Aristotle's Ontology of Change

This book investigates what change is, according to Aristotle, and how it affects his conception of being.

Mark Sentesy argues that change leads Aristotle to develop first-order metaphysical concepts such as matter, potency, actuality, sources of being, and the teleology of emerging things.

He shows that Aristotle's distinctive ontological claim-that being is inescapably diverse in kind-is anchored in his argument for the existence of change. Aristotle may be the only thinker to have given a noncircular definition of change.

When he gave this definition, arguing that change is real was a losing proposition.

To show that it exists, he had to rework the way philosophers understood reality.

His groundbreaking analysis of change has long been interpreted through a Platonist lens, however, in which being is conceived as unchanging.

Offering a comprehensive reexamination of the relationship between change and being in Aristotle, Sentesy makes an important contribution to scholarship on Aristotle, ancient philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, and metaphysics.