Archephysics and Aether

Aristotle's continuation of the pre-Socratic Archephysics tradition appears in On The Heavens, where he proposes his candidate for fundamental element. He leaves it unnamed, but some have called it 'Aether', while others have called it 'Quintessence', each of which is partly misleading. The former does evoke a somewhat similar concept of that name in the Timaeus, but not much to do with the controversial 'Aether' of Modern Physics.  The latter does accurately numerically connote that the element is an addition to the traditional Water, Earth, Fire, and Wind, but for Aristotle, it is the first among them, not the fifth. In any case, most important, and open to interpretation, is the status of the element in his system.  For, his characterization of it as in circular motion corresponds to what he attributes to one of the cardinal features of his system--Thought-Thinking-Itself.  At minimum, the correspondence indicates that a cardinal feature of the system is not supernatural, which is why 'Archephysical' is less ambiguous than the standard 'Metaphysical'.