Page - 15 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

change in that it originally comprised part of a formerly independent trea- tise which focused primarily on this phenomenon and that consisted of books V, VI, and VIII of the Physics (2.2). My next step will be to show that this observation is also confirmed by a closer look at the actual content of Phys. V–VIII, since Aristotle in these books indeed aims at developing a general theory of change. As I will make clear, the discussion of the priority claim, in virtue of belonging to Physics VIII, is a part of Aristotle’s explanation that accounts for the existence of any and all change in the cosmos (2.3). Against this background I will analyse the specific role which the discus- sion of the priority claim in Phys. VIII 7 plays in Book VIII of the Physics. I will argue that without what is presented in VIII 7, the theory developed in the six preceding chapters, namely that change is eternal and that there must be a first unmoved mover, would not hold. For this to be possible Aristotle needs to show, I will argue, that there is a type of change that ful- fils the criteria of being a change which has its direct source in the first unmoved mover. The first step of this important task is taken by showing that locomotion is primary and therefore is the only of the four kinds of change capable of fulfilling these criteria (2.4). My final step will be to sum- marize the results of this chapter (2.5). 2.2 The arrangement of the Physics I will now take a closer look at the context in which the discussion of the priority claim in Phys. VIII 7 is embedded in Physics VIII. Aristotle surely had good reasons to inquire into the primary kind of change in the specific context of this book. Only if we understand why this discussion is presented here, how it is connected to its context, and what role it plays in the text as a whole, will we be able to grasp the significance of the discussion of the primary kind of change, and what it is supposed to show. Book VIII is generally seen as the part of Aristotle’s Physics in which the work “reaches its culmination”1, as the “crowning achievement of his the- ory of nature”2, or as the book that presents “theorems […] which hold together the whole doctrine of nature”.3 This might suggest that the last book brings the whole of the Physics to its intended end and accomplishes 1 Ross (1936), 85. 2 Graham (1999), ix. Wagner (1967), 278, uses a similar expression by stating that “Buch VIII den krönenden Abschluß der Physikvorlesung bringen sollte”. 3 συνεκτικῶν τῆς ὅλης φυσιολογίας θεωρημάτων, Simplicius, In Phys. 7, 1037, 5–6. (Transl. Hagen (1994)). The arrangement of the Physics 15 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen