アリストテレスの時間概念
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概要
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We can understand why Aristotle defined time as the number of movement in respect of before and after by examining the passages which precede and follow this definition. From the fact that time follows and corresponds to movement and movement to magnitude, Aristotle concludes that time is a continuous and divisible quantity depending on movement and magnitude. Therefore, by virtue of their reciprocal relativity movement can be measured with reference to time and vice versa. Time is a quantity divided by two "vows", the two time instants, the before and the after. Movement is a quantity divided by two positions, the before and the after, of a moving thing. Thus, to the question 'what is time?' the answer is: time is the number of movement because 1) it measures movement, and 2) it is an "accidental" element of movement. From this, however, can be posed two questions: 1) how can we determine this quantity of time which is used to measure movement? 2) how can we avoid making time relative and multiple depending on each quantity of movement? The unit of time as measure of movement depends, however, on a certain quantity of movement to which it corresponds. Now according to Aristotle, movement is absolutely one (and thus continuous) only 1) if it is one specifically (as determined by the categories or the species under the categories comprehending two contraries between which the subjet moves), 2) one numerically (as indicated by the unity of the subject of this movement) and 3) one in time which is not interrupted. It follows from this that the unit (unity) of time consists in the quantity of movement thus determined; it can be regarded as the quantity of duration necessary to pass in order for the same subject to move from an extremity to the other as determined by the same species of the movement. This argument leads us to consider series of time, each of which is composed of time-units and, therefore, is not continuous but only "successive" or "contiguous": series which are different according to the defference of categories of movement: substantial, quantitative, qualitative and locomotive. Now all these series except one corresponding to the "absolute" movement of the substance presuppose absolute time, which is one and continuous, of the movement of the substance whose identity enables all "particular", predicative changes to take place. But since the substance is also exposed to its own change, the time of its movement cannot be continuous in itself and needs another time which is one and continuous. This time, one and continuous by nature, is taken by Aristotle to be that which corresponds to the circular movement of the celestial bodies the movement which, because of its circular character, is par excellence one (complete and regular) and, thus, guarantees the unity, the continuity, the uniformity, the infinity and the constancy of celestial time. This time "envelops" all non-continuous times and movements of sublunary bodies, and serves as the standard time in and by which the latter can take measurable values. For Aristotle, there can be no other time which would surpass and "envelop" the whole universe, for time passes only where movements of bodies occur. The universe has its own time in virtue of its own movement, being both measured and measuring. Therefore, outside the universe, which for Aristotle is complete, there is no time, no place, no change. That is to say, there is no body, but only a kind of entity which escapes all material changes (immobile and immaterial) and is absolutely self-identical (the One, the Actual, the Being), that is, eternal God.
- 日本西洋古典学会の論文
- 1974-03-30
日本西洋古典学会 | 論文
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- クセルクセスの遠征軍の規模
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