philosophy

• what is Aristotle's understanding of reality?

  - he is an empiricist meaning he believes knowledge is predominantly based on sense experience

  - he is a materialistic meaning he believes the material world contains purpose and form

  - the key idea for him was cause/causation

  - he uses teleology (which comes from the Greek word 'telos' meaning end/purpose), he thinks it is useful to look at nature as if it was governed by final causes

  - he used inductive reasoning
• inductive vs. deductive reasoning

  Inductive: Developing generalizations from specific observations

  Deductive: Developing specific predictions from general principles
• What is aetion?


  translates as 'cause
• criticism of telos


  Dawkins makes an analogy: 'what is the colour of jealousy?' That question is assuming that jealousy has a colour. Dawkins seems to be claiming that questions of purpose also assume that existence or human life has a purpose over and above scientific explanation, but there's no evidence for that.
• what does aristotle think a form is

  - Form means essence, which is a thing's defining characteristic.

  - For a chair, its defining characteristic would be its shape, a shape that can be sat on.

  - However, the essence of a human is not merely its shape. Aristotle claimed the defining feature of a human being is the ability to reason.
• what does Aristotle believe to be the defining part of a human

  reason
• what did aristotle think the formal cause of the body was

  the soul
• cause and effect


  - To go from cause to an effect something must change by going through 4 causes.

  - A thing changes towards its telos - the final end towards which something is directed due to its nature.
• critique of cause and effect

  - A deterministic universe operating by the laws of physics seems to be completely without purpose.

  - This suggests there is no basis for grounding telos in God as Christians like Aquinas did, or in grounding it as a required explanation of change like Aristotle did. Modern science can explain the change and apparent purpose in the world without telos.

  -For example, Aristotle would regard the telos of a seed as growing into a tree/bush. However, we now understand the seed's ability to do that as resulting from its material structure, not some notion of a telos.
• what are the four causes?

  MEFF

  material, efficient, formal, final
• what do the four causes explain

  - all change in the universe can be explained by these four causes, thereby allowing a posteriori knowledge to make sense of the flux. Example of a chair. The change of a piece of wood into a chair involves the four causes.
• what is the material cause?

  what something is made of

  physical things cannot exist otherwise
• what is the efficient cause?


  the agent that is responsible for shaping the matter into an actuality, what or who brought it into existence
• what is the formal cause?

  - the shape the matter takes form, what it looks like

  - enables it to be identified

  - pattern/structure of it that makes it identifiable

  -for example, you can identify a table if it has 4 legs and a flat surface
• critique of formal cause (f.bacon)

  -He claimed that formal causation is a metaphysical matter that was beyond empiricial study.

  -He gave the illustration of the 'whiteness' of snow and explained how science could investigate how snow results from air and water, but this only tells us about its efficient cause, not its colour, the form of 'whiteness', which is beyond scientific investigation.

  -So Bacon thought that form existed, but Aristotle was wrong to think science could study it it.
• critique of formal cause (science)

  -Modern science goes much further than Bacon in its rejection of formal causation, arguing that we have no reason to think it exists at all.

  -The idea that colour is a 'formal cause' of an object is now much better understood to be a matter of the activity of particles like atoms and photons, which can be fully explained through efficient and material causation.

  -So what Aristotle thought of as 'form' actually reduces to material and efficient causation.
• critique of form (neuroscientists)

  -For Aristotle, the form of a human is a rational soul, but most neuroscientists would claim that rationality reduces to material brain structure and its physical processes.

  -So again, what Aristotle thought of as 'form', actually reduces to material structure.

  -There appears to be no room left in modern science for formal or final causatiion
• in defence of form (and another scientific critique)


  -processes like reason and consciousness have not even begun to be understood. So modern science cannot yet justifiably dismiss Aristotelian soul & form as the explanation of reason.

  
  

  -However, there is scientific evidence at least linking the brain to reason, since if the brain is damaged then reason and other mental faculties can be damaged too.

  -Since there is so much about the brain we don't understand, it's more reasonable to think that mental faculties like reason are reducible to the material causation of brain processes in a way we don't yet understand, rather than requiring some other type of physical explanation such as Aristotelian form since there is no evidence for that.
• what is the final cause?

  - the purpose of something

  - why was it made

  - the reason for its existence, its telos

  - Aristotle used his concept of final cause when he discussed the nature of goodness. he thought that something was good if it fulfilled its telos.

  e.g., an axe is a good axe if it cuts well
• what is the prime mover?

  - also known as unmoved mover

  - is a necessary being

  - the ultimate cause of movement and change in the universe, causes the movement of other things, not as an efficient cause, but as a final cause.

  - causes movement in everything else through attraction like bowel of milk (who does nothing but the very act of its existing) attracts the cat

  - it is pure actuality

  - everything in the universe is drawn to its perfection and wants to imitate it

  - it's the final cause, the origin and purpose of everything

  - it itself remains unaffected because if it was affected it would simply be a link in the endless chain (infinite regression)

  - it actualizes the potential in everything else
• why is the PM unmoved

  The cause of the motion of the stars and thereby all movement on earth must itself be unmoved, or its movement would require merely another mover. There cannot be an infinite chain of motion as that would never get started.
• why is the PM pure actuality

  Since it cannot be moved, it cannot change and is thus pure actuality.
• why is the PM eternally contemplating itself

  -It cannot be material since it seems all material things are subject to change.

  -It must be a mind, but arguably it cannot be thinking about anything happening outside itself since such things are subject to change and its thoughts would change if their object changed.

  -So it must be eternally contemplating itself.
• what of the four causes is the PM

  final
• what is the PM's responsibility

  -sustains the change in the world must therefore be due to some sort of attraction of the things in this world to it.

  -Things in our universe are attracted to the prime mover in a sort of orbit. -That is how the prime mover sustains the pattern of change from actuality to potentiality in our universe.

  -Things move towards their telos (purpose).
• analogy of cat to a saucer of milk (Gerry Hughes)


  the PM causes movement in everything else through attraction just like bowel of milk (who does nothing but the very act of its existing) attracts the cat
• critique of prime mover (sartre)

  -Sartre argued that there was no objective telos/purpose because "existence precedes essence" meaning humans exist before they have a defined purpose and so have to subjectively define their purpose for themselves.

  
  

  -Sartre's argument was a psychological one, that people cling to fabricated notions of objective purpose like religion or Aristotle's 'final cause/telos' because they are afraid of not having a purpose, more specifically they are scared of the intensity of the freedom that comes from having to create their own purpose

  
  

  -It's much easier to believe in objective purpose than face that existential angst.
• potentiality


  the possibility of something to fulfil a potential
• actuality


  the change that represents an exercise of fulfillment of a possibility, when it has fulfilled its potential
• example of potentiality and actuality


  - a seed has the potential to become a full grown plant

  - the fully grown plant is the actuality of a seed's potential to grow

  - a change occurred to allow this plant to go from potentiality to actuality

  - by doing so it has fulfilled its purpose

  - this change is brought about by the Prime Mover
• aristotle strengths


  Supported by other empiricists e.g. Hume

  
  

  Many philosophers and scientists agree that the 4 causes are logical. They can be applied and tested (4 causes)- compatible with science and reliable.

  
  

  -McGrath points out that modern Christian philosophers (e.g. Swinburne & Polkinghorne) have argued that science is limited and cannot answer all questions. It can tell us the what but not the why. Science can tell us what the universe is like, but it cannot tell us why it is this way, nor why it exists. It cannot answer questions about purpose and therefore cannot be used to disregard the existence of purpose.

  
  

  Problem of evil eliminated as the prime mover is transcendent

  
  

  strong compared to Plato's forms which are not observable in the physical world
• aristotle weaknesses


  Not everything has or needs a purpose for existing. Bertrand Russel: "the universe just is there, and that is all"

  Existentialism: things have no purpose or meaning other than what we give it

  
  

  Relies on experience. Too focused on senses (subjective). Plato and Descartes would argue that the senses are unreliable.

  
  

  
  

  Some things have no final cause e.g. appendix

  
  

  Leaved unanswered questons like: Where did the Prime Mover come from? Where did the matter in the world come from? Was that also caused?

  
  

  PM is impersonal:

  Contradicts religion - Christians argue that God can be affected by prayer.