Aristotle on Accidents

Aristotle on Accidents ROBERT HEINAMAN ONE OF THE MANYperplexing chapters in Aristotle's Metaphysics is his discussion of accidents in chapter 3 of Book E. Professor Richard SorabjP has recently argued that the chapter contends that coincidences lack causes with the aim of blocking the determinist's thesis that everything happens of necessity . This interpretation, as I will try to show, gives Aristotle a view open to serious objections. However, I believe it can be shown that Sorabji's interpretation should be rejected. This leaves us free to search for a more defensible position to ascribe to Aristotle. But I will argue that such a search will be in vain because his views on accidents are seriously confused. 1. Here is the text of Metaphysics E.3: lo27a29 That there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible 3~ without being in process of coming to be and being destroyed, is clear. For otherwise 31 everything will be of necessity, if whatever is generated and destroyed 32 must have some cause non-accidentally. For 33 will this be or not? If this comes to be; but if not, not. 34 And that if something else does. And thus it is clear that as time is constantly subtracted 1o27b t from a limited period of time one will arrive at the present, so that this man will 2 die by violence if he goes out; and this will happen if he gets thirsty; 3 and this will happen if something else does, And thus one will reach what holds now, or ' Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory (London: Duckworth, 198o), chapter I. [3111 3t2 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 23:3 JULY 1985 4 something that has come to be. For exampl6, if he is thirsty; and he will get thirsty if he is eating something 5 salty. But this either holds or not, so that necessarily 6 he will die, or not die. Likewise if one jumps over into 7 what has come to be, the same argument applies. For this--I mean what has come to be8 is already present in something. Hence, everything that will be 9 will be of necessity, as it is necessary that what is living will die; for something has already come to be, lo e.g. the presence of contraries in the same thing. But whether by disease or violence 11 is not yet determined, but if this comes to be. So it is clear that it runs to 12 some principle, but this does not run to something else. This then will 13 be the starting point for whatever may chance, and there is no other cause of its 14 coming to be. But to what sort of principle and what sort of cause such a reduction leads to, 15 whether to matter or to what a thing is for or to 16 what effects a change, needs to be investigated. Sorabji interprets the chapter as follows. Aristotle divides states of affairs ~ into three classes: necessities, those that hold for the most part--which I will call 'regularities'---and accidents. Coincidences form a subclass of the accidental and these are the items which are to be shown to lack causes. By 'cause' we are to understand Aristotle's efficient cause, which "is closest to a cause in our sense. ''3 An efficient cause provides a kind of explanation; it is "that whence comes the origin of change. TM To understand E.3 it is important to distinguish relative and absolute necessity. Aristotle is arguing against the thesis that whatever happens was all along necessary. "He concedes that an effect is necessary, given its cause. But this will not give us absolute (non-relative) necessity, unless the cause is itself absolutely necessary. And the cause becomes absolutely necessary only when it (or its causal ancestry) is past and irrevocable .... Aristotle's strategy in face of this is to deny that the causal ancestry of future events always 'State of affairs' and 'event' willbe used looselyin this paper. 3 Sorabji, 4o. 4 Ibid., 4a. ARISTOTLE ON ACCIDENTS 313 reaches back into the past. ''5 It fails to reach into...