Page - 77 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

which its original place is a proper part.”15 But strictly speaking, with respect to its primary place16 the tree changes in place, since the place it occupied before the process of growth differs from the place it occupies now. The reason for this change in place, Aristotle tells us, is that by grow- ing, the parts of the oak tree change their place and each of them moves “to a larger place” (ἐπὶ πλείω τόπον) (and, if it is diminishing, to a smaller one (ἐπ᾽ ἐλάττω).) The GC-passage, like the one from Phys. IV 4, also supports this under- standing of the relation that exists between change in quantity and change in place according to Aristotle. It confirms that (1) any subject of a change in quantity in a way undergoes a change in place, and that (2) the reason for this is that in undergoing a change in size the subject’s magnitude becomes larger or smaller and therefore occupies a larger or a smaller place. Yet, GC I 5 also tells us that the subject does not undergo a change in place in the full sense, i.e. as a whole, but merely with respect to and in virtue of its parts. In Phys. V 1 Aristotle expounds on what it means to say that something x changes with respect to its parts and lists it as one of the ways in which something x may be said to undergo a change, but clearly distinguishes it from change in the proper sense. According to Phys. V 1, I would be justi- fied in saying that my body has changed from being sick to being healthy, because a part of it, for instance the eye or the chest, has been restored to health.17 In a similar way we often say that x is changing although only one or several of its parts are doing so. According to the distinctions Aristotle draws in V 1, he would say that properly speaking it is not the case that I (or my body) am becoming healthy, but since only a part of me is doing so, I am changing in this sense with respect to one or several of my parts (κατὰ μέρη). If something undergoes a change in this way, it is, properly speak- ing, not really changing, as it is not the subject of the respective change. For this reason Aristotle in Phys. V 1 states that in the subsequent examination he will leave out such cases and concentrate on those that count as instances of full change.18 These are changes in which what is said to be the subject of the change undergoes a change itself with regard to what it is. In this sense we say that in growing, a tree changes in place, because parts of it change their places. We speak like this in everyday language and, as we see in Phys. V 1, Aristotle is well aware of this and makes use of it in the passage under discussion: in a sense what grows or diminishes changes in place, but only 15 Code (2004), 173. 16 The primary place of something x according to Aristotle is the place which is “neither smaller nor greater” than x (μήτ᾽ ἐλάττω μήτε μείζω) Phys. IV 4, 211a2. 17 See Phys. V 1, 224a23–26. 18 See Phys. V 1, 224b26–28. What changes in quantity changes with respect to place 77 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen