Time, Count and Soul in Aristotle. An Interpretation of Physica IV.14, 223a25-26

Aristotle’s study of time in Physics IV.10-14 shows great difficulties, one of these is the link between time and soul made in 223a21-28. This passage was discussed by several modern scholars during the twentieth century. There is no unanimous consensus, but the “realistic interpretation” was widespread during the last century. In this paper I propose to discuss the interpretation of the premise 223a25-26 in Aristotle’s argument about the timesoul link and reject the “realistic interpretation” of this passage whereby the time as count would exist independently of the soul. I intend to show that time’s ‘countable’ feature does not exist independently of the soul, unlike what happen with the ‘sensible’.