'Tis probably one of my desert island books. Like, if I could read no other books but that and a few others for the rest of my life, I'd be OK with that.

Aristotle emphasizes that metaphysics (which he also calls “first philosophy”) is required only to the extent that there is indeed a motionless reality, without the existence of which physics would be the primordial and universal science. It is the very existence of a motionless reality that turns physics — the object of which is the kind of reality that has the principle of its own motion and rest within itself, in contrast to the technical object — into a merely secondary philosophy. For Aristotle, Φῠ́σῐς does not designate the whole of reality, but only “a specific kind of beings.” There is, therefore, a reality of being, which the world of becoming does not exhaust." — StreetlightX

There was no metaphysics in Aristotle. "First philosophy" is his physics, and what's later called "metaphysics" is just as much physics.

What this writer is indicating is that there's a difference between the "becoming" world and the "motionless" world, and tries to say the former is "physics" (secondary) and the latter "metaphysics."

Parts are reminiscent of the old Parmenides vs Heraclitus "dichotomy" as well. Although the interpretation is fine, I don't find it all that profound. It's actually quite common.

I don't know anything about de Beistegui, but from what I Googled he's supposedly a Heidegger scholar. That's surprising, because none of this comes close to Heidegger's analysis. Heidegger in fact contradicts much of what's referenced here.

There was no metaphysics in Aristotle. "First philosophy" is his physics, and what's later called "metaphysics" is just as much physics. — Xtrix

Perhaps you could argue why this is so.
It is not immediately apparent to me as a phenomenon.

There was no metaphysics in Aristotle. "First philosophy" is his physics, and what's later called "metaphysics" is just as much physics.
— Xtrix

Perhaps you could argue why this is so.
It is not immediately apparent to me as a phenomenon. — Valentinus

Sure, although I'd rather just quote directly from Heidegger so there's no mystery:

"Aristotle’ s Physics is the hidden, and therefore never adequately thought out, foundational book of Western philosophy.

Probably the eight books of the Physics were not projected as a unity and did not come into existence all at once. Such questions have no importance here. In general it makes little sense to say that the Physics precedes the Metaphysics, because metaphysics is just as much “physics” as physics is “metaphysics.” For reasons based on the work itself, as well as on historical grounds, we can take it that around 347 B.C. (Plato’s death) the second book was already composed. (Cf. also Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, p. 296, originally published in 1923. For all its erudition, this book has the single fault of thinking through Aristotle’s philosophy in the modern Scholastic neo-Kantian manner that is entirely foreign to Greek thought. Much of Jaeger’s Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles, 1912, is more accurate because less concerned with “content.”)

But even so, this first thoughtful and unified conceptualization of nύσις is already the last echo of the original (and thus supreme) thoughtful projection of the essence of nύσις that we still have preserved for us in the fragments of Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides." (On The Essence and Concept of Phusis in Aristotle's Physics B, 1. p. 3, in German from the Gesamtausgabe: p. 241) —

Remember that "metaphysics" was coined after Aristotle. "After the physics lectures" is what it probably meant. It's evolved to mean essentially anything "outside" or "beyond" what is physical, but that's misleading. Heidegger often uses it as basically synonymous with "ontology" in terms of its subject matter for most of history after Aristotle.

But the point is the same: phusis is the concept we're trying to understand here, in light of the question of the meaning of being.

So the question "What is 'nature'?" ends up leading to a more fundamental question: "What is the 'physical'?" and that ultimately resides in the etymology of φῠ́σῐς and, finally, in the origins of Western thought: Greek thought.

The analysis of this concept is very important indeed to understand our current scientific conception of the world, and therefore the predominant world ontology (at least non-religious, or perhaps simply the de facto ontology ). Does anyone here have an analysis to share, original or otherwise? Full disclosure: I am particularly struck by Heidegger's take, especially in his Introduction to Metaphysics. But other analyses are certainly welcome. — Xtrix

How about science as the theory of technology that works whether or not one believes in it? And this involves the physical as that which is indifferent to our beliefs and hopes. And yet our beliefs and hopes are centered on the physical. The physical is what we care about that doesn't care about us. It's food or poison. It's the roof that keeps out the storm. It's the pill that stops the infection from killing us. It's the car that will or will not start when we need to go to work, already worried about next month's bills.

I like Heidegger's focus on care. As humans we care. Pure theory satisfies only an exceptional state of mind. For the most part we need results. Superstition is often like bad science in the sense that it has the same goals, prediction and control. The card lady tells me my future like the meteorologist. The prayer handkerchief is a substitute for chemotherapy.

The even more fundamental, or preliminary (thus, 'perennial'), question at the root (ῥάδιξ) of (Western and non-Western) "thought": "what is real?" - more precisely: what about 'any X' differentiates 'real X' from 'not-real X'? — 180 Proof

I suggest that we tend to use 'real' for what we have to take seriously. Or for what is worth acting on. It's all tied in with care. We are constantly forced to make decisions. Is an opportunity or a threat real or merely apparent?

Which, in turn, has lead to a deep sense of 'otherness' from the natural world - a sense which was mostly absent from the ancient and medieval worldview, which presumed an affinity either between nous (intellect) and the natural order which it reflected, or between the divine intellect as reflected in the soul. There was an implicit conviction of a relationship between the cosmic, natural and human order, which is precisely what was undermined by the mechanist philosophy of Descartes, Galileo and Newton. — Wayfarer

I agree that nature-as-machine is a dominant metaphor, but this metaphor is as much shovel as lens. We haven't only changed our way of looking at the world but the world itself. So we've disenchanted the world but also modified it extensively.

Heidegger in fact contradicts much of what's referenced here. — Xtrix

?

"In the Physics Aristotle conceives of φῠ́σῐς as the beingness (οὐσία) of a particular (and in itself limited) region of beings, things that grow as distinct from things made. With regard to their way of Being, these beings stem precisely from φῠ́σῐς, of which Aristotle therefore says: ... Φῠ́σῐς is one branch of Being [among others] for (the many-branched tree of) beings." Aristotle says this in a treatise which later, in the definitive ordering of his writings by the Peripatetic school, was put with those treatises which have since borne the name μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ [ 'metaphysics' -SX], writings which in fact belong to the φυσικὰ although they are not counted with them. The sentence we just read comes from chapter three of the treatise that is now called Book Γ (IV) of the Metaphysics, and the information it gives about φῠ́σῐς is identical with the guiding principle put forth in Physics, Book B, chapter one, which we have just interpreted: φῠ́σῐς is one kind of οὐσία.

But that same treatise of the Metaphysics says exactly the opposite in its first chapter: οὐσία (the Being of beings as such in totality) is φῠ́σῐς τῐς, something like φῠ́σῐς. But Aristotle is far from meaning to say that Being as such is, properly speaking, that kind of φῠ́σῐς which a bit later he explicitly characterizes as only one branch of Being among others. Rather, this barely expressed assertion that οὐσία is φῠ́σῐς is an echo of the great origin of Greek philosophy, the first origin of Western philosophy. In this origin Being was thought as φῠ́σῐς such that the φῠ́σῐς which Aristotle conceptualized can only be a late derivative of the original φῠ́σῐς". (H, On the Being and Conception of Φῠ́σῐς in Aristotle's Physics)

And in the Introduction, Heidegger explicitly attributes the 'narrowing' of φῠ́σῐς as 'already within Greek philosophy', so much so that Aristotle conserves (as above) but an 'echo' of the original meaning of φῠ́σῐς, and that the 'greatness' of Greek philosophy "came to an end in greatness with Aristotle": "What is, as such and as a whole, the Greeks call phusis. Let it be mentioned just in passing that already within Greek philosophy, a narrowing of the word set in right away, although its original meaning did not disappear from the experience, the knowledge, and the attitude of Greek philosophy. An echo of knowledge about the original meaning still survives in Aristotle, when he speaks of the grounds of beings as such".

