Aristotle on Self-Motion

Ferro makes his case by offering a novel reading of a handful of controversial passages from De Anima (I 3–4; III 9–10) and Physics VIII, where Aristotle reacts to three aspects of Plato’s theory of self-motion: the claim that soul itself is a self-mover (and therefore a proper subject of motion), the assumption that self-movers enjoy strong causal autonomy, and the link between motion, desire and soul partition. Through a careful reading of the relevant passages, which does justice to their proper context and significance, Ferro shows that Aristotle’s critical re-appropriation of self-motion results in a largely coherent doctrine with major repercussions for Aristotelian psychology and philosophy of nature.

ANTONIO FERRO earned his PhD in philosophy from LMU Munich. Since then he has taken up teaching as well as research positions at various universities in Germany and abroad. He is the author of a monograph on Plato’s Sophist and has published a number of articles both in ancient philosophy and the analytic philosophy of language. He also participated in the most recent Italian translation of Frege’s philosophical writings.

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ARISTOTLE ON SELF-MOTION

What is Aristotle’s considered view of animal self-motion? According to several scholars, Aristotle ends up rejecting this very notion as a result of his criticism of Plato’s theory of self-moving soul. Contrary to this still widespread assumption, the present study argues that his critical engagement with Plato is not confined to negative results, but achieves largely positive outcomes, which add up to a rich and nuanced picture of self-motion.

ANTONIO FERRO

Aristotle on Self-Motion

ANTONIO FERRO

Aristotle on Self-Motion The Criticism of Plato in De Anima and Physics VIII

PSAT

PSAT

BÉATRICE LIENEMANN, CHRISTIAN PFEIFFER, CHRISTOF RAPP (EDS.)

01 PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN ANCIENT THOUGHT

01

Philosophical Studies in Ancient Thought

Béatrice Lienemann, Christian Pfeiffer, Christof Rapp (eds.) Volume 1

Antonio Ferro

Aristotle on Self-Motion The Criticism of Plato in De Anima and Physics VIII

Schwabe Verlag

Diese Publikation wurde vom Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg e.V. unterstützt.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Schwabe Verlag, Schwabe Verlagsgruppe AG, Basel, Schweiz This work is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or translated, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Cover design: icona basel gmbh, Basel Graphic design: icona basel gmbh, Basel Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Print: CPI books GmbH, Leck Printed in Germany ISBN Hardcover 978-3-7965-4163-6 ISBN eBook (PDF) 978-3-7965-4363-0 DOI 10.24894/978-3-7965-4363-0 The ebook has identical page numbers to the print edition (first printing) and supports full-text search. Furthermore, the table of contents is linked to the headings. rights@schwabe.ch www.schwabe.ch

Contents

Foreword

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9

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11

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

0.1

Preliminaries: A bird’s eye view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

0.2

A roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.2.1 Scope of the present investigation: What is not found in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.2.2 Contents: What is found in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

Chapter 1. Self-motion in de Anima I 3–4: Aristotle vis-à-vis Plato

31

Note to the reader

22 24

1.1

Dialectic and diaporetic method in de An. I 2–5: Three plausibility constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

1.2

de An. I 3–4: Two concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Concern 1: The definition of soul as self-motion . . . . . . . . . . . . b) Concern 2: Soul as a first mover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45 45 45

1.3

The argument in de An. I 3–4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 1.3.1 Overall strategy of refutation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 1.3.2 Plato’s self-moving souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 1.3.3 Aristotle’s refutation of the claim that soul is moved per se: A detailed outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 1.3.3.1 Aristotle’s concerns about causal synonymy: T8.(i) . . 75 1.3.3.2 The distinction between motion καθ᾽ αὑτό and καθ᾽ ἕτερον: T8.(ii) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 1.3.3.3 The per se motions of soul are neither natural nor violent: Arguments (1)–(5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 1.3.3.4 The ekstasis argument and Plato’s definition of soul . . 110

1.4

A positive lesson on the soul-body causal relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

1.5

Timean “perceptions” as sui generis per se motions of soul

1.6

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

. . . . . . . . 125

6

Contents

Chapter 2. Ph. VIII 1–6: Self-motion and its necessary conditions . . 147

2.1

An overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

2.2

Self-movers as a threat to the eternity of motion (Ph. VIII 1–2) . . . . 2.2.1 The argument for the eternity of motion a parte ante (Ph. VIII 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1.1 Aristotle’s proof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1.2 The eternity claim: Two readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 The aporia about self-motion and its relevance for the argument in Ph. VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2.1 Brief aperçu on Aristotle’s argument in Ph. VIII 3–6 . . 2.2.2.2 The third aporia in Ph. VIII 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2.3 Aristotle’s interim solution to the third aporia . . . . . . . .

151 151 151 175 182 182 188 199

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

2.3

The relation between Ph. VIII 2 and Ph. VIII 6

2.4

Ph. VIII 6: Self-motion vs. the first eternal motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 The argument in context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 My reading of Ph. VIII 6, 259b1–260a19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2.1 From weak causal autonomy to the inability to cause continuous motion in two steps (Ph. VIII 6, 259b1–31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2.2 The conclusion of the overarching argument in Ph. VIII 3–6 (Ph. VIII 6, 259b32–260a19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 The οὐ κυρίως claim: Alternative readings of Ph. VIII 6, 259b1–20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3.1 Meaning of the οὐ κυρίως claim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3.2 Justification of the οὐ κυρίως claim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4 Some loose ends: Metaphysical aspects of strong causal autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

231 232 239 239 264 268 268 272 274

Chapter 3. de An. III 9–10 and MA: Animal self-motion as voluntary (desire-based) locomotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 3.1

An overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

3.2

A methodological prolegomenon: Plato, Aristotle, and two senses of capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

3.3

The initial question about the mover: A brief outline of the argument in de An. III 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 3.3.1 Individuation without Separation: Two distinct concerns . . . . 324 3.3.2 Separation and unity of desire: Plato’s egregious mistake and two distinct unity issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Contents

3.3.2.1 The argument in de An. III 9, 432a22–b13 . . . . . . . . . . 331 3.3.2.2 A rival interpretation of de An. III 9–10 . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 3.4

3.5.

de Anima III 10: Definitional distinctness, formal unity and conflict of desire(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 de An. III 10, 433a9–21: Occurrent desires and extensional distinctness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 de An. III 10, 433a21–30: Erring desires and the ὀρεκτόν as a mover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 de An. III 10, 433b5–13: Conflict of (occurrent) desires and the formal unity of the capacity for desire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.4 de An. III 10, 433b13–30: Locomotive capacity defined and a coda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

355 355 365 376 388

Self-motion at the crossroads of de Anima III 9–10 and Ph. VIII: The daunting task of MA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 415 415 417 423

4.1

Summary of the main results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.2

Ph. VIII 5: Self-motion and the unity of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Index locorum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 Index of names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455 Index of subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

7

Foreword

Crebro itaque illa iactabat: σπεῦδε βραδέως […] et: “sat celeriter fieri quidquid fiat satis bene”. Suet. Aug. 25.4

The present book is a substantially revised and updated version of my PhD thesis (“Aristotle on Self-Motion: Some Key-Texts”), which I defended in February 2017 at LMU Munich. However, my first foray into the topic of self-motion occurred much earlier. I was initially inspired by an advanced seminar on de Motu Animalium held by Prof. Dr. Ch. Rapp and Prof. Dr. O. Primavesi in preparation for the 19th Symposium Aristotelicum, which was to take place in Munich a few months later. Since then I have enormously profited from discussions with friends and colleagues in Germany and abroad. The people who in various ways have helped me develop my – still somewhat half-baked – views about self-motion in Aristotle are far too numerous to mention, yet some deserve to be named. First and foremost, I would like to thank my Doktorvater, Prof. Dr. Ch. Rapp for his unflinching support throughout my PhD, my co-supervisor, Prof. Dr. Peter Adamson, for helping me realise that my original presentation of the issues in the dissertation could be made more readable, and my third examiner, Prof. Dr. Oliver Primavesi, for sharing with me drafts of his (still forthcoming) monumental MA commentary for the AkademieAusgabe. I am also grateful to Prof. Marwan Rashed, who encouraged me to pursue this project at a very early stage, and to Prof. Thomas K. Johansen, who helped me improve on still very rudimentary drafts of Chapter 3 during my research stay at Oxford. Moreover, I should like to mention Prof. Henry Mendell and Prof. Orna Harari, with whom I had exhilarating exchanges of views during a workshop on Ph. VIII 5–10 in Tel Aviv, and whom I met again later both in California and during my post-doc at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in Jerusalem. I am also much obliged to the organiser, the funders and all participants of the 26th meeting of the European Society for Ancient Philosophy (ESAP) on Aristotle’s Physics VIII 10, which was originally scheduled to take place in Rome last year, but then had to be held online only last March due to the ongoing pandemic: discounting the fact that my living room was a rather poor substitute for the Roman sky, the quality of the talks and the congenial atmosphere made the event not just plainly enjoyable, but also intellectually enriching.

