In Lambda 4, “The great opposition set up in Lambda 1 between the [Ionian philosophers of nature] and the Platonists continues to operate: here, as in Lambda 2, it is the [Ionians] who are targeted in the first instance; it is in effect against them that it is necessary to establish the irreducibility of a principle to a material element” (Aubry, Dieu san la puissance, 2nd ed., ch. 5, pp. 171-172, my translation throughout).
Aubry recalls that already in book capital Alpha, the Ionians are criticized for making the material elements of bodies the only principles and causes. The constituents of things are not a sufficient basis for explanation in general.
Aristotle’s examination shows that “distinct material realities can at the same time have different elements and identical principles. It is certain that color, for example, is not materially constituted from heat and cold; one can nonetheless distinguish that which relates to the form (the white), the privation (the black), and the material (the surface). The notion of a principle thus exceeds that of element, understood in the sense of a material constituent, and allows an account in identical terms to be given of realities that are distinct and diversely constituted” (p. 172, emphasis in original).
“But the notion of principle also adds to that of element the taking into account not only of immanent causes, but also exterior ones, and in particular the cause of motion” (p. 173).
She quotes Aristotle, “It is clear that a principle and an element are different, that both are causes, … and that the cause of motion and rest is a certain principle” (ibid).
“This formulation works both against [the Ionians] and against the Platonists. In redistributing the three terms… principle, element, and cause, it points out the respective weaknesses of each of these adversaries: for the [Ionians], the confusion between principle and element; for the Platonists, their distinction between principle and cause, and particularly the incapacity to think the Ideas as causes of motion. Against the first, it is a matter of disclosing immanent principles that are not reducible to material elements, which can be posed as identical by analogy in different realities; against the second, it is a matter of identifying a principle that is transitive and that acts as a cause” (ibid).
Next in this series: Principles of Substance
The Postmodern Peripatetic 