Page - 130 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

thus why different changes that are generically one and that occur in suc- cession may not form one eternal change. After all this is shown, I will examine in what way Aristotle is able to conclude in his last step that change in place must be primary.43 This last step is of special importance, since it is puzzling how Aristotle actually arrived at the conclusion that locomotion is primary, although the term primary, as my reconstruction of the argument clearly shows, is not used in any of the premises Aristotle pre- sents in this argument. 5.3 Locomotion alone can be one and eternal As we have just seen, and as is explicitly stated in the third argument, Aris- totle does not present any reason for the assumption that there is any such change at all that is continuous and eternal, but merely presupposes it here and states his intention to show that this must be the case later on.44 Since the third argument as a whole relies on this claim it is crucial that Aristotle makes clear that he is right to make this assertion in order to show that locomotion has ontological primacy. But the argument, other parts of which may be found in Phys. VIII 7 and 8, is not only necessary for the the- sis that locomotion is primary, but, as I pointed out in a prior chapter, for the whole theory that change is eternal and that there needs to be a first unmoved mover.45 All this is only possible if there is a change that is one, continuous and eternal. The argument for this claim is given later on, after the presentation of the five arguments for the priority claim is completed. Since it will establish that circular locomotion is this special kind of change, it in one sense already belongs to the task of showing that circular locomo- tion is the primary kind of locomotion; in another sense, as we have seen, it provides an argument for a claim that is essential for the third argument for the priority of locomotion, which makes it necessary, at least to a certain degree, to discuss the reasons Aristotle presents for this claim here.46 For, only if Aristotle shows that locomotion alone can be the kind of change that in principle may be one and eternal, can one say that locomotion is ontolo- gically primary in the sense that it is the only candidate for being the change that is caused directly by the first unmoved mover. In what follows I will therefore present what basically are Aristotle’s rea- sons for making this claim. Although the arguments presented for this 43 See Phys. VIII 7, 260b25–26. 44 See Phys. VIII 7, 260b25–26 45 See section 2.4.3. 46 Aristotle himself points out this connection in Phys. VIII 7, 261a27–31. 130 All changes depend on the first locomotion, but not vice versa ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen