Meeting of the Society of Ancient Greek Philosophy

Richard Sorabji claims that the ancient debate concerning the proper treatment of animals “came to turn on whether animals were rational.” Only the Stoics seem be a case in point, since they say that justice “should extend only to beings like us and therefore rule out irrational animals” (De Abts. III.1.187). Yet by Sorabji’s own admission, he does not succeed in identifying a faculty of mind such that the Stoics could have reasonably inferred, from the absence of that faculty in animals, that animals were without a claim to be treated justly.

In this paper, I analyse how Aristotle understands Zeno’s arrow and how he solves it, by carefully looking at Physics Z. First, I offer a reconstruction of Zeno’s argument based on Aristotle’s report, and argue that he solves the paradox by denying that time is composed of indivisible nows.