The whole third chapter of the Introduction - tellingly titled 'The Restriction of Being' - is more or less an account of how Plato and Aristotle fucked up (or began the fucking-up-of, completed by Latin translators) the perfectly good notion of φῠ́σῐς that the pre-Socratics, Heraclitus and Parmenides in particular, had - at least according to Heidi's as-usual idiosyncratic reading of philosophical history.

The idea of the physical is intimately tied to the senses. What is physical is exactly that which can be sensed; the converse, however, is false for the reason that hallucinations occur.

Naturalism, to me, is the philosophy that claims that all there is is the physical; in other words, what is real has to be sensible in some way or other. Since this implies that what isn't sensible iisn't real, naturalism excludes religion and the spiritual from the realm of reality for they deal in what can't be sensed. There is good reason to assume such a position because to admit the non-physical as part of reality is like a blind man admitting colors into his world; even if there are colors, the blind man will never perceive them and it will fail to make a difference to his world.

The religious, the spiritually inclined and supernaturalists may counter naturalism by saying that it is possible for existence to be true despite nothing being perceptible through the senses i.e. all is not physical. However, a moment's reflection reveals a serious problem, the problem of defining reality. Being perceptible through the senses and not being perceptible through the senses are contradictory statements and, as it appears to me, it's impossible to bring them together under the same banner, reality. If both the perceptible and the imperceptible are real then what is not real?

What Aristotle demonstrates is that the twofold usage of the word "being" is a category difference, one referring to a material particular, the other to an abstract universal. This is the distinction between primary substance (what we call an object) and secondary substance (what is a logical subject). In his "Metaphysics" he seeks to determine which of the two is prior, as Plato in his idealism has already argued for the priority of secondary substance.

What this writer is indicating is that there's a difference between the "becoming" world and the "motionless" world, and tries to say the former is "physics" (secondary) and the latter "metaphysics." — Xtrix

For Aristotle, the physical is the world of "becoming", change, and this is the subject of ancient Greek science, and Aristotle's "Physics". In a number of distinct places, he demonstrates that "being" and "becoming" are incompatible. Notice the difference between Aristotle's designation of an incompatibility between "being" and "becoming", and Hegel's allowing "being" to be subsumed within, as a feature of "becoming", in his dialectics of being.

So Aristotle introduced a temporal concept, "matter", in his "Physics" to account for this difference. The concept of "matter" is grounded in the temporality of potential. For Aristotle, matter, as potential, violates the law of excluded middle. Hegelian dialectical materialists, allow for violation of the law of non-contradiction.

The idea of the physical is intimately tied to the senses. What is physical is exactly that which can be sensed; the converse, however, is false for the reason that hallucinations occur. — TheMadFool

But a lot of what is considered 'physical' in science cannot be sensed.

Naturalism, to me, is the philosophy that claims that all there is is the physical; in other words, what is real has to be sensible in some way or other. — TheMadFool

Ibid, but further the word 'physical' no longer has any substance related meaning. IOW it looks like a claim about substance, but it now simply means real. Regardless of the qualities or lack of qualities of something if science decides something is real, it will fall under naturalism and be taken as physical, even if it shares nothing in common with chairs and rocks.

There is good reason to assume such a position because to admit the non-physical as part of reality is like a blind man admitting colors into his world; even if there are colors, the blind man will never perceive them and it will fail to make a difference to his world. — TheMadFool

But colors do make a difference in a blind person's world. A blind person could ask someone near him what color the light is and know (to the degree he trusts the sighted person) whether it is time to cross the street or not. Perhaps all sorts of things that are supposedly 'non-physical' are simply seen by some but not others.

If both the perceptible and the imperceptible are real then what is not real? — TheMadFool

First, many so called supernatural phenomena are perceived. Perhaps misinterpreted, perhaps hallucinated, but there is a very large empirical facet to religion and 'supernatural experiences.' This does not prove that the religious and those who believe in the supernatural (a truly badly labeled category) are correct, but it is as if there is no empirical facet to these things when there is. And we know that things have been said to be impossible, when sensed by a minority which have turned out to be real.

Often in discussions like this it is as if all religion and all 'supernatural' experiences have no empirical element. but this is simply not the case. Now we can move into, from this, to the discussion of whether the interpretations of the experiences are correct, but I find it very odd that the issues is framed as if there is no empirical facet to these things.

What Aristotle demonstrates is that the twofold usage of the word "being" is a category difference, one referring to a material particular, the other to an abstract universal. — Metaphysician Undercover

"...the other to an abstract universal." Characterized by what, exactly? Does it not seem to you that it can have neither substance nor accidents? Being, itself, would seem to be one place where in Heidegger's phrase, "the nothing noths." Or, if being is the possibility of being, then being isn't, until it is, but in that instant of becoming it becomes no longer being. Or, in short, "Being" seems to be a bookkeeping trick, a plug value that, in itself, is just nothing whatsoever itself. Any philosophy of such being, being then a joke.

If you say of anything that it be, then what have you said of it, exactly?

But colors do make a difference in a blind person's world. A blind person could ask someone near him what color the light is and know (to the degree he trusts the sighted person) whether it is time to cross the street or not. Perhaps all sorts of things that are supposedly 'non-physical' are simply seen by some but not others. — Coben

Firstly, as this "someone near him" reveals, there must be someone to whom color is perceivable.

Secondly, the fact that you say "seen by some but not others" implies what I've been saying all along - that whatever is deemed to exist must register on the senses of someone. The very requirement that "some" perceive indicates the essence of being real is to be perceived.

However, there's a "slight" difficulty with being perceivable only to some. The usual contexts in which such kinds of privileged perception, only some perceiving, appears are in deception and insanity. The latter can be subsumed into a broadened definition of reality (the insane may actually be perceiving stuff others can't) but what about the former? How will we know we're not being deceived? After all the only means we have, that what is real, and not a deception, must necessarily be perceived by all, is now useless.

Firstly, as this "someone near him" reveals, there must be someone to whom color is perceivable. — TheMadFool

Sure, and then the issue becomes are there some people who can perceive things others cannot that are nevertheless real.

Secondly, the fact that you say "seen by some but not others" implies what I've been saying all along - that whatever is deemed to exist must register on the senses of someone. The very requirement that "some" perceive indicates the essence of being real is to be perceived. — TheMadFool

But in science things are often posited that are not perceived. We see effects on new causes that effect something else and this makes a meter move. Sometimes things are accepted as real that do not even do this, but are deduced. Like the idea of a natural law.

The usual contexts in which such kinds of privileged perception, only some perceiving, appears are in deception and insanity. — TheMadFool

I disagree. I would say the usual contexts are where there is expertise: poker professionals, art authenticators, dermatologists, botanists, carpenters, detectives, psychologists will all perceive things where non-experts will not. This is a regular part of a vast range of fields, but is also happening in all sorts of leisure and private settings and activities.

How will we know we're not being deceived? — TheMadFool

We can always remain agnostic. Sometimes merely trivially and formally, in other cases with more serious agnosticism. There is no need to make an immediate binary choice.

After all the only means we have, that what is real, and not a deception, must necessarily be perceived by all, is now useless. — TheMadFool

That is a fairly useless heuristic and we depend on the special perception of experts regularly and certain in crisis. And these can be mundane experts like spouses, friends, parents, not to speak of professional experts. We are constantly engaging others who are better at perceiving some things.

