2 - On Generation and Corruption II 1

Summary

This essay provides an analysis of GC I and explains why we now need to investigate the “so-called elements” – the primary bodies that make up all the more complex bodies of the sublunary world. This is an important passage for understanding how the discussion of the elements fits into the overall program of the whole work. In the second section, Aristotle broaches the question of whether there is a kind of matter “beyond” these elements. He criticizes two earlier theories which (he thinks) give an affirmative answer to this question: Anaximander’s theory of the apeiron and Plato’s theory of the Receptacle in the Timaeus. In the final section, Aristotle sets out his own position. This section is evidence that he was committed to prime matter – an ultimate material substratum which partially constitutes each of the primary sublunary bodies, and which underlies the process of elemental inter-transformation.