Aristotle - Categories - Ch. 14 - On Kinds of "Change"

Six Kinds of "Change"

Chapter 14 is a listing of the possible meanings of the word "change". Change, he says, is "... in general [what] is contrary to staying the same." These are: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, and change of place. 

Destruction and Generation

Aristotle places destruction and generation as contrary types of change. Without being said explicitly, the idea of generation and destruction seems to be a type of change regarding the category of substance, as there is not more and less of a substance. A substance either exists or it does not exist. It either is generated or destroyed. 

Increase and Diminution

Likewise, increase and diminution are contrary types of change, but with regard to quantity. 

Change of Place

Change regarding place in space is another type that Aristotle identifies as separate, but he says it doesn't really have a proper contrary type of change, simply rather just that to change to a contrary place from where one is could be considered contrary. So moving from top to bottom or left to right, etc. 

Alteration is a Type of Change of Quality 

Aristotle also treats the claim that alteration just belongs in the other four types previously mentioned, but that he does not think this to be so. He gives the example of emotions (affections) and how these can change without doing so by these other meanings. Likewise, something can change in regard to its quantity without altering what it is, such as using a gnomon to make a larger and larger square. 

He ultimately places alteration as a type of change regarding qualities. 

In terms of contraries for change of quality, he just says that it would be to change into the contrary quality of what it is now. For example, for a virtue to become a vice. 

Chapter 14 Text 

15213. There are six kinds of change: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place. That the rest are distinct from one another is obvious (for generation is not destruction, nor yet is increase or diminution,’ nor is change of place; and similarly with the others too), but there is a question about alteration whether it is not perhaps necessary for what is altering to be altering in virtue of one of the other changes. However, this is not true. For in pretty well all the affections, or most of them, we undergo alteration without partaking of any of the other changes. For what changes as to an affection does not necessarily increase or diminish—and likewise with the others. Thus alteration would be distinct from the other changes. For if it were the same, a thing altering would, as such, have to be increasing too or diminishing, or one of the other changes would have to follow; but this is not necessary. Equally, a thing increasing—or undergoing some other change—would have to be altering. But there are things that increase without altering, as a square is increased by the addition of a gnomon but is not thereby altered; similarly, too, with other such cases. Hence the changes are distinct from one another. 

15>1. Change in general is contrary to staying the same. As for the particular kinds, destruction is contrary to generation and diminution to increase, while change of place seems most opposed to staying in the same place—and perhaps to change towards the contrary place (upward change of place, for example, being opposed to downward and downward to upward). As for the other change in our list, 1t is not easy to state what is contrary to it. There seems to be nothing contrary, unless here too one were to oppose staying the same in qualification or change towards the contrary qualification (just as with change of place we had staying in the same place or change towards the contrary place). For alteration is change in qualification. Thus to change in qualification is opposed staying the same in qualification or change towards the contrary qualification (becoming white, for example, being opposed to becoming black). For a thing alters through the occurrence of change towards contrary qualifications.