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Christof Rapp and Oliver Primavesi (eds.), Aristotle’s De motu animalium: Symposium Aristotelicum, with a new critical edition of the Greek Text by Oliver Primavesi and an English translation by Benjamin Morison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. viii + 554. ISBN 9780198835561, GBP 55

Christof Rapp and Oliver Primavesi (eds.), Aristotle’s De motu animalium: Symposium... Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium is essential reading for those interested in Aristotle’s physics and philosophy of action. The volume reviewed here is essential reading for those interested in De Motu. What is the explanation for animal self-motion? On this question there are other vital sections of the corpus: De Anima particularly III.9–11, Physics VIII, Metaphysics XII, and sections of the biological and zoological works may be pieced together to give an account of animal self-motion. From those texts we learn that Aristotle wishes to retain two claims apparently in tension. First, animals move because they (we) want to move, unlike the natural motion of heavy or light elements and objects. Second, animals never move themselves (ourselves) unqualifiedly – there remains separation between the mover (to kinoun) and the moved (to kinoumenon) in and outside the self-mover. For Aristotle, this mover-moved separation is instantiated in several ways. For example, the unmoved mover is the ultimate explanation of motion (though the unmoved mover never moves at all; therefore, it never moves itself). In that sense, nothing unqualifiedly moves itself. A second example: when an animal appears to move itself, an animal’s soul moves its body. Its faculty of desire (functioning always with http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Rhizomata de Gruyter

Christof Rapp and Oliver Primavesi (eds.), Aristotle’s De motu animalium: Symposium Aristotelicum, with a new critical edition of the Greek Text by Oliver Primavesi and an English translation by Benjamin Morison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. viii + 554. ISBN 9780198835561, GBP 55

Coren, Daniel
Rhizomata , Volume 10 (1): 11 – Aug 1, 2022
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de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
2196-5110
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2196-5110
DOI
10.1515/rhiz-2022-0008
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Abstract

Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium is essential reading for those interested in Aristotle’s physics and philosophy of action. The volume reviewed here is essential reading for those interested in De Motu. What is the explanation for animal self-motion? On this question there are other vital sections of the corpus: De Anima particularly III.9–11, Physics VIII, Metaphysics XII, and sections of the biological and zoological works may be pieced together to give an account of animal self-motion. From those texts we learn that Aristotle wishes to retain two claims apparently in tension. First, animals move because they (we) want to move, unlike the natural motion of heavy or light elements and objects. Second, animals never move themselves (ourselves) unqualifiedly – there remains separation between the mover (to kinoun) and the moved (to kinoumenon) in and outside the self-mover. For Aristotle, this mover-moved separation is instantiated in several ways. For example, the unmoved mover is the ultimate explanation of motion (though the unmoved mover never moves at all; therefore, it never moves itself). In that sense, nothing unqualifiedly moves itself. A second example: when an animal appears to move itself, an animal’s soul moves its body. Its faculty of desire (functioning always with

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Rhizomata – de Gruyter

Published: Aug 1, 2022

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