10

Foreword

I would also like to thank my former and present colleagues as well as audiences at LMU Munich, UC Berkeley (in particular, Michael Arsenault and Emily Jane Perry), the University of Bologna (in particular, Walter Cavini and Paola Gamberini), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (in particular, Friedemann Buddensiek and Sebastian Odzuck), Tel Aviv University (in particular, Ido Yavetz), the University of Oxford (in particular, Leslie Brown, Luca Castagnoli, Ursula Coope, Paolo Fait, and Michail Peramatzis), the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (in particular, Dan Baras, Chiara Caradonna, Orly Lewis, Elena Mucciarelli, Oded Na’aman, and Antonio Vargas), and Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nuremberg: many sections of the book have significantly benefited from their suggestions and critical remarks. Moreover, I also feel I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Andreas Anagnostopoulos and Christian Pfeiffer: they – independently of each other – initiated me to the sancta sanctorum of Aristotle’s physics (Ph. III 1–3; IV–VI) and metaphysics (Metaph. Ζ-Θ; Ι) more than a decade ago, shortly after fate had brought me to Berlin, alone and still searching with respect to my own philosophical commitments: their rare philosophical talent and analytical rigour have been a model for me throughout the years. (This should not, however, be understood as a clumsy attempt to burden anyone with any of the claims I put forth in this book. Indeed, I am sure both of them will sharply disagree with many of the things I say here.) Special thanks go to Prof. Dr. Béatrice Lienemann for helpful discussions, her encouragement to publish my work as a monograph despite my initial resistance as well as her constant advice and help in securing the necessary funding. Finally, this book would have never seen the light of day without the patience and support of Dr. Christian Barth and Sonja Peschutter at Schwabe Verlag. However, the people who were almost literally caught in the toils of my (excruciatingly slow) writing process over the past few years are my mum Giuliana, my son Leonardo, and Alesia. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for constantly reminding me of all good things in the peculiar life of humans: after all, they are quite a few. This book is dedicated to the memory of two other humans I dreadfully miss: my dad, Rodolfo Ferro (1948–2017), and late Prof. Eva Picardi (1948– 2017). I owe to the former the constant challenge of having to prove to him – a teacher and former philosophy graduate – (and thus also to myself) that philosophy is not a futile list of dysfunctional people and their crackpot ideas. To the latter I owe a living example that philosophy is worth pursuing especially in your dark times, when you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and the very fabric of society seems to be under threat. Perhaps even more importantly, Eva strengthened my inner conviction that there should be more women in philosophy. There should more of them not because they are inherently better than men, but rather because of the hardly fortuitous – and hardly irreversible – fact that,

Note to the reader

despite accounting for roughly half of the general population, there are still far too few of them around at the post-doc level and afterwards. Munich, May 2021

