Seite - 62 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

place; in this sense it would then be clear that locomotion is primary with respect to changes in non-locomotive beings as well. Although the argument certainly would yield the stated conclusion, this cannot be Aristotle’s reason for making it. For, in the discussion of the third eternity-objection he explicitly says that of the different changes that occur in living things only the change a living being undergoes with respect to place is a self-caused change, since the cause of the other kinds of change that an animal is constantly undergoing lies not in the respective living being but rather in something in its environment or at least something that in some other way was originally external to it.64 Therefore, only those beings that can perform locomotion in this sense are to be considered self- movers. But since only self-movers, can serve as the cause of other changes, plants and all other non-locomotive living things cannot directly cause other changes that occur in the sublunary sphere.65 Hence, what seems to be an objection against Aristotle’s priority claim at first glance turns out not to be. Consequently, there must be another reason why Aristotle focuses on cases of natural growth in the first part of the argument. Against the background of what we have just seen, it seems that there is another way in which the first argument could be read as Aristotle’s answer to what might be another possible objection to the priority claim. The objection is this: although there is no problem with non-locomotive living things, since they are not self-movers, a similar case could be made with respect to beings that are self-movers. For living beings that are self-movers grow in a similar manner to that of plants, and therefore one might think that growth is in some sense prior to locomotion in such living beings, which again would contradict the priority claim. This would be a real pro- blem, since it would show that locomotion is a poor candidate for the pri- mary kind of change with respect to living things that are self-movers, which as we have just seen, are central to the occurrence of all change in the 64 ὁρῶμεν γὰρ ἀεί τι κινούμενον ἐν τῷ ζῴῳ τῶν συμφύτων· τούτου δὲ τῆς κινή- σεως οὐκ αὐτὸ τὸ ζῷον αἴτιον, αλλὰ τὸ περιέχον ἴσως. αὐτὸ δέ φαμεν αὑτὸ κινεῖν οὐ πᾶσαν κίνησιν. Phys. VIII 2, 253a14–15: “for we observe that there is always some conna- tural part of the animal organism changing, and the cause of the change of this is not the ani- mal itself, but, perhaps, its environment. Moreover, we say that the animal itself originates not all of its changes but [only] its locomotion” (Transl. Morison (2004), 68). This thought is reiterated in Phys. VIII 6, 259b6–7. For reasons why Aristotle indeed holds the view that ani- mals with respect to their locomotions are self-movers in the strong sense see Morison (2004), 71–78. 65 This is clear from the discussion in Phys. VIII 5, where Aristotle states that any change may be traced back to a first mover who causes this change and that this must be a self- mover. As we have just seen, however, non-locomotive beings are not self-movers. See Phys. VIII 5, 256a13–21, and 256b1–3. 62 Change in quality and quantity of living beings ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen