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Aristotle On The Principles Of Perceptible Body (Gen. Corr. 2.1-3), David E. Hahm

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

With his clarification of the philosophical significance of the Pre- Socratic theories of elements Aristotle completes his discussion of the principles of perceptible bodies. He had embarked on this subject with the intent of explaining the first bodies and their role as principles of genesis and destruction. Jumping off from the theories of the Ionian philosophers who first proposed simple elemental bodies as principles of change, he probed behind these to discover even more fundamental principles, one of which was anticipated by another Ionian and by his teacher Plato. These ultimate principles will become for Aristotle the foundation of all …