Seite - 31 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

stood within the larger context of the argument that Aristotle is developing in Book VIII to account for how change as a phenomenon we are acquainted with by experience can exist in the way we observe it. 2.4 Physics VIII 2.4.1 Overview In this last section I will examine what role the arguments presented for the priority claim play in the context of Physics VIII. For, only if one knows what this discussion in Phys. VIII 7 aims at and why Aristotle is interested in showing the truth of this claim can one understand what it stands for and evaluate the arguments presented for it in an appropriate way. As I shall explain in this section, Aristotle needs to show the truth of the priority claim in order to be able to provide evidence for an assumption which he made implicitly in the discussion of Phys. VIII 1–6 and on which the theory developed there essentially depends, namely the premise that against all possible objections there exists one single change that is eternal and that fulfils all other criteria required of a change whose direct source is the first unmoved mover. In order to show this I will first of all outline the basic argument pre- sented in Phys. VIII 1–6. I will argue that Aristotle in these chapters devel- ops a theory according to which change is eternal and that in order to account for this fact the necessary existence of an unmoved mover needs to be presupposed (2.4.2). My second step will then be to examine the impor- tance of the arguments for the primacy of locomotion, and by extension of the whole discussion stated in Phys. VIII 7–9 into which they are embedded. I will show that these chapters present a justification for assumptions whose truth is presupposed in the discussion in Phys. VIII 1–6 and without which this theory would not hold (2.4.3). 2.4.2 The argument of Physics VIII In Book VIII of the Physics Aristotle, by building on the preparatory work done in Books V and VI, aims to develop a theory that explains how the fundamental phenomenon of change exists in the way in which we experi- ence it in the world.61 This is done by showing that all changes may be 61 Accordingly, I agree with Ross (1936), 85, who states that the object of Phys. VIII basi- cally is “to account for the presence of movement in the world and for its having the charac- teristics it has.” Physics VIII 31 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen