The Doctrine of Prime Matter in Aristotle's Science of Nature

Aristotle presents his doctrine of prime matter in order to give an explanation for change and especially for generation and corruption. Hence, no surprise, the place to look for the origin of this doctrine is nowhere but Aristotle’s science of nature. The first three sections of this article examine the Aristotle’s explanation of this doctrine according to his teachings in the works concerning the science of nature (Physics and On Generation and Corruption) and show that why Aristotle introduces such a thing as prime matter into his science of nature and what he does mean by that. Then, in the last section, I will show that Aristotle’s explanation of prime matter as the ultimate substratum of all things, at least as far as these works are concerned, is not plausible and without difficulties.