Page - 90 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

In order to show this I will now start with a detailed analysis of the pas- sage, in the course of which I will proceed as follows. Against the back- ground of certain passages from GC I 2 and the Meteorology I will first of all focus on showing that, contrary to what most interpreters of Phys. VIII say, it is Aristotle’s own view that generation and corruption in a sense occur in virtue of aggregation and segregation. In examining his reasons for making this claim, I will argue that any change in substance for Aristotle necessarily involves an aggregation or segregation of the fundamental com- ponents of the respective substance (4.3.2). After that I will discuss the claim that any aggregation or segregation necessarily involves a change in place of that which undergoes it. I will argue that Aristotle is right to make this claim, since each of the two processes always goes hand in hand with a change in place of the basic material components of the substantial change’s subjects, so that everything that is subject to generation or corruption also changes in place (4.3.3). I will conclude by summarizing the results (4.3.4). 4.3.2 Generation and corruption in virtue of aggregation and segregation First of all, it appears striking that in this passage Aristotle uses the concepts of aggregation (σύγκρισις) and segregation (διάκρισις) in order to explain the phenomena of generation and corruption. The terms of aggregation and segregation have not played an important role in the Physics so far, and up to this point have mainly been used by Aristotle in order to describe the doctrines of some of the earlier philosophers, in which both concepts play an important role as fundamental principles in nature.36 In fact, two chap- ters later, at the end of Phys. VIII 9, where Aristotle argues for the claim that circular locomotion is the primary kind of locomotion, some of these opinions are restated in order to show that his predecessors—at least impli- citly—also presupposed the priority of locomotion.37 Indeed, this passage in Phys. VIII 9 also presents the view that generation and corruption only occur in virtue of aggregation and segregation.38 Consequently, this and other assumptions stated in the second argument, and hence in the argu- ment as a whole, are often taken not to present a genuine Aristotelian view.39 Rather, scholars have noted, Aristotle appears to be arguing from 36 See for instance Phys. I 4, 187a29–31, VIII 9, 265b19–21, GC II 1, 328b33–329a5, and Met. I 3, 984a13–16. 37 See Phys. VIII 9, 265b17–32. 38 See Phys. VIII 9, 265b30–32. 39 Already Philoponus, In Phys. 8, 896, and later on Aquinas, In Phys., L. VIII, l.XIV, 1089, took the view presented here to be non-Aristotelian, or in the case of Aquinas, to be at least based on the probable assumptions of earlier philosophers. Solmsen (1960), 178, with 90 Locomotion necessarily accompanies each of the other kinds of change ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen