Aristotle on Time

Aristotle conceives of time as a variety of hylomorphic compound. By “hylomorphic” I mean the kind of analysis Aristotle employs at very many places in his works, according to which the thing under consideration is to be understood as a combination of matter (hulê) and form, or shape (morphê). On the hylomorphic interpretation I endorse, motion is the matter of time, and perception is its form. Aristotle defines time as “a number of motion with respect to the before and after” (Phys. 219b1–2), by which he intends to denote motion's susceptibility to division into undetached parts of arbitrary length, a property that it possesses both by virtue of its intrinsic nature and also by virtue of the capacities and activities of percipient souls. Motion is intrinsically indeterminate, but perceptually determinable, with respect to its length. Acts of perception function as determiners; the result is determinate units of kinetic length, which is precisely what a temporal unit is.

It would be one thing to employ the conceptual framework of hylomorphic analysis as an interpretative apparatus or strategy, but I don't intend to use hylomorphism that way. I am convinced that the proper way of understanding Aristotle's view of time requires thinking of it as a variety of hylomorphic compound, because that is precisely how he himself understood it.

I take it that this view might seem quite implausible at first blush. For surely hylomorphism is most obviously suited to accounting for the nature of concrete objects like statues, houses, and animals.