NOTE ON PHYSICS VIII 1.250B13: CATEGORICAL OR HYPOTHETICAL?

Abstract

P. Hasper and R. Arnzen have mounted a spirited defense of what they call the categorical reading of Physics VIII 1.250b13 against a hypothetical read-ing of the text put forward by Silvia Fazzo in Aristotelica 3. The crucial phrase in Ross’s text reads ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἦν καὶ ἀεὶ ἔσται. Fazzo has argued in favor of ἀλλ’ εἰ ἦν καὶ ἀεὶ ἔσται, a variant derived from a manuscript designated as J (Vind. Phil. gr. 100), the oldest manuscript of the Physica. On Fazzo’s read-ing, with ἀλλ’ εἰ, Aristotle is completing a hypothetical pair of options rather than making a categorical assertion that motion is eternal. My question in this note is a methodological one. When interpretive stakes are considerable, when should a more plausible interpretation of a text’s larger argumentative context lead us to endorse a variant reading, even when the variant is at odds with a larger extant textual tradition? Having argued that Physics VIII 1displays a thoroughgoing dialectical structure, I conclude that emendation of 250b13 has in its favor that it makes clearer that Aristotle is framing a di-chotomy between two mutually exclusive options, just as his theory of dia-lectical reasoning toward principles would dictate. In this case at least, inter-pretive considerations of the larger argumentative structure should be given special weight in evaluating textual variants.