"On Generation and Corruption"  is a text by the Greek philosopher Aristotle of Stagira. It consists of two books (I: 314a - 328b, II: 328b 26 - 338b), and there is no doubt regarding the work’s authenticity.

The text is mentioned by this title in two ancient catalogs on Aristotle: one by an anonymous author and in the Arabic catalog of Ibn-el-Kifti and Ibn-el-Oseiba. However, it is not listed in Diogenes Laërtius’s catalog.

Aristotle’s purpose in this work is to analyze the problem of movement, a question that traces back to Parmenides and Heraclitus. Generation and corruption represent the highest degree of transformation that can affect a being in the sublunary realm. Aristotle carefully distinguishes these from other forms of change (movement), such as growth, diminution, alteration, and translocation.

According to Aristotle:

“With regard to the generation and corruption of beings that naturally generate and destroy, we must distinguish in all of them, in the same way, their causes and definitions; furthermore, we must determine what constitutes growth and alteration, and whether alteration and generation have the same nature or, on the contrary, if they differ as their names do” (*De Gen. et Corr.*, 314a).

In this work, Aristotle also presents his famous doctrine of the four causes and the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth). Combined, these concepts help explain generation and corruption and provide grounds for disputing atomism, a theory Aristotle considered mistaken.