Does it not seem to you that it can have neither substance nor accidents? Being, itself, would seem to be one place where in Heidegger's phrase, "the nothing noths." Or, if being is the possibility of being, then being isn't, until it is, but in that instant of becoming it becomes no longer being. — tim wood

Hegel said that nothingness sublates being into the flow of the world (becoming). The Parmenidian One is "thrown", to use Heidegger's word, by nothingness towards all our deaths, all along we realizing that this place is our vacation

But in science things are often posited that are not perceived. We see effects on new causes that effect something else and this makes a meter move. Sometimes things are accepted as real that do not even do this, but are deduced. Like the idea of a natural law — Coben

Nothing that can't be detected or measured i.e. perceived is real in science. Natural law, if meant here as the laws of nature, can be observed.

I disagree. I would say the usual contexts are where there is expertise: poker professionals, art authenticators, dermatologists, botanists, carpenters, detectives, psychologists will all perceive things where non-experts will not. This is a regular part of a vast range of fields, but is also happening in all sorts of leisure and private settings and activities. — Coben

It is possible for anyone to become an expert.

We can always remain agnostic. Sometimes merely trivially and formally, in other cases with more serious agnosticism. There is no need to make an immediate binary choice. — Coben

Are you saying we can be agnostic about the unperceivable being real? What then would be not real?

That is a fairly useless heuristic and we depend on the special perception of experts regularly and certain in crisis. And these can be mundane experts like spouses, friends, parents, not to speak of professional experts. We are constantly engaging others who are better at perceiving some things. — Coben

As I said, anyone can be an expert.

Hegel said that nothingness sublates being into the flow of the world (becoming). — Gregory

Sublation is in the eye of the beholder, the nothing don't do nuffin'. Or maybe it's all in the eye of beholder, which would then leave the question as to what the nothing is. I buy the notion that with nothing and being a philosopher - any thinker - has to be very careful indeed lest he or she step off the edge of meaning into an abyss. Of course the way to be careful is to assign meaning and then within the constraints of that meaning to see if they work.

What do you say nothing and being are?

The whole third chapter of the Introduction - tellingly titled 'The Restriction of Being' - is more or less an account of how Plato and Aristotle fucked up (or began the fucking-up-of, completed by Latin translators) the perfectly good notion of φῠ́σῐς that the pre-Socratics, Heraclitus and Parmenides in particular, had - at least according to Heidi's as-usual idiosyncratic reading of philosophical history. — StreetlightX

The fourth chapter. But yes, in that he discusses the various "restrictions" made through history. I don't understand why you say that Plato and Aristotle "fucked up," though. Heidegger never implies anything like that. In fact he believes the beginning of Western philosophy (the "inception") reaches its end with Aristotle. By that point the "idea" and ousia had come to the fore, but hadn't completely lost the presocratic sense of phusis either.

Regardless, I'm not seeing your point with this response, which was supposedly a reaction to my statement that Heidegger contradicts de Beistegui in a number of ways. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't see anything in your response that shows how.

The idea of the physical is intimately tied to the senses. What is physical is exactly that which can be sensed; — TheMadFool

Sounds more like empirical to me, but I take your meaning.

Naturalism, to me, is the philosophy that claims that all there is is the physical; in other words, what is real has to be sensible in some way or other. Since this implies that what isn't sensible iisn't real, naturalism excludes religion and the spiritual from the realm of reality for they deal in what can't be sensed. There is good reason to assume such a position because to admit the non-physical as part of reality is like a blind man admitting colors into his world; even if there are colors, the blind man will never perceive them and it will fail to make a difference to his world. — TheMadFool

What about the forces of nature? Are those "physical"? Newton thought that notion was absurd. Quantum entanglement, curved spacetime. Einstein considered a lot of this "non-physical." Etc. Is language and mathematics physical?

Physical is an honorific term. What it appears to mean these days is anything we more or less understand. If we understand it, it's physical. Again, I'm not too interested in coming up with definitions, I'm interested in the etymology of phusis. At least in this thread.

