Page - 211 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

8. Conclusion In the following chapter I will summarize the results of my study. My first step was to examine the context in which Aristotle presented the arguments for the claim that of the four different kinds of change locomotion is the primary one. It became clear that this discussion is part of Aristotle’s larger project of developing a general theory about the phenomenon of change which is worked out in Physics V–VIII. Physics VIII, to which the discus- sion of the priority claim more specifically belongs, needs to be considered as the part of the inquiry which brings the project to its completion: first of all Aristotle analyses the different concepts that are necessary for this enter- prise and shows that change, contrary to what Zenon’s paradoxes might suggest, is a phenomenon graspable by scientific inquiry and of which a consistent theory is possible. Building on the work done in Phys. V and VI, Aristotle in Phys. VIII ultimately develops a theory that accounts for the existence of change in the cosmos by showing that change always existed and always will exist, and that for this reason a first unmoved mover as an ultimate source of all change must be presupposed. As I have explained, dis- cussion of the different arguments for the priority claim is crucial if this theory is to hold; for only if Aristotle is successful in showing that locomo- tion indeed is primary in all important respects will he be able to make clear at a later stage that the eternal motion of which according to him the first unmoved mover is the primary source can exist at all. Contrary to what the literature suggests, the discussion of the question which kind of change is primary, thus, is essential for what goes on in Physics VIII as well as for Aristotle’s larger project of developing a general theory of change. Accord- ingly, it must not be considered as a superfluous addition that does not play any important role in the discussion into which it is embedded; rather, the contrary is the case, since without this discussion Aristotle would not be able to show that the theory developed in Books V and VI can be applied successfully to the whole of the cosmos in order to give a final causal expla- nation of the occurrence of change as we observe it day by day and thereby to account in an appropriate way for the empirical fact that change exists. Therefore, in Phys. VIII 7 five arguments are presented that make clear that locomotion is prior to the other kinds of change in different respects. As we have seen, each of the first three of these five arguments shows that change in place has ontological priority over the other kinds of change in a specific sense. In the first argument, as became clear, Aristotle points out ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen