Aristotelian Science, Part 2

In my last post I discussed Aristotle's cosmology and physics. To continue, let's go over Aristotle's four causes, which touch on his physics, then move on to the soul and to Aristotle's concept of God.

The Four Causes

The causes are four, say the ancient pupils of Aristotle, and they are the Material, the Efficient, the Formal and the Final causes. Ok. To grasp this, consider any object whatsoever, and ask yourself, what is this, and why is it here? And what is its purpose? So pick up a thing. I have a mouse here (computer kind) so let's look at it. What is its material cause? I would say the plastic, the electronics, the "stuff" of which it is made. What is its Efficient cause? That would be the 'source' of the mouse. It was manufactured somewhere, so the factory would be part of that, as would the market forces which demand a steady supply of computer mice. So it came to be because I have a need for it and a supplier met that need in order to make a profit. Keep in mind I might be off-base here from "formal Aristotelian thought" in some way, because I am a student. Never forget that. <g> And by all means, post a reply if you catch me off-base, as I would like to be right, so as not to mislead the unwary.

Moving on, what is the mouse? What is its "essence"? That is its formal cause. It is a device to help manipulate a computer. And, it is a lump of plastic and electronics. And finally, what is the ultimate reason that this mouse exists? The mouse exists so that hundreds of web bloggers can ramble on about Aristotle, a very prescient fellow.

Perhaps it would help to examine another object, say the left mouse button. That is an object unto itself even though it is a part of the mouse itself. Its materal cause would be plastic. Its efficient cause would also be the factory, possibly a different one than where the parts were assembled. Its formal cause would be its function for selecting objects on the screen. However, I have configured my mouse to switch the roles of the left and right buttons on my mouse. So in my case, the formal cause is to allow right-mouse menus to appear on my screen (Windows-based). But either way, its formal cause is also a lump of plastic in the shape that allows it to interlock with the rest of the mouse parts to form a complete mouse. It's final cause is the same as for the mouse, I think. It enables me and others to ramble on about Aristotle, and there could be no higher final cause, other than to ramble on about Jesus. Or Mohammed.

I'm sure you've noticed these causes overlap. I did read one commentator on Aristotle who remarked that not every thing has every cause. It could be my mouse is such a thing, or it could simply be that the causes overlap naturally.

The Soul

Moving on, Aristotle taught about the soul. What is the soul? To Aristotle, the soul was the "actuality" of a living thing. Thus, plants and animals have souls, as do humans. To greatly simplify this, the soul is the part of us that makes us alive. And our souls have different potentialities which equate pretty close to the common definition of what it means to be alive. Alive things nourish themselves, they grow, they move about, they perceive things with senses, and they think, and these are the actualities that comprise the soul of a living thing. Obviously not all living things have all these actualities, so the soul of a plant will be much "simpler" than the soul of a human being. Animals will be more complex, being able to move about and perceive, and humans will have the added actuality of rational thought.

Does the soul live on after death? Aristotle would say no. The soul is as intertwined with the body as say, the light is to a fire or to a lightbulb. When the body dies, the soul goes away, just as when the bulb burns out, the light goes away.

God, the Unmoved Mover

What about God? Did Aristotle believe in God? Yes, sort of. However, Aristotle's God is not quite like the God of the Hebrews, who reigns over the entire world. To Aristotle, God was more the solution to a dilemma than anything else. Harkening back to the "Efficient cause", we recall that everything has a source, or a "mover", that which causes it to become. That is well and good, but it means that there is no way to resolve causation--there is no beginning. To resolve this, Aristotle posited the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover--God.

What does the Unmoved Mover do? One thing it does not do is move. However, it is alive despite that. And how is it alive? It thinks. the Unmoved Mover thinks, and thus the Unmoved Mover is alive. What does the Unmoved Mover think about? Thought. the Unmoved Mover thinks about its own thoughts eternally. So why would the Unmoved Mover think about thought? Because thought is the best thing that one can think about, and the Unmoved Mover is the "best" of all possible "things." It's more involved than this, I'm sure, but essentially this is what the Unmoved Mover is and does. For one thing, if the Unmoved Mover were to think lower thoughts, that would be unworthy of the Unmoved Mover , and the Unmoved Mover would not be the Unmoved Mover . So because the Unmoved Mover is the highest of all, Gothe Unmoved Mover's thoughts are continuously the highest sort of thoughts, thoughts about thought itself.

Somehow the Unmoved Mover's thoughts formulate the final cause of things, which sets them in motion (motion again being understood as many things including growth, change, decay, as well as travel). Coupled with this notion of the first cause is the First Heaven, the outermost sphere of the universe. The motion of the first heaven is circular, as is all heavenly motions in the superlunar realm. This first heaven is in eternal motion, having as the cause of its motion the first cause, God. Now keeping in mind that the first mover cannot move, how can the first cause impart motion? Apparently there is love between the First Cause, God, and the First Heaven. Somehow this love imparts motion to the first heaven, and the first heaven, once in motion, can then impart motion to the rest of the Universe.

One other thing to understand is that in order to love, both God and the First Heaven are alive and have souls. Another thing to understand is that with Aristotle there is no creation per se--the universe and everything in it are eternal. So apparently it's wrong to think of the first cause as a creative cause. It's actually a final cause for the first heaven, and it's what sets the first heaven in motion. And all the motions have been going on forever.

This stuff can be really hard to process, since Aristotle seems to have come up with the whole idea of a first cause to solve the dilemma of eternal causation, then maintains that there is no beginning, which presents its own dilemma. I think the issue here is not so much that eternity itself is a dilemma as it is that eternal causation is a dillemma. You see this in the modern debate about intelligent design, which attempts to explain the complexities of living organisms by saying they cannot have occurred naturally, but must have been built according to a design, implying a designer (they are "irreducibly complex"). But the dilemma there is one of causation--how can the designer of an irreducibly complex organism not be itself irreducibly complex? And if so, then who designed the designer? And how could that designer not be irreducibly complex? Aristotle anticipated this dilemma of eternal causation, and quite naturally his solution was the First Cause, just as it is for the modern proponents of intelligent design.

-Jay-

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