Page - 40 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

change locomotion is the primary one and that for this reason the change which has its primary source in the first unmoved mover can only be loco- motion. 2.5 Conclusion What has this chapter, which dealt with the context of the arguments for the priority claim, shown? In examining different testimonies that tell us something about the way in which the book we call the Physics of Aristotle was originally arranged, it first of all became clear that Book VIII of this book, together with Books V and VI, most likely formed a formerly independent treatise named On Change. In contrast to the preceding books of the Physics, which go back to at least one other treatise called On Nature and which dealt with the princi- ples of nature, this treatise focused on examining the phenomenon of change in general. The discussion of the primary kind of change in Book VIII accordingly has to be considered as a part of this larger project for examining change. This observation was also confirmed by the fact that with respect to the content of these books Aristotle’s goal in Phys. V–VIII is to develop a gen- eral theory of change: after basic concepts that are necessary for this enter- prise are analysed and the phenomenon of change is established as an object accessible to scientific inquiry in Phys. V and VI, Book VIII completes the inquiry by developing a theory that, based on the work done in Phys. V and VI, can account for the empirical fact of the existence of change in the cos- mos by showing that change must be eternal and that all changes have their common principle in a first unmoved mover. Finally, I made it clear that Aristotle’s question which kind of change is primary, as it is raised and discussed in Phys. VIII 7 plays a crucial role for the argument of Book VIII. Together with the rest of what is discussed in chapters 7–9 the arguments provide essential support for the theory of the eternity of change and the necessary existence of a first unmoved mover which is the source of all change in the universe, a theory that was devel- oped in the first six chapters of Phys. VIII. For, only if the arguments for the claim that locomotion is the primary kind of change are successful can Aristotle show that there can in fact be this one single eternal change whose existence the theory presupposes, because by making clear that the type of change which is primary and the change which can be eternal are one and the same Aristotle proves that there is a change that, besides being eternal, in virtue of belonging to the primary kind of change also fulfils the other criteria for being the change which is directly caused by the first unmoved 40 The importance of the primary kind of change ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen