Seite - 11 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

With respect to this claim one may wonder first of all why one of these four kinds is held to be more important than the others, or even why it should be fundamental to them, as the stated claims seem to suggest. Furthermore, it is far from obvious why locomotion is held to be this pri- mary kind; for locomotion, one might object, requires a subject that can change with respect to place and therefore, it would seem, locomotion clearly presupposes and in this sense depends on a preceding change in sub- stance, namely the coming-to-be of its respective subject. This, however, would then seem to contradict the priority claim, i.e. Aristotle’s thesis about change in place being prior to the other kinds of change. Although this claim is made elsewhere in Aristotle and obviously seems to be of importance to him, it has not yet been subject to a detailed study.5 As I intend to show, for various reasons it has been ignored and even con- sidered as being of “small general interest”.6 In this study I will therefore present a detailed examination of this claim as it is laid out in Phys. VIII 7, the only place in which Aristotle deals with it systematically and where dif- ferent arguments for, as well as possible objections against, this far from self-evident assumption are discussed. The questions that serve as a starting point for my inquiry and that therefore will guide my discussion are the fol- lowing: What does it mean to say that locomotion is prior to other kinds of change, and why is this important? Why does Aristotle think locomotion has this special status, and are his reasons good ones? My thesis is that Aristotle rightly claims that locomotion has ontological, temporal and essential priority over the other kinds of change, which amounts to the claim that the occurrence of any change belonging to one of the other kinds in different respects presupposes locomotion. In this way Aristotle reaches the goal toward which the discussion of the priority claim tends, namely to establish that the change caused directly by the first unmoved mover can only be locomotion, i.e. a change in place. In order to show this I will proceed in the manner outlined below. My first step will be to analyse the context in which the arguments for the priority of locomotion are presented (chapter 2). This will help us develop an understanding of what it may mean to say that locomotion is primary and what Aristotle’s motivation might have been for making this claim, given that the discussion of the priority claim certainly plays an essential characteristic role in the context of Phys. VIII 7. Only if these points are clear will we be able to analyse and evaluate the arguments pre- sented for the claim in step two, where I will argue that the discussion of 5 The priority claim is also made for instance in GC II 10, 336a18–20 and Met. XII 7, 1072b8–9, and—at least indirectly—in 1073a12. 6 Ross (1936), 93. For more on this see section 2.4.3, esp. p.36, n.79. Introduction 11 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen