Page - 29 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

we will see, that will be essential for understanding what significance lies in inquiring into the primary kind of change at all, and, in fact, the question is taken up again at the beginning of Book VIII. Between outlining the task of examining whether one eternal change can exist and carrying out this task we find Book VII. The fact that Book VII interrupts the line of thought connecting Book VI and VIII—along with other arguments we have already considered—suggests that Book VII needs to be considered as a misplacement.55 This possibility becomes even more likely when the reader tries to relate what was done in Physics V and VI to Book VII. Although the topics discussed there certainly are related in a way to what goes on in Books V, VI and VIII, Phys. VII in itself does not seem to be structured by a plan that connects it to what is done in the two books prior to it and to the next and final book, but rather gives the impression of being more a collection of different thoughts on cer- tain aspects of change than a systematic inquiry. As was noted, neither does the beginning of Book VII fit with the end of Book VI, nor does its end fit with the beginning of Book VIII.56 At best one might consider it a kind of digression that interrupts the examination started in Physics V, continued in VI and concluded in Book VIII. Therefore, even if some scholars are cor- rect in assuming that Book VII relates to Book VIII by providing support for the argument for the first unmoved mover, this still would not imply that the appropriate place for Book VII is between VI and VIII.57 Book VIII, however, is again closely connected with the inquiry begun in Book V and continued in VI. As we have already seen, it relies on the dis- cussions contained in these books. Without having followed this discussion the reader is prepared neither to understand what Physics VIII is supposed to show and hence the significance of the claim that locomotion is primary, nor how the arguments for this claim work.58 In addition, the argument begins more or less directly where the discussion in Phys. VI ended, namely by picking up the question whether there can be one change that is eternal and by showing later on that, as Phys. VI 10 already suggested, this change can only be circular locomotion.59 For, as stated in the next section in greater detail, Phys. VIII starts by showing that the phenomenon of change must have always existed, which finally will lead to the assumption that there must be one eternal change 55 See the beginning of section 2.2.2 and p.23, n.34, again. 56 See Ross (1936), 15. 57 See p.23, n.35. 58 See p.28 n.50, 53, and 54. 59 See Phys. VI 10, 241a26–b20, and Phys. VIII, 2, 252b7–12. For the claim about circular locomotion that is made in Phys. VI 10 see 241b18–20; Aristotle shows in Phys. VIII 8 that only this kind of change may be eternal. The eight books of the Physics 29 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen