the roots of grape vines and through the normal processes by which such plants grow and are nourished it must then be matter for grapes, that are then fermented. Aristotle does not give us the steps involved in nourishing plants or in winemaking since the details of this are not relevant to the point he is making. The point is simply that unlike the case in which wine turns to vinegar, where there is no need for the wine first to revert back to its matter, it is not possible to reverse the process in just one step. The reverse process requires a set of steps that get the matter back into a condition in which it is potentially wine once more. An idea that he develops in Metaphysics Theta 7 in order to answer the question when should a thing be said to be in potentiality? can help us to understand this. There he considers processes that take place in a series of stages, such as earth becoming wood, and later the wood becoming a box. The earth is potentially wood, and the wood is potentially a box, but prior to becoming wood the earth is not yet potentially a box. 15 It is potentially something, namely some wood, that is potentially a box. The earth first has to be used as nourishment for a tree before it becomes wood, and not until it is wood is it a box in potentiality. Obviously here too he leaves out the a This is compatible with the claim that earth is potentially a box once it has become wood. 13

14 details of how trees are nourished by elementary matter, and leaves out the details involved in the artistic procedures that start from a natural substance and lead to something becoming a work of art. Such details are not relevant to the point he intends to illustrate. What is important is that before the matter is potentially a box it needs to be changed by various processes until it is in a condition where (i) nothing in the matter itself prevents it from being changed into a box (by the operation of a craft skill or otherwise), and (ii) there are no further changes, additions or subtractions needed to get the matter in a condition such that the relevant craft skill can be exercised on it in such as way as to produce a box. 16 Earth does not possess the passive or receptive dunamis that something must have in order to be a potential box. 17 To apply this idea to the vinegar to wine case we may say that when water is vinegar it is no longer potentially wine. Not only is the water no longer in such a condition that somebody in possession of the winemaking craft can exercise that craft skill in such a way as to turn it into wine, but also it lacks the features that earlier had made it something that is potentially wine. As it is now, the winemaking skill can do nothing with it, for the matter is not suitable to be acted upon by that skill. Before that can take place and wine once again will be able to be produced the vinegar must first revert to its matter identified in this passage as water. The water is not yet potentially wine, but rather needs to undergo some series of changes that puts it in a such a condition that the winemaking art can act on it and turn it into wine. Earlier, when the water was wine, it was potentially both wine 16 Based on 1049a The features that initially make it suitable for an artisan with the relevant craft skill to turn it into a box are still possessed even after it has been turned into a box. However, this by itself does not entail that the product can still be acted upon by an artist in such a way as to make a box. Perhaps it can, but there are also the changes that require it to first revert to its matter. 14

15 and vinegar. It was potentially wine and it had the ability to be acted on in such a way as to receive the form of wine. It was potentially vinegar because its ability to receive this form is something that it possessed only contingently, and when this capacity for form was lost the water became vinegar. Once the water is vinegar it is not exercising an ability to possess the form of vinegar. There is no such form. Rather it is vinegar when its capacity to receive the form of wine has been destroyed. This is the reason why it must first revert to its matter in order to be changed back into wine. It now no longer has the capacity to receive the form of wine and so it no longer potentially wine. It will not be potentially wine again unless some series of changes puts it back in a condition where it once again has this ability. The corpse to animal case is supposed to illustrate the same general point about the need to revert back to matter. If the comparison holds, then just as in the vinegar to wine case, the matter for an animal should have a description that applies to it in its own right, independently of is constituting either an animal or a corpse. Unlike the vinegar case, though, he does not indicate just how far the decomposition must go before the matter can be built up again into the new animal. That is, he does not provide a description for this case comparable to the label water for the vinegar/wine case. In Metaphysics Zeta 10 the matter into which an animal perishes is described as bones and connective tissues and flesh. 18 If we provisionally accept this a A bit later at Z10, 1035a31-33, he says And for this reason the earthen statue perishes into potter's earth, and the sphere into bronze, and Callias into flesh and bones. See also Z8, 1034a5-6 where the matter for Socrates and Callias is flesh and bones. In general, individual natural bodies such as animals have natural bodies as material parts. Socrates is a natural body that is composed of flesh and bones. Passages 15

16 view, then when the corpse comes to be from the animal, the flesh and bones play the role of matter. However, the corpse does not undergo some process by which it decomposes into flesh and bone. Rather the corpse is produced when the flesh and bone no longer have soul present to them. 19 such as Z8 gives us no reason to suppose that Socrates also has a body that is composed of these same flesh and bones. At the very least, then, this should make us cautious about accepting the idea that there is any body having Socrates organic parts other than Socrates himself. 19 Generation of Animals II.1, 734b24-36, is sometimes adduced to show that uniform parts such as flesh cannot exist without soul. If this is so, then he there contradicts the view of the Metaphysics. However, the passage does not actually say that it is only homonymously that they will be called face or flesh if the life has gone out of them (the Oxford translation of b25-6). The Greek for if the life has gone out of them is simply phtharenta ( have perished ), and the point is that when the flesh has perished, what is left is only homonymously flesh. It does not say that flesh perishes when life has gone out of it. This passage is a discussion of the formation of parts in embryological development, and it is in this context that we must understand the import of the claims that there is no such thing as face or flesh without soul in it (bb24-25) and the homogeneous parts and the organic come into being together (b27-28). It is not the case that some tissues are formed prior to the imposition of some non-uniform structure. This is a claim about how the tissues get formed in the first place, but not a claim about the conditions for the continued existence of the tissues. When do these organic tissues actually exist?the parts of animals, including flesh, all have functions, and exist only when they have the ability that grounds their performance of that function. If that ability is lost, what remains may still be called by the name of that part, but the part itself has ceased to exist. Ackrill thinks that Aristotle exploits this point in the Meteorology to rule out the possibility of flesh with outside soul. (See IV.12, 390a10-14). However, this text does not say that soul is required in order for the relevant dunamis to continue to exist. Something is flesh by virtue of having a certain dunamis for acting or being acted upon, but since its definition is not stated in a precise manner it is difficult to specify when that power has been lost. (See 390a18-b1.) When a corpse is thoroughly corrupted it is easy to determine that what we have is no longer flesh. However, Aristotle is here assuming that there will be cases in which we are not sure whether a corpse still contains flesh, and this presupposes that flesh can continue to exist after the death of the animal. It continues to exist as flesh just in case it retains its relevant dunamis, but since the function is not clear it is hard to say just what this dunamis is. Something (namely a corpse) could possess flesh with this dunamis although the flesh is no longer even potentially human. The powers of the uniform bodily parts such as flesh are qualities derived from the processes of heating and cooling (390b3-390b14).The powers that enable the uniform parts to perform their functions, such as fragmentability or softness, do not depend upon soul for their continued existence. This is not to say without qualification that flesh could have been generated without soul, but 16

17 In the way in which these materials still exist in the corpse they are still characterized by all sorts of physical properties that previously enabled them to contribute to the life of the animal when they had been present in the animal. The bones, for instance, are still rigid. However, these dispositional properties are not the properties that put some matter into a condition suitable for generative processes that take place in nature. There are all sorts of ways in which the matter of a decaying corpse can eventually end up in new living things, both plants and animals. Nonetheless, the general outline of the story typically will involve organisms ingesting the matter as nutrition, and having the nutritive faculty of the organism that performs the digestion converting it into a form of nutriment appropriate for an organism of that sort. In the case of blooded animals, it is the blood that is the primary form of nutrition and that contains the motions by virtue of which the bodily parts grow and are nourished. This in turn is concocted into catamenia in females, and in this condition the matter can now be acted upon by the vital heat in the male semen. The details of the right embryological theory are not, though, what is important here. What matters is that before the matter is once again potentially human it must undergo a series of transformation and changes that make it capable of receiving human form. It must possess the receptive dunamis to be acted upon by a suitable agent with the appropriate active dunamis. Prior to the coming-tobe of the new horse, an embryo possessed a relevant internal principle, the nature of a horse. It was in virtue of that principle that the embryo was does commit him to the view that the power by virtue of which it performs its functions is a power that can be possessed even without soul. 17

18 potentially a horse. 20 Prior to the change the embryo and the potential horse were the same thing. We learn from Generation of Animals II.4 that nutritive soul is actually present when the higher faculties of soul are still only potentially present, and this faculty of soul is the internal principle of growth and development that guides and controls the formation of the new living substance. 21 This internal principle is still present once the adult has been generated (that is, once all of the higher faculties of soul are actually present). In Aristotle s biology the formative powers and motions in the generative fluids are the same as those in the blood by which the bodily parts grow and are nurtured in the adult horse. Consequently, if something is a potential horse by virtue of that principle, and if the adult still has that principle, then the adult is a potential horse. After the change the potential horse is no longer the same as an embryo. The matter, i.e., the potential horse, is now the same as the adult horse. 22 (V) Organic Body As Contingently Ensouled I conclude by considering how Metaphysics Eta 5 bears on the claim made at De Anima II.1, 412b25-27: We must not understand by that which is potentially capable of living what has lost the soul it had, but only what still retains it; but seeds and fruits are bodies which are potentially of that 20 See Metaph. IX.7, 1049a b2-740a Notice that even if in the case of the adult the potential horse is flesh and bones, at some early stage of embryological development there will be nutritive soul prior to the formation of these materials. Hence the flesh and bones is not the pre-existing matter from which the horse came to be. The earlier matter is potentially a horse, but not yet flesh and bone. Different material bodies constitute the potential horse at different times in its development. 18

19 sort. This statement is consistent with his solutions to the metaphysical puzzles discussed above if it is uniform matter such as flesh and bones that is potentially capable of living a horse s life, but with the restriction that it is so only contingently and only when soul is present to it. 23 What is potentially a horse can continue to exist after the death of the horse, though not as something that is still potentially horse. Granted, this does involve treating flesh and bones as organic, contrary to Aristotle s more established usage of the term for non-uniform parts. 24 Nonetheless, this has the advantage of rendering the De Anima passage consistent with the view of generation put forth in the Metaphysics. Of course, the story cannot end here. If there is some matter for living things that is only contingently alive, one needs to face the question as to why the living organism is not just an accidental unity of matter and form. 23 According to GC I.5,321b19-22, the term flesh is applied to both the form of flesh and to the matter of flesh. There is a sense in which Socrates perishes into flesh, and a sense in which he does not. Soul is present to the matter of flesh when the animal is alive, and this ensouled matter is correctly called flesh. When Socrates dies what is flesh in this sense does not continue to exist; rather what continues to exist is the matter of ensouled flesh. (See Gill 1997.) 24 As Stephen Everson has pointed out (Aristotle on Perception, p.64) outside of this passage, Aristotle uses the term organikon for something that is an organ, not something that has organs. Although an organ may itself be composed of organs, this is not typically what is being said about an organ when it is described as organikon. (See Bonitz 521a20 ff.) If the organic body of De Anima II.1 412a28-b1 is body that serves as an organ, rather than a body having organs, then uniform matter such as flesh and bones count as organic. Although Aristotle will typically use organic to contrast with uniform material parts (see, for instance, 734b27-28), De Anima II.4 says that all natural bodies are organs of the soul (415b18-19). Further, consider his claim in GA I.22, 730b20, that semen, a uniform body, is a tool. 19

20 Among other things, this involves explaining how the matter is merely a potential being, and there is no actual being that serves as the matter for the living organism. This is in fact a topic to which Aristotle immediately turns in the very next chapter, Metaphysics H6, and it is a formidable problem indeed. However, if nothing else, I would hope this paper shows that Aristotle s treatment of puzzles about the matter for the generation of new things in Metaphysics H5 helps us to understand how and why he has metaphysical commitments to views that lead him to this kind of problem. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ackrill, J,L, Aristotle s Definitions of Psychê, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 73 (1972), Barnes, J. ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols. (Princeton: 1995). Bostock, David, Aristotle: Metaphysics Books Ζ and Η. (Oxford, Clarendon Press: 1994). Everson, Stephen, Aristotle on Perception (Oxford:1997). Frey, Christopher, Organic Unity and the Matter of Man, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 32 (Summer 2007), pp Gill, Mary Louise Material Necessity and Meterology IV.12, Aristotelische Biologie:Intentionen, Methoden, Ergebnisse, Philosophie der Antike, vol. VIII, eds.w. Kullmann & S. Foellinger (Steiner Verlag:1997), Ross, W. D., Aristotle's Metaphysics, 2 vols. (Oxford, Clarendon Press:1924). 20