Page - 186 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

mary involves comparing it to other kinds of change, and this is exactly what Aristotle does here in examining what role it plays in beings in com- parison to the other kinds of change. But this project is not yet completed, because so far only perishable living things have been considered. In the second part of the fifth argument, Aris- totle therefore will present reasons for the claim that locomotion is primary in eternal things as well. If the second sub-argument is also successful in showing what it is supposed to show, then the fifth argument taken as a whole shows that having locomotion in the sense at issue has priority in essence over the other kinds of change in all kinds of beings. This means that the second argument is not merely an additional reason for the pri- macy of locomotion, but needs to be considered in connection with the first one, and vice versa. Without the second argument the general priority in essence of locomotion would not be shown. As I will state in the course of the following discussion, this last step, however, presupposes understanding locomotion’s priority in essence in terms of its being more specific to that to which it belongs, and this, as I have shown, implicitly underlies Aristo- tle’s discussion of the first sub-argument. This also supports my view that there indeed is a close relation between the first and second arguments. Therefore, one may conclude that Aristotle at the end of the passage I discussed is right in claiming that he has shown that locomotion has “pri- macy over the other kinds of change”47—but only in the sense that he has proved this to be true in the sense in question, i.e. with respect to living things. In order to prove that the claim about locomotion’s priority in essence is true in general it still needs to be shown that locomotion is prior in this sense for eternal things as well. 7.2 Locomotion alone preserves its subject’s essence 7.2.1 Overview The second argument follows right after the first one: καὶ ἡ κίνησις αὕτη πρώτη τῶν ἄλλων ἄν εἴη κατ᾽ οὐσίαν, διά τε ταῦτα καὶ διότι ἥκιστα τῆς οὐσίας ἐξίσταται τὸ κινούμενον τῶν κινήσεων ἐν τῷ φέρεσθαι· κατὰ μόνην γὰρ οὐδὲν μεταβάλλει τοῦ εἶναι, ὥσπερ ἀλλοιουμένου μὲν τὸ ποιόν, αὐξανομένου δὲ καὶ φθίνοντος τὸ ποσόν. (261a19–23) 47 ἡ κίνησις αὕτη [scil. φορά] πρώτη τῶν ἄλλων ἄν εἴη κατ᾽ οὐσίαν, Phys. VIII 7, 261a19–20. 186 Locomotion is prior in essence ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen