Page - 71 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

4. Locomotion necessarily accompanies each of the other kinds of change, but not vice versa 4.1 Overview Immediately following the presentation of the first argument, the second argument is introduced. It is stated in the following lines: ἔτι δὲ πάντων τῶν παθημάτων ἀρχὴ πύκνωσις καὶ μάνωσις· καὶ γὰρ βαρὺ καὶ κοῦφον καὶ μαλακὸν καὶ σκληρὸν καὶ θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρὸν πυκνότητες δοκοῦσιν καὶ ἀραιότητες εἶναί τινες. πύκνω- σις δὲ καὶ μάνωσις σύγκρισις καὶ διάκρισις, καθ᾽ ἃς γένεσις καὶ φθορὰ λέγεται τῶν οὐσιῶν. συγκρινόμενα δὲ καὶ διακρινόμενα ἀνάγκη κατὰ τόπον μεταβάλλειν. ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τοῦ αὐξανομέ- νου καὶ φθίνοντος μεταβάλλει κατὰ τόπον τὸ μέγεθος. (260b7– 15) But further, a source of all the affections is condensation and rarefaction. For also heavy and light and soft and hard and hot and cold seem to be some kinds of density and rarity. But condensation and rarefaction are aggregation and segregation, on the basis of which we speak of genera- tion and corruption of substances. But what undergoes aggregation and segregation necessarily changes in place. Surely, also the magnitude of what is growing and diminishing changes in place. This argument shows that any change in quality, substance, or quantity involves change in place in the sense that undergoing any of the three afore- mentioned kinds implies that a part or parts of the respective subject change in place. Although locomotion is a necessary concomitant of all of the other changes, the converse does not hold: locomotion is not necessarily accompanied by any of the other kinds. Or, to put it more simply, Aristotle shows that whatever undergoes a change in quality, quantity, or substance, also necessarily changes with respect to place in a sense, while there is no need for the subject of locomotion to change in any of the other respects. Since in this sense none of the other three kinds of change can occur with- out the involvement of locomotion, while locomotion, in turn, does not necessarily depend on any other type of change, this argument shows another way in which locomotion has ontological priority over the other ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen