Page - 119 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

there exists either one single individual change that is eternal, or a number of succeeding individual changes. After presenting the two ways in which change (in the sense of the mass term) may be eternal, Aristotle quickly adds that the continuous change would be continuously “much more” or “in a fuller way” (μᾶλλον) than the composite change, i.e. that option (1) is to be preferred to option (2).9 However, he does not present any further reason for this strange claim, but merely adds another assertion, which also expresses that option (1) is to be preferred, since it is better (βέλτιον) than option (2), again without explaining why this is supposed to be the case.10 The two assertions clearly both favour the first of the two principle options for eternal change, but no reasons are presented for either assertion. A number of questions arise with respect to this passage. One concerns what seems to be the rather unusual way in which the term ‘continuous’ (συνεχές) is applied here. According, to the definition of continuity in Phys. VI 1 and V 3 something x is continuous with something y if the limits at which x and y touch are one and the same, so that, one may infer, x and y in this sense form one whole.11 But apart from this two-place use of ‘con- tinuous’ Aristotle also employs a one-place use of the term that is of special importance for understanding what goes on in Phys. VIII and in the third argument for locomotion’s priority: for something x to be continuous as a whole means that x potentially is infinitely divisible.12 As Aristotle shows in Phys. VI, being continuous in this way is one of the core features of change in general. But if for Aristotle any change is con- tinuous13, it is puzzling, and seemingly in tension with a fundamental prin- 9 μᾶλλον δ᾽ ἡ συνεχής, Phys. VIII 7, 260b21: “in a fuller way the continuous one”. 10 καὶ βέλτιον συνεχῆ ἢ ἐφεξῆς εἶναι, Phys. VIII 7, 260b21–22: “that is, it is better to be continuous than to be in succession”. Thus, the καί at the beginning of the phrase should be taken as exepegetical. 11 συνεχῆ μὲν ὧν τὰ ἔσχατα ἕν, Phys. VI 1, 231a22: “things are continuous whose extremes are one”. This is also what follows from the explanation stated in Phys. V 3, 227a11– 12: λέγω δ᾽εἶναι συνεχὲς ὅταν ταὐτὸ γένηται καὶ ἓν τὸ ἑκατέρου πέρας οἷς ἅπτονται: “I say that things are continuous when the limit of each by which they touch has become one and the same”. 12 See for instance Phys. VI 1, 231b15–16: φανερὸν δὲ καὶ ὅτι πᾶν συνεχὲς διαιρετὸν εἰς αἰεῖ διαιρετά: “and it is clear that everything that is continuous is divisible into things that are always divisible.” 13 See for instance Phys. V 4, 228a20. Applying the term ‘continuous’ (συνεχές) to changes is somewhat curious: it is more or less clear what may be meant by saying that the limits of a (continuous) body’s parts, for instance, are touching and one and the same. Yet, a change is essentially different from things like bodies, stretches of a road, etc., which makes it seem strange at first to say that a change is continuous because the touching limits of its parts are one and the same. For what exactly, one might wonder, are the limits of change and how The unity of the eternal change 119 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen