Page - 208 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

lying the first argument is the same as the one used in the second argu- ment.87 But how does the reason why locomotion is said to be prior in essence in the second argument relate to the understanding of priority in essence pre- supposed by the first argument? One of the results of the discussion of the first argument was that the relation of essential priority applies primarily to individual substances, but in a derivative sense also to essential features of individuals. In this way, locomotion as such a feature of certain living beings may be prior to another essential feature, e.g. alteration. Of two fea- tures, the one which is more specific to what its bearer is, i.e. its essence, is prior in essence to the other one. Aristotle does not tell us how the fact that locomotion does not change its subject’s essence relates to this understanding of priority in essence. But 87 Philoponus, In Phys. 8, 900, 18–901, 3, thinks that locomotion is prior in essence (and nature) as it is supposed to be more complete and belongs to things that are more complete (τελειοτέρα καὶ τοῖς τελειοτέροις μᾶλλον ὑπάρχουσα 900, 19) insofar as they have received their nature to a higher degree, yet, he does not say much more than what is stated in Aristotle’s text. Simplicius seems to have something similar in mind and thinks that both argu- ments show that locomotion is prior in nature and essence as it belongs to more complete things. Like Philoponus, he does not explain why this is relevant, or how exactly the second of the two arguments for priority in essence shows that (see In Phys. 8 1271, 35–37, and 1272, 23– 25). Aquinas, In Phys., L. VIII. l. XIV, 1094, follows either one or both of them in a sense when he claims that locomotion in this argument is shown to be primary in perfection (“primus per- fectione”). All three say that locomotion’s priority in essence (and nature) may be seen in the fact that it belongs to more complete things and at the same time does not change things that are complete. They do not say in what way there is one notion of priority in essence that underlies both arguments. The only way in which this could be done would be to say that to claim x is prior to y in this sense means that x is more responsible for the completeness of the thing to which it belongs than y. As we will see, this sounds similar to what I think is the rea- son for locomotion’s essential priority, yet, I hold that locomotion has this kind of priority in virtue of being a necessary part of a thing’s essence, while they would be bound to say that it is prior because it just in some loose way is connected to the state of completeness of a thing; but this certainly is not in the spirit of the first argument. Also, most modern interpreters seem to think that Aristotle equivocates two different concepts of priority in essence, since they pre- sent the arguments in a way in which they cannot show locomotion’s primacy in essence according to the same notion of priority in essence. Solmsen (1960), 237, n.50, for instance, states that ‘prior’ with respect to essence stands for “a qualitative sense in which what is last in the order of becoming is first in that of being”, but does not explain how this is supposed to fit to the second argument that, as the first one, is supposed to show that locomotion is prior in essence. Similar things may be said about what Wagner (1967), 690, and Graham (1999), 128– 129, 187, state in their commentaries. Peramatzis (2011), 205, n.5, briefly refers to the discus- sion of priority κατ᾽ οὐσίαν in Phys. VIII 7, claiming that A is prior in essence to B “if and only if A can be what it is independently of B being what it is, while the converse is not the case” (204). As my discussion of the second argument has made clear, this notion of priority clearly cannot underlie both arguments for locomotion’s priority in essence. 208 Locomotion is prior in essence ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen