Page - 140 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

sion, since, as I have already stated73, the term ‘primary’ is only mentioned once in the whole argument, namely in the conclusion. But how can Aristo- tle infer that locomotion has primacy when at the same time no reference seems to be made to this fact in any of the premises? The answer to this will be given in what follows. According to the remarks that I just examined more closely, the argu- ment is supposed to show that change in place has ontological priority over the other kinds, that is, change in place is necessary for each of the other types of change to occur, but not vice versa.74 Therefore, one needs to find a way in which the fact that only locomotion can be one and eternal shows locomotion’s ontological priority. In my view, the solution lies in the fact that change in place by having this special quality is the only possible candi- date for the kind of change of which the unmoved mover is the direct source. Since none of the other kinds of change can exist without this first primary motion, which, as we have seen, can only be a locomotion, it is clear that they would not occur and in this sense not exist if there were no locomotion. For, as Aristotle points out in Phys. VIII 6 none of the other changes in the cosmos would happen without the primary change that is caused by the first unmoved mover.75 Therefore, it is this extra step of mak- ing use of the connection between changes undergone by things in the cos- mos and the unmoved mover as first cause of all changes which establishes locomotion’s ontological priority. But this also makes clear then how Aristotle in this argument arrives at the conclusion that locomotion must be primary, although the term ‘pri- mary’ (πρώτη) does not appear in any of the premises, but is stated for the first time in the conclusion: ‘primary’ as we have just seen needs to stand for ‘ontologically primary’ here. Aristotle, therefore, in showing that with- out locomotion (in virtue of its being the only possible candidate for the eternal change that is caused by the first unmoved mover) none of the other kinds can occur, while the converse does not hold, also makes it clear that indeed “locomotion must be primary”, namely ontologically primary. That this must be the sense in which locomotion has ontological priority, however, is made clear by what is stated in the last four lines of the passage that I have examined in this chapter. First of all Aristotle claims that “there neither is necessity for that which undergoes locomotion to undergo 73 See p.130 and my reconstruction of the argument on p.129. 74 Simplicius, In Phys. 8, 1269, 15–16, again says that this argument shows priority in nat- ure (κατὰ φύσιν) which, as I already pointed out elsewhere, for him means the same kind of priority that I call ontological priority. For more on this see p.68, n.79, in section 3.6. 75 See Phys. VIII 6, 259b32–260a10. 140 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