Rónai 8 (2):246-261 (
2020)
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Abstract
This paper addresses a difficult passage from Aristotle’s
Metaphysics (V. 4, 1015a11-13) in which he identifies a metaphorical use of the
term “nature” (phusis) to refer to the entities which he calls “substances” (ousiai).
I claim that the passage at stake deploys the very notion of metaphor on the basis
of an analogy (as defined in the Poetics and in the Rhetorics), which is grounded on
a weak (and, sometimes, very weak) similarity between two relations (each
involving two relata). The sentences found in 1015a11-13 belong to those kind of
metalinguistic sentences which we usually employ to shed some light on the
metaphorical use of a term. The similarity Aristotle is presupposing is this: both
nature and substance are, in their respective fields, some kind of principle that
guarantees (besides other things) certain persistence conditions for what they are
the principles of. And this weak similarity is enough for the term “nature” to
refer metaphorically to substances.