Reevaluating Aristotle’s Hypokeimenon Paradox Through the Adverb “Pos”

Abstract

Aristotle mentions in his book zeta of Metaphysics that hypokeimenon could be either “matter”, “form”, or “combination of matter and form”, and then investigates which of these three concepts could be hypokeimenon. During this investigation, Aristotle, who states that both matter can only be determined as hypokeimenon and that it is impossible for the matter to be hypokeimenon, seems to have created a paradox. Therefore, the subject of “what is hypokeimenon in Aristotle’s thought” has been turned into a subject discussed by Aristotle experts. In this study, firstly, I will explain what kind of an investigation on subject hypokeimenon has taken place in Aristotle’s ontology. After that, I will give a summary of how Aristotle experts interpreted the topic in different contexts and the aporias that stem from these interpretations. Finally, in order to disperse the fog over the paradox in question, I will show that, through the adverb “pos” used by Aristotle, the matter is used in more than one sense in Aristotle’s thought as both “hypokeimenon” and “non-hypokeimenon”.