Aristotle vigorously attacked the Atomists and their predecessors for their theories of the elementary material components of the physical world. He himself held a theory that there are such elements, but it differed from all that had come before: he does not even spare Empedocles, who anticipated him at least in picking out earth, water, air, and fire as the elements. His criticisms are directed at the character given to the elements, and the use made of these elements in explaining the phenomena.

We shall examine these criticisms of early theories of the material elements in the second section. First, we must look at a more fundamental criticism – a criticism of materialism itself. Aristotle argues that an account of the material elements is a necessary part of explanation in the study of the natural world, but it is not sufficient for explanation, except in a minority of less important cases. He accuses his philosophical predecessors of a crucial failure, in that they virtually ignored form and finality in nature. This takes us right to the heart of the differences between Atomism and Aristotelianism.

The failure of Presocratic explanations

The subject under discussion is nature, physis. At the beginning of the second book of his Physics, Aristotle makes some very general remarks, which then form the basis for his criticisms of the Presocratics.