The religious, the spiritually inclined and supernaturalists may counter naturalism by saying that it is possible for existence to be true despite nothing being perceptible through the senses i.e. all is not physical. However, a moment's reflection reveals a serious problem, the problem of defining reality. Being perceptible through the senses and not being perceptible through the senses are contradictory statements and, as it appears to me, it's impossible to bring them together under the same banner, reality. If both the perceptible and the imperceptible are real then what is not real? — TheMadFool

The word "real" is likewise honorific. If we define reality as anything "perceptible" or "physical" or "natural," etc., then we get an answer in one step: reality = the natural. But that only means we have to understand what physical and natural mean, and then to have some idea of what "material," "matter," and "body" mean (including the senses, which are part of the body), and so on. So we're back to the beginning and the topic of this thread.

Incidentally, there hasn't been a notion of "body" since the 17th century.

For Aristotle, the physical is the world of "becoming", change, and this is the subject of ancient Greek science, and Aristotle's "Physics". In a number of distinct places, he demonstrates that "being" and "becoming" are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's really not that simple. But if you have passages you want to share that you believe support this thesis I'd be happy to take a look.

I realize this is a common interpretation of Aristotle, by the way.

Nothing that can't be detected or measured i.e. perceived is real in science. — TheMadFool

But this just isn't saying much. It seems to me you're defining science in a reaction to religious or supernatural claims. But religious believers will claim God is "detectable" as well. There's no sense debating them.

If science is simply anything we can reasonably understand, fine. That's philosophy, too. That's life, in fact. So what?

The basis for modern science is the concept of nature. This concept has gone through many mutations throughout history. It's very true that when trying to define "science" we may emphasize the empirical, the senses, the "physical," careful observation and experimentation, the use of mathematics, clear language (technical nomenclature), the role of theory (Kuhn and others), and so on, but even all these attempts take place against the backdrop of an understanding of being, an understanding with a history -- what Heidegger calls the "tradition." Its roots lie in Greek ontology, which is what I'm trying to explore here.

My question is about phusis. Ultimately this is the point. As a reminder.

Characterized by what, exactly? Does it not seem to you that it can have neither substance nor accidents? — tim wood

It's characterized by knowing, as Parmenides' truth, whatever is cannot not be, and whatever is not cannot be.

Or, if being is the possibility of being, then being isn't, until it is, but in that instant of becoming it becomes no longer being. — tim wood

This is exactly what is impossible, being cannot become, so it does not admit of possibility. That's Parmenides' principle, what is, is, and cannot be otherwise.

That's why Aristotle demonstrated that "becoming" is incompatible with being. Here is one of the ways he demonstrated this. If something is X at one moment in time, then changes to be not-X at a later moment, then there is a time in between when the thing is changing, becoming not-X. If we posit Y, to account for the change, then we could say that between X and not-X, the thing is Y. But now we have a time when the thing is changing from X to Y, and we need to account for it becoming Y. So we could say that between X and Y, it is Z. As you can see, there would be an infinite regress if we account for change, "becoming", with statements of "being", what the thing is.

This infinite regress is impossible because it would mean that there is an infinity of states of being between any two moments of time when something is changing. So to avoid the infinite regress we must admit that "becoming" is incompatible with "being". This means that when we talk about the physical world of change, becoming, and this is physics in general, we cannot use statements about what is, and what is not, 'truth and being', because this way of speaking is incompatible with change and becoming.

I realize this is a common interpretation of Aristotle, but the way. — Xtrix

If you realize that it is a common interpretation, then why ask me for passages? All you need to do is read his "Physics" to see that the theme of the book is change. He starts by saying that physicists take for granted that either some things, or all things are in motion, and he proceeds to the conditions of change (the causes), and then to talk about time and motion. Why would you interpret his "Physics" in any other way?

Nothing that can't be detected or measured i.e. perceived is real in science. — TheMadFool

Well, let's notice right off that you moved the bar from perceived to detected and measure, which are not at all the same. But even this is not true.

