Work · Ancient Greek
Physics
Motion, time, place and the four causes.
Introduction
Eight books based on Aristotle’s lectures; the Greek title means roughly “lecture course on nature”. Nature (physis) is defined as an inner principle of motion and rest, which distinguishes natural things from artefacts. Book II introduces the four causes and defends purpose in nature; Book IV analyses place, void, whose existence Aristotle denies, and time, which he defines as the number of motion with respect to before and after. Later books discuss Zeno’s paradoxes and conclude that all motion depends on a first, unmoved mover. Until the seventeenth century the work set the framework for European and Islamic natural philosophy.
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Connections
Criticizes
Taken up in
- Questions on Aristotle’s Physicsc. 1350 · John Buridan
Criticized in
- Commentary on Aristotle’s Physicsc. 517 · John Philoponus
- Questions and Answers (correspondence with Ibn Sina)c. 997 · al-Biruni
- The Light of the Lord (Or Adonai)c. 1410 · Hasdai Crescas
- On the Nature of Things according to Their Own Principles1565 · Bernardino Telesio
- Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems1632 · Galileo Galilei
- Syntagma philosophicum1658 · Pierre Gassendi
More works by Aristotle
- c. 350 BCEOn the Soul (De anima)
- c. 350 BCEOrganon
- c. 340 BCEMetaphysics
- c. 340 BCENicomachean Ethics
- c. 335 BCEPoetics
- c. 335 BCEPolitics
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