Note to the reader Unless otherwise indicated, all the translations of Aristotle used in the text are my own. For Plato I have usually adopted those in the volume edited by John M. Cooper (Plato: Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997). The editions on which the translations of Aristotle and Plato are based are those established by sir David Ross and, respectively, Burnet in the Oxford Classical Texts (OCT). As for Aristotle’s de Anima, apart from Ross’s minor (henceforth ‘Ross 1956’) and maior editio (henceforth ‘Ross 1961’), which I usually follow in longer quotations of the original text in the footnotes, I have also benefited from Aurelius Förster’s 1912 edition (henceforth ‘Förster 1912’) as well as from Paul Siwek’s 1965 edition (henceforth ‘Siwek 1965’), which is as a rule more reliable than both Förster and Ross. Major deviations from Ross’s editions are indicated in the main body of the text or in the footnotes. The Greek commentators of Aristotle are cited by reference to page and line number in the corresponding volumes of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (CAG). The abbreviations of Greek authors and texts are as per H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (1940), revised and augmented by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie with a revised Supplement, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19969 [henceforth abbreviated as ‘LSJ’]. R. Kühner, F. Blass and B. Gerth’s Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (3rd edition, 1890– 1904), H. W. Smyth’s Greek Grammar (1956) and Denniston’s Greek Particles (19502 ) are abbreviated in the footnotes as ‘Kühner-Gerth’, ‘Smyth’, and ‘Denniston’, respectively. The references to Hermann Bonitz’s Index Aristotelicus [henceforth ‘Index’] are given in the usual way. Any factual errors, inaccuracies or omissions that remain are my sole responsibility.

11

Introduction

0.1 Preliminaries: A bird’s eye view […] that any sort of motion should move itself […] – all cases like this also produce disbelief in some, though perhaps there are some in whom it does not. What we need, my friend, is some great man to give an adequate interpretation of this point in every detail […] Pl. Chrm. 168e9–169a3

The present work covers a restricted range of topics all of which are intimately connected to Aristotle’s treatment of self-motion in the context of his natural philosophy. Aristotle seems to regard animal locomotion as the primary (or perhaps the only genuine) instance of self-motion and, accordingly, animals as the paradigmatic (or perhaps the only genuine) self-movers. The chief aim of this introduction is to offer a broad overview of some fairly specific aspects of Aristotle’s analysis of self-motion in the corpus, with a special emphasis on two treatises, namely de Anima I 3–4 and III 9–10, and Physics VIII 2 and 6. It is worth stressing from the outset that the expression ‘self-motion’ (or ‘self-mover’)1 has an exact counterpart in Aristotle’s Greek, namely the reflexive phrase τὸ αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ (or αὑτὸ) κινεῖν (active) or, equivalently, τὸ αὐτὸ ὑφ᾽ αὑτοῦ κινεῖσθαι (passive) – unsurprisingly, then, the Greek term for ‘self-mover’ is the articular participle τὸ αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ κινοῦν (or ὑφ᾽ αὑτοῦ κινούμενον). As is well known, the notion poses three fundamental challenges to the interpreter: the first has to do with Aristotle’s main reason for employing it in the first place and the actual scope of its application, the second with the character and purposes of his (somewhat perfunctory) analysis of the concept in Ph. VIII 4–5, the third stems from a more local concern about the relevance of the discussion of selfmotion to the grand cosmological argument of Ph. VIII 1–6. The focus of my investigation will be almost exclusively on the third issue, although it should also transpire from my arguments how I think the other two challenges could (or should) be met. I shall be using ‘motion’ and ‘change’ throughout as interchangeable terms. Some authors (e. g. Gill 1994) introduce a distinction between ‘self-changes’ and ‘self-motions’ that is not reflected in Aristotle’s Greek.

1

14

Introduction

The overarching question is, then, whether Aristotle’s theoretical motivation, his analysis and the appeal to the notion in the context of Ph. VIII 1–6 yield a tolerably consistent picture. While most scholars at least since Furley’s classic paper2 are no longer prepared to question Aristotle’s repeated claim that (at least) animals are (at least in some odd sense) genuine self-movers, the standard view is that self-motion simply cannot bear the explanatory burden Aristotle appears to impose on it in Physics VIII.3 Moreover, in Ph. VIII 6 Aristotle apparently qualifies this claim with respect to animals and there is still no consensus as to how his seeming qualification should be construed for it to take on the role it is supposed to fulfil in the overall argument of Physics VIII 1–6, which is most emphatically not about animals (alone). As for the first challenge, one may start off by pointing out that the concept of self-motion (as well as the terminology itself) boasts a clear Platonic lineage,4 and it is well attested in a number of dialogues specifically devoted to the role of soul in the origination of (various kinds of) motion in the cosmos – most notably, Phaedrus, Timaeus and Laws X. Indeed, not only does Plato deploy arguments for the causal primacy of self-movers (or: soul as “the” self-mover in the singular) as first movers, that is genuine initiators of motion, but he also subscribes to a strict, definitional identity of self-mover (or rather “the” self-mover) and soul (or rather the World Soul) and, further, contrasts souls as primary selfmovers both with ensouled bodies (e. g. animals) and, more importantly, with subjects of motion that owe their motion to an external source, namely, elemental bodies and, more generally, inanimate bodies. Embodied self-movers, such as non-rational animals and humans, are such only by proxy as it were, in so far as they partake of soul, which is per definitionem self-moving or, as Plato puts it in Laws X, “[the] motion capable of moving itself” (895c1–896a5). Leaving many niceties (and obscurities) aside, Plato’s theory purports to provide a unified treatment of self-motion, one that encompasses different domains of enquiry, namely psychology, ethics (the study of voluntary human action), ordinary physics and cosmology. Whereas Plato and Aristotle appear to concur at least in claiming that self-motion is essentially a locomotion (φορά), or, more generically, a change in place (κίνησις κατὰ τόπον), they are at variance on virtually every detail of their respective theories. For, on the one hand, the unified Furley 1994. A similar approach is characteristic of Nussbaum 1985. Waterlow 1982, pp. 215–216; 243. 4 The description of soul as self-moving as well as the inference from its self-motion to its immortality are likely to date back to Alcmaeon of Croton (5th century BC) – at least if we judge by what we find in the doxographical tradition (DK 24 A12). Aristotle’s testimony in de Anima I 2, 405a30–b1 (DK 24 B2) attests to a somewhat cruder strategy of argument, simply based on an analogy between the motion of soul and the eternal motion of the gods and the heavenly bodies. On Alcmaeon’s influence on Plato, see Skemp 1942; Guthrie 1962, pp. 351– 357 and, more recently, Hankinson 1998, pp. 30–33. 2 3

0.1 Preliminaries: A bird’s eye view

character of Plato’s account reflects his assumption that life and self-motion are definitionally identical notions (Lg. X, 895c7–13; cf. Phdr. 245c5–9) and that the various life-forms (animals, humans, gods) share in the genus life – except that life comes in different degrees of perfection, the highest degree being disembodied thinking (νοῦς or νόησις), which Timaeus describes as a circular motion (rotation) inherent to immortal soul, the lowest degree corresponding to the behaviour exhibited by the lower non-rational animals (Ti. 91d6–92c9).5 On the other hand, Aristotle’s doctrine of the “core-dependent homonymy” of life seems to go hand in hand with a radical revision of the Platonic concept of self-motion, with reference to both its definition and extension (i. e. all the beings of which the definition can be truly said and only those), one major innovation being possibly that even stationary living beings such as plants should themselves be counted in some sense as self-movers, namely qua responsible for their own regulated growth and decay. By the same token, one could also speculate that heavenly bodies – to the extent that they are living beings – should be also counted as selfmovers in some sense. Yet, both cases are a matter of controversy as Aristotle’s very sparse indications in the relevant texts are far from settling the issue.6 On that score, though, it is important to recall that even the qualification of self-motion as such, that is its restriction to locomotion or local change from one place to another, which is key to Aristotle’s account, is not beyond dispute. For, in some passages, Aristotle is adamant that change in place (κίνησις κατὰ τόπον) and locomotion (φορά) are distinct, in that the former is the genus and the latter one of its species, and he explicitly blames Plato for “placing the genus inside the species” (Top. IV 2, 122b25–27), that is defining change in place in terms of locomotion (cf. Pl. Tht. 181c6–d6; Prm. 138c4–6). Arguably, Aristotle’s someAdmittedly, plants are themselves endowed with life, and they receive separate treatment in Ti. 76e7–77c5. There are reasons to disregard the case of plants in this context, namely that they are said to be living not on account of their participation (however imperfect or watered down) in circular motion or self-reflection, but rather because they “[partake] of the third type of soul”, which is “totally devoid of opinion, reasoning or understanding, though it does share in sensation, pleasant and painful, and desires [αἰσθήσεως δὲ ἡδείας καὶ ἀλγεινῆς μετὰ ἐπιθυμιῶν]” (77b5–6). As a result, the genus of plants “is alive [ζῇ], to be sure, and unmistakably a living thing [οὐχ ἕτερον ζῴου], but it stays put, standing fixed and rooted, since it lacks self-motion [διὰ τὸ τῆς ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ κινήσεως ἐστερῆσθαι]” (77c3–5). 6 The point about plants as self-movers is severely underdetermined by textual evidence. Building on Aristotle’s remarks in Ph. VIII 4, Coren 2019c develops a plausible argument against the view of growth and reproduction in plants as “self-changes”. The issue about the status of heavenly spheres as self-movers is equally thorny, especially because of several wellknown discrepancies between de Caelo I–II, on the one hand, and Physics VIII 8–10, and Metaphysics (most notably, Θ 8 and Λ 7–8), on the other. For a vigorous denial of the status of the latter as self-movers, see Blyth 2015, who claims that animals are the only kind of self-movers Aristotle countenances. 5

15

16

Introduction

what baffling claim that quantitative change (growth and diminution) is itself a species of the genus κίνησις κατὰ τόπον (Ph. IV 4, 211a12–17; GC I 5, 320a10– 25) is all of a piece with such a view. However, elsewhere, when discussing animal motion, he ostensibly employs the genus term to refer to the species locomotion, and also contrasts κίνησις κατὰ τόπον, understood specifically as displacement or progression (πορευτικὴ κίνησις), with κίνησις κατ᾽ αὔξησιν καὶ φθίσιν (de An. III 9, 432b8–14).7 As far as Ph. VIII 2 and 6 are concerned, if the same implicit restriction is in place, then the central claim that animals move themselves with only one (kind of) motion, which Aristotle calls “change in place” (κίνησις κατὰ τόπον), obviously amounts to saying that, among the various kinds of motion they exhibit, only locomotion (i. e. motion from one place to another) can count as self-motion. However, once the tacit restriction is lifted, there would seem to be room left for the idea that both plants and animals might be regarded as self-movers to the extent that they grow and diminish. On the other hand, a number of passages (for instance, Ph. VIII 9, 265b33–266a5)8 at least prima facie clash with the idea Aristotle’s narrow use of a genus term to refer to one of its species is fairly common in the corpus. Familiar cases are those of ἀρετή, which can designate both the genus of character and intellectual virtues (e. g. NE VI 1, 1138b35–1139a1) and also character virtues specifically (e. g. EN II 6, 1106b36), and, more controversially, γνῶσις, which seems capable of designating both the genus of which ἐπιστήμη and all other forms of knowledge are species (e. g. APo. I 1, 71a1– 2; II 19, 99b29) and also a species falling under the genus and distinct from ἐπιστήμη (e. g. APo. II 1, 89b34; II 2, 89b38–39, 90a8; II 8, 93a18–19; II 13, 97a16). I take it that the very fact that in de An. III 9 Aristotle first (432b8) employs the term κίνησις κατὰ τόπον and then (432b13– 14) hastens to make clear that he has specifically locomotion (displacement) (ἡ πορευτικὴ κίνησις) in mind, as opposed to “the motion according to growth and diminution” (432b8–9), is sufficient evidence that the expression can be used to designate both the genus and one of its species. Which species is intended may in turn depend on whether animals or other living beings, such as plants, are at issue. 8 This passage from Ph. VIII 9 is particularly interesting because Aristotle is addressing “those who make soul the cause of motion”, i. e. presumably Plato and his school (cf. Wagner 1967, p. 697 and Graham 1999, p. 165 ad loc.) and seems to credit them with the view that “the animal and every ensouled being moves itself with local change” (κινεῖ δὲ τὸ ζῷον καὶ πᾶν τὸ ἔμψυχον τὴν κατὰ τόπον κίνησιν). It is prima facie unclear whether πᾶν τὸ ἔμψυχον is supposed to cover living beings other than animals (for instance, plants or heavenly bodies). If it does, then τὴν κατὰ τόπον κίνησιν presumably does not only include displacement strictly speaking (i. e. motion from a place to another place), but also quantitative change (growth and diminution). Yet, lines 266a1–5 clash with this supposition, for they bear out a sharp contrast between “local change” (understood strictly as displacement) as an instance of being moved “in a primary sense” (266a1–2: κυρίως […] κινεῖσθαί φαμεν) and other kinds of change (growth and diminution and alteration) as instances of being moved (only) in a qualified sense (266a4: πῇ κινεῖσθαι; 266a4–5: ἁπλῶς κινεῖσθαι οὔ φαμεν). In this particular context, Aristotle’s repeated use of φαμεν probably suggests that he is conforming to a more widespread linguistic practice,

