Page - 74 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

dict assumptions fundamental to Aristotle’s theory (4.2.5). I will conclude by summarizing the results of this section (4.2.6). 4.2.2 What is growing moves to a larger place After having claimed that the subject of every change in quality or sub- stance undergoes a change in place, Aristotle ends the passage with a state- ment about change in quantity and its relation to change in place.4 In this very brief remark—consisting of only one and a half lines—it is stated that “surely, also the magnitude of what is growing and diminishing changes in place.”5 As with subjects that undergoe changes in quality or in substance, the subject of change in quantity also seems to undergo a change with respect to place. The reason for this claim is that x’s magnitude (μέγεθος) in either growing or diminishing changes in such a way that the place which x occupied before its change in quantity differs from the one it occupies afterwards. Even though Aristotle’s explanation is rather short, this seems to be a reasonable assumption. The place of a full-grown oak tree, for instance, is different from the place it occupied at an earlier stage when still a shoot. The more the shoot grows, i.e. the larger it becomes, the more space it occupies.6 The same is true of any other thing that changes in size. The passage from the Physics is not the only one in which Aristotle corre- lates change in quantity with change in place. In fact, Phys. IV 4 and GC I 5 seem to characterize growth and diminution in the same way. In order to understand the relation between change in quantity and in place it is useful to take a closer look at these two passages, which clearly suggest that this view is Aristotle’s own, but which also tell us more about the relation between the two kinds of change. 4 As in the previous chapter, I take ‘change in quantity’ (κίνησις κατὰ τὸ ποσόν) to be restricted to organic change in quantity, that is, to cases of growth (αὔξησις) or diminution (φθίσις) of things that have their own source of this kind of change within themselves, i.e. as these concepts are used in Phys. VIII 7, GC I 5 and de An. II 4. For more on this see section 3.4. 5 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τοῦ αὐξανομένου καὶ φθίνοντος μεταβάλλει κατὰ τόπον τὸ μέγεθος. Phys. VIII 7, 260b13–15. Contrary to what one might think, Aristotle here, of course, does not mean to say that it is primarily some magnitude which changes in place, but that the respective subject undergoes a change in place in virtue of having a magnitude. 6 This, of course, is not the most accurate description of the process of growth, which no doubt is more complicated than stated here, since such an increase in size, of course, does not necessarily have to go hand in hand with an increase in volume: suppose, for instance, that the shoot, although increasing in size with respect to its height, becomes thinner, so that its volume as a whole does not increase. Yet, for my purposes the description does what it is sup- posed to do, namely it shows that growth involves a change in place of the growing thing. 74 Locomotion necessarily accompanies each of the other kinds of change ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen