aristotle

I provide a semi-formal account of Aristotle's views on the matter-of relation.

Aristotle raised a puzzle about the possibility of mixing whose solution is by no means obvious. I here explicate his solution to the puzzle and attempt to make it plausible within the context of his thought. Although we now know that his specific views on mixing were mistaken, his discussion of the topic raises questions concerning the role of capacities and the relationship of part to whole that are still of interest.

Towards the end of Theta.4 of the Metaphysics, Aristotle appears to endorse the obviously invalid modal principle that the truth of A will entail the truth of B if the possibility of A entails the possibility of B. I attempt to show how Aristotle's endorsement of the principle can be seen to arise from his accepting a non-standard interpretation of the modal operators and I indicate how the principle and its interpretation are of independent interest, quite apart from their role in understanding Aristotle.