ABSTRACT
Among Aristotle’s extant works one of the most difficult is a treatise in two books entitled PERI GENESEVS KAI FYORAS, De generatione et corruptione, On Coming To Be and Passing Away.1 This title, not used by Aristotle himself in his references to parts of this work, derives from its opening words Per‹ d¢ gen°sevw ka‹ fyorçw (314a2) and by no means covers its entire contents. As the main sections forming the two books seem to have been hammered into a sort of whole at an early date, we may believe that it was soon referred to by others with the title deriving in the customary way from the opening sentence. Though much more than just coming to be and passing away are at issue, these play a major part in Aristotle’s complicated inquiries, especially in the mini treatise consisting of the first four chapters2 of GC but of course also elsewhere in the work, and they are naturally discussed in other treatises of the corpus as well. Time and again, as is his habit, Aristotle develops his own views from, and in contrast to, a (to some extent manipulated) critical overview of, or reference to, views of his predecessors.
