Page - 155 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

mobile again serves as the cause of all other changes. But in contrast to the relation that exists between the first unmoved mover and the outermost heavenly sphere, the relation in which the latter stands to the things it causes to move changes. This accounts for the movements of the other hea- venly bodies, e.g. the moon, the sun, and the other planets, and hence ulti- mately explains why there exists such a diversity of changes in the cosmos.33 All this is stated in rather abstract terms in Phys. VIII 6, yet is presented in a more tangible form elsewhere in Aristotle. The fact that the eternal locomotion of the heavenly bodies and thus also that of the outermost sphere is responsible for changes is made clearer, for instance by what is stated in GC II 10. There Aristotle states that the eternal locomotion leads to the generation of things in the sublunary sphere by making the generator (γεννητικόν), which, as we will see shortly, here stands for the sun, move nearer to or farther away from the earth.34 That this is the background to the argument for locomotion’s priority is not only indicated by GC II 10, but also by two further passages. One of these can be found in Phys. II 2, the other one in Met. XII 5. For, in these two texts examples for the causal connection between the coming to be of a living being and the eternal loco- motion of the heavens, or more precisely one of the heavenly bodies, is pre- sented. In Phys. II 2 Aristotle explains the generation of a human being in which, it seems, one of the heavenly bodies is necessarily involved. There it is pointed out that when a human being comes to be, not only another man, i.e. the father, is responsible for this, but also the sun, “for man is begotten by man and by the sun as well.”35 The very same thought is presented in the passage from Met. XII 5, yet here some additional information is given. In this context a man, or to be more precise the father and the sun, are said to be responsible for the generation of another member of the species of human beings. They are also characterised as external causes, while the sun and its motion along the ecliptic, more specifically, are also described as a moving cause of a man’s coming to be.36 33 See Phys. VIII 6, 260a5–10. For this see Ross (1936), 92. 34 ἡ γὰρ φορὰ ποήσει τὴν γένεσιν ἐνδελεχῶς διὰ τὸ προσάγειν καὶ ἀπάγει τὸ γεν- νητικόν. GC II 10, 336a16–18. Also in 336a25–26 Aristotle states that φορά is a cause of gen- eration (αἰτία τοῦ γίνεσθαι). 35 ἄνθρωπος γὰρ ἄνθρωπον γεννᾷ καὶ ἥλιος. Phys. II 2, 194b13 (Transl. Hardie & Gaye). Philoponus, In Phys. 8, 899, 26–28, Simplicius, In Phys. 8, 1270, 37, as well as Ross (1936), 710, point to this passage from Phys. II 2; Graham (1999), 127, also refers to the motion of the sun and the corresponding discussion in GC II 10. 36 ἀνθρώπου αἴτιον τά τε στοιχεῖα […], καὶ ἔτι τι ἄλλο ἔξω οἷον ὁ πατήρ, καὶ παρὰ ταῦτα ὁ ἥλιος καὶ ὁ λοξὸς κύκλος, οὔτε ὕλη ὄντα οὔτ᾽ εἶδος οὔτε στέρησις οὔτε ὁμοειδὲς ἀλλὰ κινοῦντα. Met. XII 5, 1071a13–17: “cause of man are the elements […], and further some other external thing, e.g. the father, and besides these the sun and its oblique The locomotion of the sun as a cause of generation 155 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen