Page - 218 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

the other necessary criteria for being the change that is directly caused by the first unmoved mover, Aristotle also needs to show that circular locomo- tion is primary among the different kinds of change in place in the required respects. Indeed, Aristotle presents arguments for this claim in Phys. VIII 9.5 The upshot of the discussion is that there in fact is a change that as one single change can be eternal and that in all important respects has primacy over the other kinds of change. This change, which is the only possible can- didate for the change that is directly caused by the first unmoved mover, is circular locomotion, the change which according to Aristotle the outermost heavenly sphere undergoes. Therefore, the existence of this special motion is correctly presupposed in the discussion of Phys. VIII 1–6. Against this background, Aristotle, thus, may be said to be successful in establishing a theory that accounts for the existence of change by making it possible to trace each single change back to its ultimate source, the first unmoved mover, and to the change that is caused by this source. In this way Aristotle shows that all change is in fact embedded in the larger framework of causal relations of the cosmos. But by successfully establishing this account he also makes clear that the theory he developed about change in the previous books of the Physics and which, as we have seen, is made use of extensively in Phys. VIII, may be applied successfully to the whole of the cosmos in order to give a final causal explanation of the occurrence of change as we observe it day by day, and in this sense is compatible with a consistent explanation of the empirical fact that there is change. My investigation, thus, in general has shed much light on the nature of change, in particular by spelling out the consequences that follow from the existence of change in the cosmos, which again strongly indicates that Physics VIII (together with Books V and VI) can only have belonged to the formerly independent treatise On Change, as was claimed in the introduction of my investigation. Apart from that, however, the discussion of the arguments for the pri- macy of locomotion also showed a number of other important things. As I also mentioned in the introduction, the claim about the priority of locomo- tion is made in other works of Aristotle’s as well and for instance plays an important role in the discussion in GC II 10, yet without the reasons for this claim being presented there. The systematic and successful argumentation for the priority claim provided in Phys. VIII 7 therefore provides the neces- sary grounds on which this claim may be made in other contexts and with- out which the assumption in all the stated contexts would not be justified. 5 The reasons that are presented in Phys. VIII 9 for the claim that circular locomotion is the primary kind of locomotion are that it is the only change in place that may be eternal and at the same time complete in itself (τέλειος) and simple (ἁπλῆ), and (2) in its occurrence is absolutely regular (ὁμαλής). Aristotle here again is clearly making use of further criteria for the unity of change that are presented in Phys. V 4. 218 Conclusion ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen