Page - 57 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

instance for certain changes with respect to quantity, quality, and place.48 This seems to be reasonable, since it is a fact that an animal like for instance a kitten obviously grows, regulates its body temperature and—at least at a certain point of its development—is capable of walking from the sofa to the feeding dish when hungry. As I will show later on, this, of course, does not mean that the cat in virtue of having a soul may be the source of all these different changes in an identical way. As we have seen, this is different for inanimate things which do not have a nature. As an inanimate thing qua the respective thing that it is does not have a source of change within itself, it cannot cause or be responsible for its own change in this sense. That this is what Aristotle thinks is clear from De Motu Animalium 4, where he explicitly states that all inanimate or “life- less things are moved by something else” and that “the origin for all the things moved in this way is something that moves itself.”49 The same claim is made again in MA 6.50 But there it is also stated that only living things can be responsible for the changes inanimate things undergo, for apart from certain other changes in the universe, like the eternal movement of the stars, for instance, and the changes caused by them, all changes are caused by living beings.51 This passage, therefore, shows that Aristotle thinks that in this way all changes undergone by inanimate things, apart from the abovementioned exceptions, can be traced back to a living being as the cause of the change.52 And this is plausible, since apart from what happens (ἀρχή) of the different kinds change and of activities specific to things that have life (see for instance de An. II 2, 413a20–25 and 413b11–13). In this way for instance plants have the source of their own growth within themselves (see de An. II 2, 413a25–28). 48 Apart from what I just said in n.47 this becomes even more clear from PA I 1, 641b4– 8. There it is stated that for each of the three non-substantial kinds of change that a living thing may undergo as a part of its life specific activities there is a corresponding part of the soul that may be considered as a source for the respective change (κινήσεως ἀρχή). In this sense, for instance, “of growth the origin is the part which is present even in plants, of altera- tion the perceptive part, and of locomotion some other part, and not the rational.” (ἀλλ᾽ [ἀρχή] αὐξήσεως μὲν ὅπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς φυτοῖς, ἀλλοιώσεως δὲ τὸ αἰσθητικόν, φορᾶς δ᾽ ἕτερόντι καὶ οὐ τὸ νοητικόν) (Transl. Lennox (2001)). I do not want to claim here that the soul is the only source for all the different changes a living being undergoes and that in this sense have their origin in it; yet, Aristotle clearly thinks that changes like growth and diminution, certain alterations and, of course, locomotion in a certain sense have their princi- ple in the soul. I will say more on this later on in section 7.1.4. 49 πάντα γὰρ ὑπ᾽ ἄλλου κινεῖται τὰ ἄψυχα, ἀρχὴ δὲ πάντων τῶν οὕτως κινουμέ- νων τὰ αὐτὰ αὑτὰ κινοῦντα. MA 6, 700a16–17 (Transl. Nussbaum (1985)). 50 τὰ ἄψυχα πάντα κινεῖται ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρου, 700b6. 51 τῶν γὰρ ἄλλων [scil. κινήσεων] παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ὅλου κίνησιν τὰ ἔμψυχα αἴτια τῆς κινήσεως, MA 6, 700b11–12: “For of all the other [changes], besides the change of the whole, the living things are the cause of the change.” 52 See MA 6, 700a6–12. Does locomotion precede all occurrences of change in quantity? 57 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen