Page - 121 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

consists of parts that for some reason do not form a continuous whole, but are merely in succession (ἐφεξῆς), because for two things x and y to be ἐφεξῆς means that x is followed directly by y without there being anything of the same kind between them.16 Nonetheless, these changes somehow seem to form some kind of unity, namely with respect to time, because the fact that one of these parts follows directly after the other is what allows us to speak of there being eternal change in the sense of the mass term, or even of there being an eternal change, although this is only true in a looser sense, since the parts as I will show later on cannot be continuous with one another.17 To put it more generally the term ‘change’ in this sense stands for a change that consists of more or less independent changes that according to Aristotle are unable to form a whole in the same sense as a change that is continuous, but that nevertheless form a unity in some looser sense. This usage allows us to call the succession of two changes c1 and c2 one change, even if this would not count as a change in the stricter sense. The stricter usage, however, refers to a change whose parts are not independent, as they are continuous parts of this one change and not merely a loose succession of changes. This is what one has to have in mind when analysing Aristotle’s comparison of the two ways in which change may be said to be eternal. On the one hand, there is a sequence of changes, of which, because one change follows the other, it is possible to say that there is, in a certain sense, an eternal change and that change in general therefore exists continuously, i.e. is everlasting. On the other hand, there is one single continuous, i.e. non- composed, change which exists continuously and is eternal. 5.2.2 Why the eternal change must be one and continuous But now that we have seen what Aristotle has in mind when he contrasts the two ways in which change basically may be eternal, it is still unclear why he prefers the first option, i.e. that of one eternal continuous change, to the second option. For both options, as Aristotle himself points out, in principle may serve to explain in what way there can be eternal change. 16 See Phys. V 3, 226b34–227a4, and VI 1, 231a23. Note, however, that this is not necessa- rily the case for things that are ‘in succession’ to each other, since two things that are continu- ous are also always ἐφεξῆς, while two things that are ἐφεξῆς do not necessarily have to be continuous (see Phys. V 3, 227a17–22). 17 For another example of a non-continuous change see for instance Phys. V 4, 229a5–6, where Aristotle speaks about “the [change] which is composed of alteration and locomotion” (ἡ [κίνησις] ἐξ ἀλλοιώσεως συγκειμένη καὶ φορᾶς). The unity of the eternal change 121 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen