Page - 54 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

for after all magnitude (μέγεθος) in Met. V 13 in general is defined as a quantum (ποσόν) that is measurable and can be divided into continuous (συνεχές) parts.38 Things that have a magnitude and can change with respect to it would then include for instance all kinds of living organisms, but also things like a lump of clay, a stalactite or a certain quantum of water or air. According to this general definition of magnitude—and this seems to be the point of the aforementioned criticism—all cases in which such things change with respect to their size would count as instances of a change in magnitude, and not only the special case of growth and diminution in living beings. But if Aristotle’s argument really is supposed to show that locomo- tion is prior to any change in magnitude, but only presents reasons for this being true in the special case of growth and diminution in animals, then the argument, it seems, fails. That Aristotle’s argument refers solely to changes in magnitude of living beings is clear not only from what is said in Phys. VIII 7, but also from the fact that the characterisation of growth there is a short version of what is stated in GC I 5 and parts of de An II 4.39 This, it appears, would be highly problematic, as it is far from clear, not to say wrong, that all instances of change with respect to magnitude in general— including the cases I just mentioned—occur in the way Aristotle explained growth in the first argument for the primacy of locomotion. Suppose, for instance, a puddle increases in size and becomes larger as it rains. To put it more generally, in this case a portion of water changes with respect to its magnitude by more water being added to it. In this case there certainly is no need for the raindrops that are added to the puddle to undergo an altera- tion in the way presented in the argument in order to become a part of the puddle and to be absorbed by the whole in the same way that food is trans- formed and integrated into the body. Another example which shows the same would be that of a river which changes in magnitude over the year: in but rather more with respect to its role in nature (φυσικώτερον), which means in a sense that excludes other cases of change in magnitude. Graham (1999), 121, in this argument also understands αὔξησις in the restricted biological sense, but does not seem to think that this is a problem. 38 See Met. V 13, 1020a7–11. 39 This for instance is obvious from the fact that in de An. II 4 Aristotle explains one of the essential characteristics of growth in general, namely that it occurs in one sense by what is like, in another sense by what is unlike, with reference to the fact that the food which is unlike at the beginning by being digested becomes like that to which it is added (see my discussion in section 3.2.1 and de An. II 4, 416b6–7). That the account of growth presented in GC I 5 is restricted to cases of the growth of living organisms, although it is also considered as a change in magnitude there (320a13–14) is pointed out for instance by Joachim (1922), 110, who argues that in GC I 5 the use of αὔξησις only refers to growth of ἔμψυχα, and Code (2004), 171, who claims that growth is treated in GC I 5 not as increase in size in general but rather as a “kind of natural phenomenon”. 54 Change in quality and quantity of living beings ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen