Berman Brad
Early Sci Med. 2015;20(1):27-47. doi: 10.1163/15733823-00201p02.
This paper offers an interpretation of Aristotle's treatment of the homoeomerous, or like-parted, bodies. I argue that they are liable to be far more complexly structured than is commonly supposed. While Aristotelian homoeomers have no intrinsic macrostructural properties, they are, in an important class of cases, essentially marked by the presence and absence of microstructural ones. As I show, these microstructural properties allow Aristotle to neatly demarcate the non-elemental homoeomers from the elements. That demarcation, in turn, helps to clarify Aristotle's conceptions of both homoeomery and what it is to be a bodily element. On Aristotle's account, I argue, a homoeomerous body, as such, is divisible into at least one part that is the same specific kind as the whole. Elemental bodies are the limiting case. For Aristotle, an elemental body is only divisible into parts that are of the same specific kind as the whole.
本文对亚里士多德关于同质体或各部分相似的物体的论述进行了解读。我认为，它们的结构可能比通常认为的要复杂得多。虽然亚里士多德式的同质体没有内在的宏观结构属性，但在一类重要的情形中，它们本质上是以微观结构属性的有无为特征的。正如我所表明的，这些微观结构属性使亚里士多德能够清晰地将非元素性的同质体与元素区分开来。反过来，这种区分有助于阐明亚里士多德关于同质性以及何为物体元素的概念。我认为，按照亚里士多德的观点，一个同质体本身至少可被分割成一个与整体属于同一种类的部分。元素物体是极限情形。对亚里士多德来说，一个元素物体只能被分割成与整体属于同一种类的部分。
