INDEX

Introduction to the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Ch 6: Motion

Physics, in the Aristotelian meaning, is the study of nature. Since nature, however, involves motion, a clear understanding of one without the other is not possible. But necessarily linked with motion are still other topics, which have therefore to be included in its study. They are:

  • the infinite, which is an intrinsic attribute of motion because motion is a continuum, and the infinite enters the definition of the continuum,
  • time, the measure of motion,
  • place, which, with Aristotle, is the measure or limit of the movable. With others, this measure is the void.

These, then, are the main topics Aristotle treats in Books III and IV of the Physics: motion, the infinite, place, the void, and time, in the order mentioned. We shall take them up in the same order, motion in this chapter, its concomitants in the next. 1

Footnotes

1 Cf. Text III A, "General Divisions for the Study of Motion," p. 186.

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