Original scientific paper
Aristotle and Petrić on the concepts of chaos and chance
Mihaela Girardi Karšulin
; Institut za filozofiju, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Aristotle confronted several inherited notions of disorder. Above all, it was disorder that, as a coincidence of everyting, i. e. stationariness, preceded motion. This notion of disorder came to Aristotle from Anaxagoras. Then there was disorder as stationariness in the period between ordered motions in opposite directions, which came from Empedocles. Finally, there was the notion of disorder which was no longer stationariness, but motion, a notion of unintelligible, unknowable motion, ungraspable by reason, which came from Zeno. Aristotle rejected all these notions of disorder and, rejecting them, he conceived physics as a theoretical science. Nevertheless, there is a notion of disorder, of chance, even in physics as a theoretical science. It is based in the notions of possibility and non-being. It is noteworthy that the notion of chance, or, so to say, of acceptable disorder, is based on the same structural elements which are used as proof of intelligibility, i. e. orderliness, regularity and knowability of motion. Petrić’s critique of Aristotle’s concepts of disorder is analysed in the second part of the article.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
76487
URI
Publication date:
6.12.1999.
Visits: 1.475 *