Abstract

Every thing that moves is caused to move by something else. Yet there are things that move themselves. How does Aristotle square those two commitments? This paper helps to answer that question. One argument in Physics VII 1 seems to pose a problem for the bare possibility of self-motion; in it he seems to argue that everything that moves must be moved by something else. The text in which this argument appears is itself vexed on a number of fronts, because it is not clear how Physics VII fits with the rest of the Physics, and also because there are two distinct manuscript traditions for Physics VII. I argue for a new and charitable reading of Aristotle’s Physics VII 1 α241b35-242a49 / β241b25-242a15. I show that the argument is compatible with Aristotle’s endorsements of self-motion; I defend the argument’s most controversial premise; and I argue that my reading has some useful implications for understanding Aristotelian self-motion. Unqualified self-motion (where just the whole of A moves the whole of A) is impossible, for Aristotle.