The Eleatic Challenge in Aristotle’s Physics I.8

Abstract: In Physics I.8, Aristotle outlines and responds to an Eleatic argument against the reality of change. I defend a new reading according to which the argument assumes Predicational Monism, the claim that each being can possess only one property. In Phys. I.2, Aristotle responds to Predicational Monism, which he attributes to the Eleatics; I argue that he uses this response to distinguish coincidental from non-coincidental becoming, a distinction he employs in Phys I.8 to resolve the argument against the reality of change. The Eleatics’ acceptance of Predicational Monism, I argue, explains why this distinction is unavailable to them.