In Physics - Book II, Aristotle offers an explication on his understanding of the terms "luck" and "chance" as well as their distinctions. Upon analysis, I believe Aristotle fails to clearly elaborate on an example where his definition for chance and luck seem to contradict. The purpose of this essay is to identify the supposed contradiction, then offer a method of interpreting it that dispels said contradiction. I will do this by: first, providing some context for how I will be referring to the terms chance and luck in the essay; second, briefly summarizing Aristotle's conditions for when an event is considered luck and when it is chance; third, identifying and explaining the contradiction in Aristotle's example; fourth, address a potential objection to my interpretation; and finally, summarize my findings in a conclusion.
Before we begin, it is important to note that Aristotle views "luck" as a sub-category of "chance"; meaning all luck is chance, but not all chance is luck (197b1-5). This can become confusing quite quickly so for the sake of clarity, I will refer to instances where "chance" includes luck as "chance/luck", and instances where "chance" does not include luck as just "chance" (this does not pertain to direct quotes).
Luck and chance are a type of "cause" used to describe or explain events that: neither necessarily nor usually occurs; and also results from an action not intended for said event (196b20). An example of this similar to the one given by Aristotle (196b30-35) is as follows: a man decides to visit his local bathhouse (somewhere he does not usually nor needs to visit). It just so happens that someone who owes him money ends up also going that day and is able to repay him. Because the man did not intend to collect the money by visiting the bathhouse, luck could be said to be the cause of this occurring.
From there, the difference between chance and luck is that luck only pertains to events that result from the actions and decisions of rational agents (adult humans), whereas chance can pertain to any action in nature (children, animals, objects) (197b15-20). An example of chance given by Aristotle is that of a chair falling: "...it did not fall in order to be sat on, although it was left standing in order to be sat on" (197b15). His reasoning here is that a chair falling is an usual and unnecessary event that also goes against its purpose - which is to be sat on. And this cannot be an example of luck because there was no rational decision involved in its actions making it an example of chance.
Now that we’ve established that, the following example is where I believe there is a potential contradiction between his definition of chance and his conditions for luck: "For the stone did not fall in order to hit someone; it fell by chance, because it might have fallen because someone threw it to hit someone." (197b30) The example comes at the end of a paragraph where Aristotle provides a concrete distinction between when something is chance versus when it is luck (197b20). Making it reasonable to assume that the purpose of the example is to illustrate this distinction. His argument here seems to be that; because the stone is not a rational agent capable of making decisions, the results of its actions cannot be luck and therefore is an example of only chance. It is clear that the focus of Aristotle's point is on the intentions (or lack thereof) of the stone. However, it appears to me that this could be viewed instead as an event of luck. This is apparent if you shift the perspective to that of the "someone" being hit by the stone. For it must have been a result of some decision made by the rational agent that led them to the unlucky event of them being hit by the stone.
I argue the best way to interpret this seeming contradiction is to suggest that an event or result can be interpreted as either chance or luck, relative to the perspective. And this in turn, is done by considering certain events as a composite of smaller events. For example: let us say a bird happened to knock a stone off a roof. At that same moment, a man who had just decided on a whim to visit the bathhouse walks by and is hit by the stone. In this example, I argue there are in fact three distinct events: (1) the bird knocking the pebble off the roof; (2) the man deciding the visit the bathhouse, and (3) the man being hit by the pebble.
In such a case, event (1) is a chance event, since animals are incapable of causing events of luck. Event (2) is a neutral event involving a rational agent and is neither chance nor luck. However, when the rational agent in (2) encounters the cause of chance in (1), a third event of luck is produced - the result being event (3). In other words, a chance event can also be the cause of a separate luck event by encountering the actions of a rational agent.
Based on this conclusion, if we go back to Aristotle's example of the stone falling. We could argue that the isolated event of the stone falling was indeed a result of chance and not luck - as any events that may have followed were irrelevant to how we define that initial event. (This of course would not be true if instead a rational agent had accidentally hit the stone, in which case both the stone falling and the stone hitting someone would both be luck events).
An objection to my interpretation of the passage could be that the purpose of the stone example was not to illustrate the distinction between chance and luck but was instead a further illustration of chance/luck versus an event that was neither. This is supported by the latter part of his example where he writes "it might have fallen because someone threw it" which is clearly an example of neither chance nor luck (187b30). I accept that this is a possibility, but I believe this has little effect on my conclusions, as my criticism of Aristotle stems from his lack of elaboration on the situation I presented rather than the overarching purpose of that one example.
In Physics - Book II, Aristotle provides an example of a stone falling and hitting someone to illustrate a situation when chance is not luck. At first glance, this example seems to contradict his definition of luck, as it involves a rational agent. However, by interpreting the example as containing multiple distinct events rather than one singular event, I've concluded that it is possible for Aristotle's example to be one of only chance despite the presence of a rational agent. Furthermore, though I concede that there is an alternative way to view the original purpose of the example, I believe this does not change the validity of my conclusion. This is because the potential for the contradiction to exist would remain whether or not Aristotle had addressed it directly himself.
For if they cannot, they cannot, and if they can then they can.
C.D.C Reeve and Patrick Lee Miller. Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Aristotle, Physics 2). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Kindle Edition.