thoroughly demarcated it, an attempt must be made to proceed with the same methodological comportment toward what comes next in order. [Also, it is to treat that which is co-given with beings as being-in-movement: it is that which the phenomenon of movement comprises in itself.] Movement appears to be something that belongs to the sort of thing that holds itself together in itself—the constant. The limitless shows itself above all in the constant [insofar as the constant shows itself as that which does not come to an end for a διαίρεσις; the positive determination of the συνεχές is precisely that it is ἄπειρον.] Whenever one wants to define the constant, it follows that one also has to intend along with it the λόγος of the ἄπειρον [if one speaks of the constant, one thereby addresses a determinate limitlessness], just as if the συνεχές were nothing other than the εἰς ἄπειρον διαιρετόν. Furthermore, it is impossible to address beings that are moved without the site, the void, and time. [They are co-given with the ἄπειρον itself in the phenomenon of movement.]”25 This list of the last three characters provides the sequence in which Aristotle discusses these determinations: τόπος, κενόν and χρόνος. Τόπος: Physics Δ 1–5; κενόν: Δ 6–9; χρόνος: Δ 10–14. Ἄπειρον: Book 3, Chapters 4–8. The consideration is taken up so as to return to movement once again in the discussion of time. Χρόνος is “ἀριθμὸς κινήσεως with an eye to the before and after.”26
Now he says that these determinations are themselves κοινά: κοινὰ πάντων φυσικῶν σωμάτων.27 For all beings that are κινούμενον, these characters are κοινά, and for every being they are καθόλου,28 which means nothing other than “taken as a whole.” Insofar as a being is taken as a whole, these characters always lie within it as μέρη. For this reason, then, καθόλου is apprehended by Aristotle as a ὅλον whose μέρη are just not explicit. “It is to be examined in the sense that we attend to every case, and consider each thoroughly. The consideration of beings in every case as genuine beings [insofar as they belong with a definite region of being: the φύσει ὄντα as ζῴα, or in the sense that they are ἄψυχα] is to be completed later.”29 Insofar as one enters into this discussion, thus dividing up beings as φύσει ὄν, the κοινόν must, above all, be subordinated to θεωρεῖν.
d) The Modes of Being from Which Movement Is to Be Apprehended
For the understanding of the following considerations of κίνησις, one must be clear as to:
25. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 15 sqq.: διορισαμένοις δὲ περὶ κινήσεως πειρατέον τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπελθεῖν τρόπον περὶ τῶν ἐφεξῆς. δοκεῖ δ’ ἡ κίνησις εἶναι τῶν συνεχῶν, τὸ δ’ ἄπειρον ἐμφαίνεται πρῶτον ἐν τῷ συνεχεῖ· διὸ καὶ τοῖς ὁριζομένοις τὸ συνεχὲς συμβαίνει προσχρήσασθαι πολλάκις τῷ λόγῳ τῷ τοῦ ἀπείρου, ὡς τὸ εἰς ἄπειρον διαιρετὸν συνεχὲς ὄν. πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἄνευ τόπου καὶ κενοῦ καὶ χρόνου κίνησιν ἀδύνατον εἶναι.
26. Phys. Δ 11, 219 b 2: ἀριθμὸς κινήσεως κατὰ τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον.
27. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 22: διὰ τὸ πάντων εἶναι κοινὰ.
28. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 22 sq.
29. Phys. Γ 1, 200 b 23 sqq.: σκεπτέον προχειρισαμένοις περὶ ἑκάστου τούτων· ὑστέρα γὰρ ἡ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων θεωρία [. . .] ἐστίν.