Metaphysical and explanatory implications of Aristotle's elements in 'On Generation and Corruption'

In my dissertation, I provide an interpretation of Aristotle's elements, as he presents them in the second book of On Generation and Corruption and uses them to build up an account of the most basic explanatory principles in the natural world. My interpretation is an intermediate between traditional and revisionary interpretations of Aristotle, especially as such interpretations are found in the prime matter debate. On my interpretation of Aristotle, his simple bodies -- earth, air, fire, and water -- are not explanatorily basic principles this is because each of them may be further analyzed into form and matter of a particular kind. The account of Aristotle's elements, while largely ignored in the contemporary literature, is an important first step in understanding Aristotle's account of the natural world, for it allows us to consider to the kinds of things that Aristotle takes as explanatorily primitive.