Principles and Causes in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Δ.1

Abstract

This paper deals with a new interpretation of the passage 1013a16–17 in Aristo­tle’s Metaphysics Δ.1, proposed by Richard Bodéüs and Annick Stevens in their recent edition of a French translation and commentary of Δ. In section 1 I de­scribe the problems with the traditional reading of this passage that implies that all principles are causes: given it, first, Aristotle makes a serious logical error in his reasoning and, second, it is impossible to match most of the senses and
examples of ‘principle’ in this chapter to one of four Aristotelian causes. Then, in section 2 I give an overview the interpretation of Bodéüs and Stevens, show the validity of their reading, and explain how it solves all the aforementioned problems. Section 3 explores some additional advantages of this interpretation
that are not mentioned by its authors in their edition: it justifies the presence of the second chapter of Δ in this book and helps to offer a plausible reconstruc­tion of an overall line of thought in Δ.1. Finally, in section 4 I look into the ques­tion of to which extent this interpretation is compatible with the understanding of relationship between the notions of ‘principle’ and ‘cause’ that is characteri­stic for Aristotle elsewhere in Corpus Aristotelicum