Natural law, if meant here as the laws of nature, can be observed. — TheMadFool

What do they look like? What are they made of? Are they physical? Made of atoms, quarks? They can be deduced, sort of.

or the patterns that perhaps 'come from them' can be observed, but that's not the laws themselves. And also, it may not be true that there are laws. There is growing evidence that 'laws' are local and time-local. IOW it is a useful heuristic. But in any case the laws themselves are certainly not observed.

It is possible for anyone to become an expert. — TheMadFool

That's very hard to prove and further, are you willing to put in the time to become an expert in things you have decided are not real? And certainly some people both from experience and innate talent have a much easier time. And then last, again, my point was just how common it is that when one person can perceive something this is due to expertise/experience rather than your generalization that this is usually hallucinations, etc.

As I said, anyone can be an expert. — TheMadFool

Again easy to say and further it does not refute what I wrote. Furhter there are tempermental and paradigmatic reasons certain people never try to be experts in many areas. Then they assume things, like you do, about those who are experts or may be. And then they talk as if they know that those experts are not basing their beliefs on empirical stuff.

I am sure you think you responded to me but I really don't think you did. You conceded nothing. Nor did you respond to the idea of being agnostic. It is not as if - which was implicit in your questions - one must either accept or reject as unreal what others posit. There is always a third option immediately and long term one could, in fact, try to be an expert oneself.

As you can see, there would be an infinite regress if we account for change, "becoming", with statements of "being", what the thing is. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not an infinite regress. It's just a gray canvas. Almost every bit of Aristotle is circular and a waste of time

What do you say nothing and being are? — tim wood

Being is that which we can sense with our being. That's pretty broad, but it covers several philosophical standpoints. Nothing is that which no being can sense

If you realize that it is a common interpretation, then why ask me for passages? All you need to do is read his "Physics" to see that the theme of the book is change. He starts by saying that physicists take for granted that either some things, or all things are in motion, and he proceeds to the conditions of change (the causes), and then to talk about time and motion. Why would you interpret his "Physics" in any other way? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not about interpreting his Physics, per se. It's about the concept of phusis.

It's characterized by knowing, — Metaphysician Undercover

Being is that which we can sense with our being. — Gregory

I think these two cover it, with respect to being and nothing. That is, not anything out there. Idols of thinking, we might call them. In as much as they not are, what function do they have? I know well and perfectly what I mean when I use "nothing": "Are there any chocolate chip cookies left?" "There's nothing in the cookie jar!" That nothing is the non-presence of something or many things determinate - the absence of them. "Being" similarly. It's a placeholder for thinking-in-process. These my usages. Are there any others? Or another way, when I hear or read about being or nothing, my nonsense warning lights light up.

This site appears to be a good look on matters Aristotle, et al.

https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/320Lecture.html

It's a placeholder for thinking-in-process. These my usages. Are there any others? Or another way, when I hear or read about being or nothing, my nonsense warning lights light up. — tim wood

Think of absolute space and time as understood in past centuries. Those are literal nothing.

It's not an infinite regress. It's just a gray canvas. Almost every bit of Aristotle is circular and a waste of time — Gregory

Did you read what I wrote? It's very clearly an infinite regress. The change between X and not-X is described as the state of Y. This requires something to explain the change between X and Y, call that state Z. This requires something to account for the change between X and Z, onward ad infinitum.

Change, "becoming," is incompatible with states of being.

Did you read what I wrote? It's very clearly an infinite regress. The change between X and not-X is described as the state of Y. This requires something to explain the change between X and Y, call that state Z. This requires something to account for the change between X and Z, onward ad infinitum.

Change, "becoming," is incompatible with states of being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Zeno already proved nearly 3 thousands years ago that there is a continuum. But the end points or limits can be discrete. It's not regress, but progression through an infinity, which you do everytime you move, from one being to another