Page - 14 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

2. The importance of the primary kind of change 2.1 Overview Making sense of and evaluating the arguments that are presented for the priority claim in Phys. VIII 7 first of all presupposes an understanding of what Aristotle means by saying that change of place is primary and of why he makes that claim at all. In order to arrive at such an understanding, how- ever, one needs to look at the context in which the discussion of the priority claim is embedded. For, Aristotle certainly had very good reasons for fram- ing this discussion in its respective context in such a way that it fulfils its specific role in the whole of the argumentation. In this chapter, I will there- fore analyse the context in which the arguments for the claim that change in place is prior to the other three kinds of change are presented. I will argue that this examination of the context shows that the systematic discussion of the priority claim in Phys. VIII 7 plays a crucial role in the theory developed in the whole of Book VIII. This theory is supposed to account for the existence of change in the cosmos as one observes it day by day. Part of this theory is that for there to be change there must be a first unmoved mover that acts as the principle of all change in the cosmos by causing one single eternal change. I will argue that this theory presupposes the primacy of locomotion. That is to say, if the arguments presented for the priority claim fail, then the theory, too, may no longer hold. A part of this essential task is performed by Aristotle, who shows that locomotion is prior to the different types of change in different respects and that therefore the eternal change which is directly caused by the first unmoved mover can only be locomotion. This step is necessary, however, in order to make clear that it is possible for a change that fulfils the criteria of being the sole eter- nal change that has its direct source in the first unmoved mover to exist at all as the theory developed in Phys. VIII presupposes. In order to show all of this I will take the following steps. The discussion in Phys. VIII 7 on the one hand is embedded in the larger context of the book that today we call Aristotle’s Physics. Since this book as we have it today was not arranged by Aristotle himself and originally con- sisted of more or less independent treatises, I shall first of all examine the original context of the discussion of the priority claim in Phys. VIII. Based on a variety of sources, I will argue that this discussion needs to be consid- ered as a part of a larger project dedicated to a general examination of ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen