Aristotle on nature and incomplete substance

by Sheldon M. Cohen

This book examines Aristotle's metaphysics and his account of nature, stressing the ways in which his desire to explain observed natural processes shaped his philosophical thought. It departs radically from a tradition of interpretation in which Aristotle is understood to have approached problems with a set of abstract principles in hand - principles derived from critical reflection on the views of his predecessors. A central example in the book interprets Aristotle's essentialism as deriving from an examination of the kinds of unity that various sorts of things have, and from his account of elemental motion, alteration, transformation, and the growth of organisms. An important conclusion of this argument is that a substance may, under certain circumstances, lack some of its essential attributes. The book goes on to develop a notion of incomplete substance and explores the connection between Aristotle's concept of nature and its role in scientific explanation. In this way Cohen breaks