Aristotle on One-Sided Possibility
نویسنده
چکیده
The term ‘possible’, in Aristotle’s view, is ambiguous. It has two senses known as one-sided possibility and two-sided possibility (or contingency). Being two-sided possible means being neither impossible nor necessary, and being one-sided possible simply means being not impossible. Aristotle defines the two senses in Prior Analytics 1.13 (32a18–21). This definition is followed by a controversial passage which states several equivalences between modal expressions (32a21–8). It is often thought that this passage is spurious and should be excised even though it is found in all manuscripts. I argue that the passage is not spurious, but contains a coherent argument justifying the one-sided sense of ‘possible’ (Section 1). This argument follows a pattern of proof explained by Aristotle elsewhere in the Prior Analytics and in the De caelo (Section 2). Moreover, it is closely related to a similar argument concerning one-sided possibility in De interpretatione 13 (Section 3). Examining this latter argument will help us better understand the force of Aristotle’s argument in Prior Analytics 1.13 (Section 4).
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