Page - 96 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

cesses which, according to Aristotle, may be (but certainly do not have to be) called aggregation and segregation are an ineliminable part of changes that occur on the material level of things. Yet, it is important to emphasize that, in contradistinction to the view that one might be tempted to share with certain scholars, saying that aggregation and segregation are a neces- sary part of such changes is far from saying that these changes may be reduced to the processes of σύγκρισις and διάκρισις, since the latter are not the only explanatory factors needed in order to understand what hap- pens when a change in substance occurs.64 This then is the way in which Aristotle in Phys. VIII 7 can rightly claim that it is “aggregation and segre- gation on the basis of which we speak of generation and corruption of sub- stances.”65 According to this view, what undergoes generation or corrup- tion in a sense also undergoes aggregation or segregation, since the former involves segregation and aggregation with respect to the subject’s basic material constituents, i.e. its elements. 4.3.3 What aggregates or segregates must change with respect to place Now that this is clear one still needs to understand in what way the fact that aggregation and segregation stand in this relation to generation and corrup- tion shows the priority of locomotion. Aristotle seems to think that locomotion’s priority over generation and corruption is shown by the fact that “what undergoes aggregation and seg- regation necessarily changes in place.”66 The idea behind this claim seems to be this: segregation and aggregation are nothing more than, and can be reduced to, the locomotion of the respective subject’s basic constituent parts. That this is what Aristotle has in mind in making this claim is sup- ported by a passage from Phys. VII 2. Here Aristotle explicitly states that— although a special status needs to be assigned to the processes of aggrega- tion and segregation involved in generation and corruption—all aggrega- tion and segregation are basically forms of locomotion and should not be considered as some other kind of change (ἄλλο τι γένος κινήσεως), as some of Aristotle’s predecessors thought.67 leave this statement unqualified, while Rashed and Buchheim think that this is in perfect accordance with Aristotle’s theory. (Joachim does not deal with this question.) 64 See for instance Carteron’s translation of the respective passage in VIII 7 that I just cited in n.62. 65 Phys. VIII 7, 260b11–12. 66 συγκρινόμενα δὲ καὶ διακρινόμενα ἀνάγκη κατὰ τόπον μεταβάλλειν. Phys. VIII 7, 260b12–13. 67 See Phys. VII 2, 243b7–12. That σύγκρισις and διάκρισις may be identified with 96 Locomotion necessarily accompanies each of the other kinds of change ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen