Page - 149 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

This claim about the temporal posteriority of locomotion will also play an important role later on in the fifth argument for the claim that of the four kinds of change, locomotion is primary in essence. Aristotle will say a little more about this claim there, and since understanding the details of this assumption is of much more importance for making sense of the fifth argu- ment, I will present a thorough discussion of it in this context later on.15 To understand the current passage it is sufficient to know that what Aristotle is claiming here is this: in the process of a living thing’s coming to be, locomo- tion is the last of the four kinds of change to come to these things, in the sense that any such being is actually able to perform its specific locomotion as a whole only after it, in the course of its development, has already under- gone alteration, and growth as a whole, insofar as these changes have their source at least partially in the living thing’s soul and are not completely caused by some external source.16 Accordingly, the term ‘locomotion’ (φορά) is used in a special sense here and does not stand for just any kind of change in place something x may be subject to in general, but only for such cases of locomotion for which the respective thing as a self-mover may be responsible itself.17 If the claim is correct—and as I shall show in the next chapter Aristotle himself presents very good reasons why this is the case—then locomotion indeed seems to be the last of all changes in the sense in question. But how then, one might wonder, does that fit with Aristotle’s claim that locomotion is prior in time to all other kinds of change, if it clearly is last in this way? For this fact rather speaks for the assumption that coming to be, or generation (γένεσις), rather than locomotion, is the primary kind of change. As Aristotle points out later on, against this background one indeed νων κίνησίς ἐστιν. Phys. VIII 7, 261a32–33: “For after coming to be, first alteration and growth [come to the thing], while locomotion is a change of things that already have achieved completion.” 15 See section 7.1. 16 I do not mean to say that for instance an animal’s soul is responsible for all these changes in the very same respect, nor that it is fully responsible for its own generation, yet its soul certainly plays a role for the occurrence of these changes. The point is that Aristotle here clearly excludes such changes that the respective being does not undergo as a whole and in virtue of being a living organism. For more on this see section 7.1.3. 17 Thus, φορά is used here in a sense similar to that used in GC I 5, i.e., for change in place that the subject undergoes as a whole (see 4.2.2, esp. p.76f.). Therefore, the claim about the posteriority of locomotion does not contradict what was shown in the first argument, for there Aristotle did not argue that alteration and growth have to be preceded by a change in place the respective thing undergoes as a whole, but by some change in place that occurs in the respective thing. It is clear that the scope of this posteriority claim cannot encompasses all things that have a coming to be, but only those which in potential have the capacity to move themselves as a whole, i.e. self-moving animals. For more on the special use of the term φορά see the next chapter, especially section 7.1.3. Objection: Locomotion is the last of all changes 149 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen