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can be transformed into flesh and in this sense is potentially like that to
which it is added.
In the sense stated above, therefore, the food which is added is actually
something unlike the growing thing, but also is potentially something like
the growing thing, which is exactly what claim (1) says.14 That this must be
what Aristotle has in mind here becomes even more clear in a passage from
de An. II 4, where it is stated that the food, “insofar as it is undigested, is
the contrary for the contrary, but insofar as it is digested, is the like for the
like.”15 This, however, is a short reformulation of what I just stated, namely
that growth indeed seems to take place by means of that which is like and—
at the same time, yet in another respect—unlike the growing thing.
But in order for the growth to occur the nourishment’s potential of being
like that to which it is added has to be actualised. In terms of Aristotle’s
explanation from GC I 5, the food, among other things, needs to be changed
from moist to dry, that is from the quality by which it is characterised into
this quality’s contrary. A change from a quality to its contrary, however, is
an alteration.16 Since, as we have seen, such a change needs to occur when
the food is transformed in order to become an integral part of the body,
Aristotle correctly makes claim (4), i.e. that this change (μεταβολή), which
involves a change between these contraries can only be an alteration
(ἀλλοίωσις).17
Therefore, Aristotle rightly claims that an alteration, at least in the stated
case, has to precede growth in the sense that before the material becomes a
part of the body by being integrated into it, it must first undergo an altera-
tion. One way to think of this in Aristotelian terms would be the following:
in order for the growth of the animal to take place, food has to be digested,
that is, turned into blood and later for instance into the homoeomeres of
flesh or bone. This involves an alteration, since this process, parts of which
involve the change from wet to dry, takes place by concoction (πέψις), i.e.
the heating of the food.18
Hence, every process of growth which works in this way has to be pre-
ceded by an alteration. In this way Aristotle shows that this is what must
happen whenever an animal grows; yet, he does not make clear that its
decrease in size, i.e. diminution, also presupposes alteration in the stated
14 See GC I 5, 322a5–6.
15 ᾗ μὲν γὰρ ἄπεπτος, τὸ ἐναντίον τῷ ἐναντίῳ τρέφεται, ᾗ δὲ πεπεμμένη, τὸ
ὅμοιον τῷ ὁμοίῳ. De An. II 4, 416b6–7.
16 See for instance Phys. V 2, 226b1–3, GC I 4, 319b8–12, where ἀλλοίωσις is defined as
the change between contrary qualities of some x. The example that in GC I 5 is given for this
change is that of nourishment being changed from wet to dry (see 322a1–3).
17 ἀνάγκη οὖν ἀλλοίωσιν εἶναι τὴν εἰς τἀναντία μεταβολήν. Phys. VIII 7, 260a34.
18 See PA II 3, 650a2–6.
Growth and diminution presuppose alteration 47
ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060
© 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics
- Titel
- The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics
- Autor
- Sebastian Odzuck
- Herausgeber
- Dorothea Frede
- Gisela Striker
- Verlag
- Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9783647253060
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 23.2 cm
- Seiten
- 238
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- Naturwissenschaften Physik
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Acknowledgements 9
- 1. Introduction 10
- 2. The importance of the primary kind of change 14
- 3. Change in quality and quantity of living beings depends on loco-motion, but not vice versa 42
- 4. Locomotion necessarily accompanies each of the other kinds of change, but not vice versa 71
- 4.1 Overview 71
- 4.2 What changes in quantity changes with respect to place 73
- 4.3 What undergoes generation or corruption changes with respect to place 89
- 4.4 What changes in quality changes with respect to place 98
- 4.4.1 Overview 98
- 4.4.2 What does it mean that condensation and rarefaction are principles of quality? 100
- 4.4.3 Every alteration involves a change in the four basic qualities 104
- 4.4.4 Every change in the four basic qualities involves con- densation or rarefaction 108
- 4.4.5 Condensation and rarefaction are forms of aggregation and segregation 110
- 4.4.6 What changes in quality changes with respect to place 112
- 4.4.7 Conclusion 113
- 4.5 Conclusion 113
- 5. All changes depend on the first locomotion, but not vice versa 115
- 6. Locomotion has temporal priority 144
- 6.1 Overview 144
- 6.2 Locomotion has priority in time, since it is the only change eternals can undergo 146
- 6.3 Objection: Locomotion is the last of all changes in perishable things 148
- 6.4 Coming to be presupposes an earlier locomotion 150
- 6.5 The locomotion of the sun as a cause of generation 154
- 6.6 Conclusion 162
- 7. Locomotion is prior in essence 164
- 7.1 Locomotion is prior in essence, since it is last in coming to be 164
- 7.2 Locomotion alone preserves its subject’s essence 186
- 7.2.1 Overview 186
- 7.2.2 Locomotion does not change its subject’s being 188
- 7.2.3 Locomotion preserves its subject’s essence best 190
- 7.2.4 Making x depart from its essence by being part of a change in essence? 195
- 7.2.5 Change in quality or quantity in principle may result in a change in essence 202
- 7.3 Conclusion: Locomotion’s priority in essence 207
- 8. Conclusion 211
- Bibliography 220
- List of Abbreviations 223
- Index Locorum 221
- Index Nominum 223
- Index Rerum 221