Self motion

Use in the book

The early doxographical notices attach continual or self-originating motion to soul; Alcmaeon’s account connects eternal self-movement with immortality. The later survey distinguishes Xenocrates’ self-moving number from other numerical accounts of soul. The Hermetic account denies to soul the external conditions governing bodily movement and calls it self-moving in thought. These reports use self-motion within different explanations of psychic life.

Places to read

1. I.49.1a.1Self-motion and everlasting motion enter accounts of soul.
2. I.49.32.6Self-moving number is one among several numerical interpretations.
3. I.41.4.1Soul moves in thought without the conditions of bodily motion.

Translation in this edition

“Self-moving” preserves the proposed source of movement. It is not automatically a claim about conscious choice or moral independence.

Use in the book

VI.12 begins by specifying primary self-motion: the same reality must be source and recipient throughout itself. A body could meet this demand only if every part, and every part of each part, moved itself. Any inactive fraction would prevent the whole from being primary self-mover throughout. Since bodily parts are divisible without end, the hypothesis then gives infinitely many movers. Moving is acting, and acting requires actuality; the hypothetical movers would consequently constitute an actually infinite multitude.

This first reductio depends on the difference between potential division and independently actual agency. Ficino does not say that every body already contains an actually infinite population. He derives that population after granting self-motion to every proposed part. VI.12.3 adds that an independently acting part would subsist in its own actuality rather than remain merely a part contained under the composite’s being. The hypothesis thus both produces an unacceptable actual infinity and destroys the unity of the body whose motion it was meant to explain. Its result is that body cannot primarily move itself throughout its own nature.

A second proof in VI.12.4 approaches the claim through four relations. One part may move another; a part may move the whole; the whole may move a part; or the whole may move the whole. In the first case, mover and moved are numerically different, so there is motion by another rather than strict self-motion. In the second, a part moving every part includes itself among what it moves, transferring the decisive problem to that special part. In the third, the whole’s action upon one part still leaves only that part as the proposed self-moving locus; the other parts do not thereby acquire self-motion through themselves. In the fourth, the whole is interpreted as all its parts together moving all its parts, and the claim to self-motion again depends upon what each constituent does. These alternatives converge on dependence on parts rather than merely repeating the initial actual-infinity argument.

Ficino acknowledges that the whole is “in some manner” all its parts. His criticism is that its motion remains borrowed from them, as its composite substance is received from them. Calling the composite self-moving does not yet give it the capacity primarily. The supposedly ultimate active part must therefore be examined. If indivisible, it is already something nonbodily within body, and the sought distinction has been conceded. If divisible, the analysis starts again with its parts. Infinite division never yields one first source; multiplying smaller explanations postpones rather than supplies the origin of movement. VI.12.7 identifies the required impartible inward mover as soul.

The participatory conclusion restricts how ordinary self-motion should be understood. While soul is present, living bodies are borne “in a certain way” of their own accord and in varied directions. When it is absent, they require an external mover. Soul is self-moving properly; bodies acquire their derivative capacity through participation in it. A form dispersed through body cannot serve as the final source because it shares body’s quantitative conditions. The distinction is therefore between primary and derivative explanation, not a denial that animals move spontaneously in ordinary description.

The following objection about the integrity of a whole matters because it proposes a source beyond a bare sum of independently active pieces. Ficino answers through the separation of form’s activity and matter’s receptivity, then through the choice between extended and indivisible integrity. The subsequent clarification also blocks a mechanical picture of soul: its self-motion is not an agent sending action into itself as patient. It is inward vital succession. Those continuations preserve the result as an incorporeal source rather than a tiny bodily engine concealed at the end of division. They also leave the argument’s metaphysical premises visible instead of presenting it as a modern experimental law about physical systems.

Places to read

1. VI.12.1, VI.12.2, VI.12.3The primary whole self-mover is tested against actual infinity and the status of bodily parts.
2. VI.12.4, VI.12.5, VI.12.6Four part/whole alternatives reduce to dependence on parts.
3. VI.12.7, VI.12.8The regress terminates in an impartible inward soul and derivative participation.

Translation in this edition

In VI.12.8 intrinseco is retained against P1641’s extrinseco: the mover must be inward because the example excludes an external push. The apparatus emphasizes actual infinity and borrowed motion. “First” here is explanatory priority, not merely the earliest event in a chronological series.

aliud aliud

aliud aliud. Printed forms: aliud potius aliud.

One thing moving another, numerically distinct thing. This fails the strict identity required for primary self-motion even if both belong to one composite body. References: VI.12.4. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

dividere; divisio

dividere; divisio. Printed forms: dividendo; dividi; dividitur; dividuntur; divisa; divisam; divisibile; divisibiles; divisibilis; divisionem; divisionis.

To divide; division either of bodies or of alternatives in an argument. Potential bodily division, a form dispersed with body and the logical fourfold division are distinct senses; the last does not assert four physical parts. References: VI.2.20, VI.3.1, VI.6.4, VI.8.5, VI.9.1, VI.12.2, VI.12.4, VI.12.7. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

esse proprium

esse proprium. Printed forms: esse proprium; esse totius compositi.

A part’s own being versus the composite whole’s being. Actual independent agency would make each supposed part a self-subsisting whole, undermining its status as a part. References: VI.12.3. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

fons; receptaculum

fons; receptaculum. Printed forms: fons et receptaculum motionis.

Source and receptacle of motion. The two poles name activity and reception in the one primary self-mover, later clarified as nontransitive vital succession. References: VI.12.1. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

impartibile; internus agitator

impartibile; internus agitator. Printed forms: impartibile aliquid; Internus autem corporis agitator.

An impartible principle; the body’s inward mover. The regress terminates in soul, whose presence enables spontaneous bodily movement while its absence leaves a need for an external mover. References: VI.12.7. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

infinitae partes actu

infinitae partes actu. Printed forms: infinita quaedam multitudo; infinitae partes in actu.

Actually infinite acting parts or multitude. The reductio arises from granting autonomous motion to every infinitely divisible part, not simply from potential divisibility alone. References: VI.12.2, VI.12.3. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

intrinsecus; extrinsecus

intrinsecus; extrinsecus. Printed forms: externo; intrinseco; sui met agitatricem.

Inward and external; a nature moving itself. The text requires an inward soul rather than another external push; P1641’s opposing reading is not adopted. References: VI.12.7, VI.12.8. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

movere; motus

movere; motus. Printed forms: motor; motores; motu; motum; motus; motuum; moveant; moveantur; moveat; moveatur; movent; moventur; movere; moveri; movet; movetur.

To move or be moved; movement ranging from bodily change to psychic activity. Primary self-motion, derivative animal motion, received bodily motion and temporal discourse have different senses and causal relations; movement need not be spatial traversal. References: VI.2.7, VI.2.10, VI.2.20, VI.12.1, VI.12.2, VI.12.3, VI.12.4, VI.12.8, VI.12.10, VI.12.17, VI.13.8. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

mutuari

mutuari. Printed forms: mutuari; mutuatur.

To borrow or receive from something else. A composite said to move itself only because its parts do so possesses motion derivatively, not through its own primary nature. References: VI.12.6. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

pars et totum

pars et totum. Printed forms: ab omnibus partibus partes omnes; partem corporis alteram; totum a toto.

Part and whole in the four possibilities for bodily self-motion. Part-by-part, part-to-whole, whole-to-part and whole-to-whole relations are tested distinctly before returning to self-moving parts. References: VI.12.4. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

pars quaelibet semetipsam agitans

pars quaelibet semetipsam agitans. Printed forms: pars quaelibet eius agitat semetipsam.

Every part of the supposed self-moving whole moving itself. The fourth part–whole alternative makes the composite’s self-motion depend on each part, preparing the renewed regress through divisibility. References: VI.12.5. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

pars; membrum

pars; membrum. Printed forms: membra; membris; membro; membrorum; membrum; pars; parte; partem; partes; parti; partibus; partium.

Part and organic member; parts of an argument are also called members in the fourfold division. Bodily composition, whole presence of soul and division of a logical alternative are different uses; a self-moving source cannot simply be assumed from a constituent part. References: VI.1.4, VI.1.5, VI.2.2, VI.9.3, VI.12.4. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

participatio; praesentia

participatio; praesentia. Printed forms: participatione atque praesentia.

Participation and presence of a primary source. These explain a body’s derivative apparent self-motion rather than making it the primary inward mover. References: VI.12.2. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

partiri; secare

partiri; secare. Printed forms: partiemur; secuimus.

To divide into parts and cut conceptually. Repeating the analysis of a supposedly self-moving part resumes the same regress through ever smaller divisible parts. References: VI.12.6. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

per se et primo

per se et primo. Printed forms: per se ipsum mobile; primo; secundum se totum.

Primarily self-moving throughout one’s nature. The source and recipient must be the same whole reality, not a collection borrowing movement from a special part. References: VI.12.1. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.

posse; valere; oportere

posse; valere; oportere. Printed forms: debet; nequeant; nequeat; nequeunt; nequit; oporteat; oportebit; oporteret; oportet; posse; posset; possint; possit; possunt; poterit; potest; valeat; valent; valet.

Can or is able, cannot, and must or ought in a necessary inference. These modal verbs distinguish an allowed hypothetical possibility from what an argument requires or excludes; “must” often expresses logical dependence rather than a moral command. References: VI.1.1, VI.2.9, VI.2.10, VI.2.12, VI.2.13, VI.2.14, VI.11.1, VI.12.1, VI.12.2, VI.12.3, VI.12.7, VI.12.11, VI.12.14, VI.12.18, VI.13.3. See Primary self-motion and the regress of parts.