On the Movement of Animals
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~8,000 words · 38 passages
Cite this work
- APAAristotle. (n.d.). On the Movement of Animals. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-the-movement-of-animals
- MLAAristotle. "On the Movement of Animals." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-the-movement-of-animals.
- ChicagoAristotle. On the Movement of Animals. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/aristotle/on-the-movement-of-animals.
What it is about
How an animal moves: what starts the motion and what serves as the fixed point to push against.
Context and history
It contains the insight that any movement needs an unmoved support, and the famous practical syllogism, where desire and belief issue in an action rather than a conclusion. The most cited ancient text in philosophy of action.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
ELSEWHERE we have investigated in detaile.g. P. A. iv. 10-14 and de Inc. Anim. (the latter treatise being a section of the former work and presupposed in de Motu Anim.}. the movement of animals after their various kinds, the differences between them, and the reasons for their particular characters (for some animals fly, some swim, some walk, others move in various other ways); there remains an investigation of the common groundThe full title seems to have been περί της κοινης κινήσεως τῶν ξῳων (704b 2), cf. the last words in some. MSS. of de Divinatione per Somnum ; or ἡ κοινἡ αίτία τῆς τῶν ζῳων κινήσεως (782a 21), de causa motus animalium. That is, On animal movement in general ; or The general ground of animal movement. (Cf. P. A. 646a 10.) Movements had been reduced in the Physics to a primary kind, Thrusts and Pulls, i.e. Translation ; this treatise discusses the origination of such primary movements in the animate body; they are referred to a central original, the heart, and that is the organ of the soul. of any sort of animal movement whatsoever. Now we have already determined (when we were discussingCf. de Anim. iii. 2, 9, 10 ; Physics, viii. 5 ; Metaph. xii. 7 and 8. whether eternal motion exists or not, and its definition, if it does exist) that the origin of all other motions is that which moves itself, and that the originLeg. τούτον ΕΥΡΓ, Mich. Eph., Leonicus. (Zeller, Arist. Eng. trans, ii. 492.) Cf. Physics, 252b Ι πάντων δὲ τὸ ἀκίνητον: Met. 1072b 7. of this is the immovable, and that the prime mover must of necessity be immovable. And we must grasp this not only generally in theory,P and Mich. om. καθόλον, but vid. G. A. 729b 24. but also by reference to individuals in the world of sense, for with these in view we seek general theories, and with these we believe that general theories ought to harmonize.Zeller finds in this an exaggeration of A. s empirical attitude; cf. however Parv. Nat. 468a 23; G.A. 760b 28, 788b19. Bon. Index 177a 45. Now in the
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