This was again, a very difficult lesson to sift through. As I took notes, I was tracking and laying out what Aristotle was saying, but I was not comprehending the substance of the message at all. The key that seemed to unlock the fog over the text was coming to understand the distinction between definite and indefinite contingencies. I meditated and prayed on these two terms as I drove home from work yesterday. My mind focused on indefinite and trying to understand why Aristotle would using walking and an earthquake to demonstrate his point. I began to ask myself the questions like: “Is walking indefinite? How can it be indefinite if what walks, must walk, before walking to be known and apparent? Would that not be a definite act? Indefinite seems to imply perpetuity in action. Yet the earthquake does not happen without a prior cause and not indefinitely? Is it the earthquake itself that which is contingent here or something else?” Then I locked in on the term ‘for’ which was used in both examples. It was walking to the animal, and the time and place to the earthquake which was indefinitely contingent. So, then what is indefinite must be related to the predicate, if that were true, then that meant what is definite is concerning the subject. I took this interpretation to the tutor and received affirmation that this aligns with what Aristotle is teaching.
EAR