7

0.1 Preliminaries: A bird’s eye view

that animals are self-movers also qua having an internal principle of growth and diminution. For instance, the major finding of de An. III 10 is that an animal that is capable of moving itself has the capacity to the very extent that it has the capacity for desire (433b27–28: ᾗ ὀρεκτικόν),9 and yet desire does not seem to play any significant role in Aristotle’s account of animal growth and diminution, which rather invokes a distinct capacity of the animal’s soul. However, the discussion at the end of de An. III is again avowedly confined to animal motion qua self-motion. Hence, it cannot be ruled out in principle that plants still count as self-movers, albeit in a different sense, that might be still somewhat loosely – that is, analogously – related to the sense in which animal self-movers are such. However, in what follows, I will deliberately avoid exploring this suggestion any further.10 In view of the numerous ramifications of the concept in Plato, it seems both methodologically sound and philosophically promising to look on Aristotle’s own doctrine of self-motion as the latter’s attempt to come to grips with his master’s legacy in the field of natural philosophy – most notably, his treatment of living beings as well as his cosmology. In other words, by way of a comparison with the theoretical role of Platonic self-movers, we can gain an insight into the motivation behind Aristotle’s own engagement with self-motion, in particular when it comes to setting out the rather unobvious connection presupposed in Ph. VIII between the analysis of animal motion as such, on the one hand, and cosmological concerns, on the other.11 In the following three chapters I will have very little to say about the second challenge posed by the concept of self-motion, which one may call “analytical”. A natural starting point at least for the modern reader is the surface grammar of the expression ‘self-motion’: at first glance, whenever we ascribe a self-motion to an item a (“a moves a”), we are saying that one and the same item, a, is both the agent and the patient of the corresponding (kind of) motion. In other terms, a self-moving thing would seem to be defined by reference to both its causing and its being affected by one and the same (kind of) motion. A challenge of this sort looms large in the Charmides passage (168e9–169a3) quoted at the beginning of this introduction. Plato seems aware of the need for a more satisfactory analysis i. e. one that would by and large acceptable not only to a Platonist, but also to most predecessors. 9 Cf. Lorenz 2006, pp. 145–6. 10 See n. 6 above. 11 The significance of the Platonic background for Aristotle’s own treatment of self-motion in Ph. VIII has been seldom disputed since Jaeger. Solmsen 1971 has forcefully argued for the anti-Platonic character of 259b1–28. However, Furley 1994 voices misgivings about such a reading. According to Rashed 2014, Ph. VIII 6 testifies to a “mitigated anti-Platonic project” (“projet anti-platonicien mitigé”).

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18

Introduction

of (at least prima facie) reflexive notions such as that of “the motion that is capable of moving itself” (κίνησις αὐτὴ ἑαυτὴν κινεῖν): what if the concept failed to be a proper reflexive? On the face of it, a similar question arises in the context of Ph. VIII, as we shall see: some interpreters appear to hold the view that the concept of self-motion is not genuinely reflexive and that this prompts Aristotle in Ph. VIII 6 to say that animals do not move themselves “strictly (or: properly) speaking” (κυρίως). While I am convinced that the analysis of self-movers is interesting, I think it is for reasons unrelated to those Plato seems to have in mind in the Carmides; thus, in Chapter 2, I will argue for an alternative reading of Ph. VIII 6. Clearly, such an analysis still leaves open the possibility that a exhibits some degree of internal complexity or has parts – in a sense of ‘part’ to be made precise. More than that: Aristotle is committed to the claim that, in order for a to be both capable of moving (itself) and capable of being moved (by itself) with the same motion, it must admit of some internal differentiation.12 What this means is minimally that mover and moved cannot be one and the same thing in form (Ph. VIII 5, 257b3–4: ἓν ὂν καὶ ἄτομον τῷ εἴδει). However, it proves difficult to give a clear and substantive characterisation of the requisite kind of complexity or parthood. For, on the one hand, we would like to do justice to the intuition that there is room for a principled distinction within a between agent and patient of motion (or: mover and moved), and yet, on the other hand, this very distinction – at least under some interpretations – threatens to make a mockery of the self-identity of a13 or seems at any rate to add a severe qualification to the claim that a moves a: one might reason that, since what “a moves a” actually means is that some part of a moves some (other) part of a, the parlance of self-motion is just what it is, a mere façon de parler.14 Unfortunately, though, on such an analysis, self-motion would seem to come down to an “other-motion”: among other things, we would seem to be left with no clear criterion for distinguishing living beings (in particular, animals), which Aristotle both in Physics VIII, in MA and elsewhere regards as the paramount self-movers, and slightly more fanciful composites like, say, man-cum-stick, that is the composite made up by man and the stick he moves. For both would qualify as self-movers in the relevant sense.15 An obvious objection would then be that Aristotle’s compositional analysis leaves us without a firm grasp of what is peculiar about animal motion (qua a self-motion), since it fails to provide a principled way of distinguishing self-movers from other items that do not deserve the title.

Cf., for instance, de An. I 4, 409a3: διαφέρειν δεῖ. Waterlow 1982, pp. 209–210. 14 Very roughly, this appears to be the reading defended in Morison 2004. 15 For an informative discussion of this problem and of Aristotle’s possible solutions, see Coope 2015, pp. 259–264. 12

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0.1 Preliminaries: A bird’s eye view

At least three main options should be considered: the relevant parts are either form and matter16 of the hylomorphic composite a or merely potential or “geometrical” parts (any two arbitrary parts into which a, qua continuous, and hence infinitely divisible magnitude, can be divided) or else two actual constituent parts of a.17 Clearly, as compared to the first two readings, the last one must place more specific constraints on the relevant notion of part. Support for it comes from several passages in book eight of the Physics (for instance, VIII 4, 255a12–18; VIII 5, 257a33–257b1; but also VIII 6, 259b16–20), but also, more crucially, from Aristotle’s explicit remark that what is unclear about self-motion is how exactly the distinction between mover and moved should be drawn (VIII 4, 254b29: πῶς δεῖ διαλαβεῖν; cf. Ph. VII 1, α242a39–43 / β242a5–9). I take it that such an issue would not be equally pressing on either of the two other readings. Of course, this is not to deny that the “hylomorphic” reading poses some genuine explanatory challenges: one of these concerns the question how, given a hylomorphic composite, form can causally act upon the material substrate. For instance, we might ask just how the animal’s soul can cause the body to change its place. Indeed, this issue takes centre stage in MA 6–10. However, throughout Ph. VIII, Aristotle is remarkably reluctant to draw upon his hylomorphic analysis of natural substances and change, nor does he appeal to teleological considerations in the course of his argument – except occasionally and in a very peculiar way (e. g. Ph. VIII 7). These are very conspicuous features of the inquiry carried out in the last book of the Physics as compared to the study of nature as matter and form in Ph. II and they should be duly taken into account. Rather, Aristotle’s discussion of various alternative models of the self-mover in Ph. VIII 5 suggests that his notion of part (or parthood) in Ph. VIII is meant to be fairly flexible. For instance, while the moved part, qua per se subject of a natural motion, must necessarily be an extended magnitude (an infinitely divisible body), no such constraint applies in principle to the moving part, which may or may not be an extended magnitude, depending on whether it is or it is not a suitable per se subject of a natural motion (e. g. whether or not it is reciprocally acted upon by the moved part). Aristotle’s key claim against Plato in Ph. VIII 5 is merely that it is genuinely possible that the moving part may not be moved per Like the majority of modern interpreters, Morison 2004 and Coope 2015 appear to favour (HYL), for they think that Ph. VIII identifies the unmoved mover with the animal’s soul and the moved with its body. This also seems to be the line of interpretation adopted by Simplicius (cf. in Ph. 1208,27–1209,2; 1348,16–23 Diels). Rashed 2014 seems to be more cautious and rightly emphasises the absence of hylomorphic vocabulary and, more specifically, the lack of explicit references to soul as the relevant mover. 17 All three options are contemplated in Wardy 1990. However, he seems to regard all three options as ultimately unsatisfactory. 16

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