Aristotle

• Mini Biography
• Causality (Material, Efficient, Formal, Final)
• Prime Mover
• Origins
• Strengths and Weaknesses

• Great admirer of Plato but found it difficult to agree with his views
• He did not accept there is another world  as he believed the physical world around us is key to knowledge and we can learn about it using our senses
• Came from well off family and arrived in Athens at 17 to study as a pupil of Plato
• Founder of many sciences we study today:
  • Physics
  • Biology
  • Psychology
  • Meteorology
  • Astronomy
• Had an insatiable desire to understand the world as it is to our five senses
• Wanted to see if there are universal rules which governed natural processes which we could understand
• Plato left his academy to his nephew and not Aristotle

• Why are things the way they are- what caused them? What is the ‘essence’ of this thing or that thing? Why does it exist in the world at all?
• Wanted to discover how change occurs and why
• Recognised something can have several different explanations for its existence  on different levels

• Material cause-
  • What something is made form
  • Does not explain everything  but should not be ignored
  • Eg chair is made from wood
• Efficient cause-
  • Activity that makes something happen
  • Who made it
  • Actualising of potential
  • Brings about change in something
  • Eg wood has the potential to be made into furniture but needs the efficient cause of the carpenter to realise this potential

• Formal cause-
  • The form or shape something has
  • Gives something its shapes and allows it to be identified
  • Certain characteristics it has in order to be recognised
  • Eg there are many shapes a chair can be but all have certain characteristics
• Final cause-
  • Most important
  • It’s purpose, reason for existing
  • It’s telos (end)
  • Eg final cause of a chair is that it can be put to use for sitting
  • Something is good when it reaches it’s telos (end) humans purpose= Eudomonia

• Strengths:
  • The theory makes sense
  • Can be related to anything/ everything
  •  Rational reasoning /Scientifically plausible
  •  Based on the physical world, relatable
  • Gives everything a purpose
  • Sensible and useful way of thinking about chain of causes and effects  Can be defended as it is derived from reflection on studies of the natural world
• Weaknesses-
  • Giving everything a purpose could be seen as wishful thinking, a reaction to a harsh and horrible world
  • Lacks clarity
  • How do we know material world is the source of true knowledge?
  • Makes sense things have final cause but how do we establish final cause?
  •  Why must everything have a purpose? universe could be entirely random like

• He had found a way to of understanding, at different levels, the causes of individual objects within the universe but what about the universe itself?
• What causes the different objects in the universe to actualise their potential (efficient cause)
• What is the purpose of the universe as a whole? (final cause)
• Realised the universe was in a constant state of change and motion therefore there must be some kind of efficient cause to make this happen
• Considered the idea there might be an endless chain of cause (infinite regress) and effect but rejected this idea because endless cause and effect was a unsatisfactory solution
• Cause of the universe must be the prime mover

• Be a cause which actualises the potential
• Be something that causes without being affected
•  A being with no potential (something which is everything that it could be)
• First of all substances
• Does not cause movement and change in a physical way as the act of ‘pushing’ would affect the prime mover
• Causes motion and change by being the object for desire and love in the world
•  Everything in the world is drawn towards its perfection and wants to imitate it
•  He does not depend on anything else for his existence, if he did he would be subject to change
• Must be eternal because if he cannot change then he cannot cease to be and if he exists then he must have always existed
• Must be perfectly good because badness is a lack of something and he is pure actuality so contains everything that ought to be there
• • Must be immaterial, beyond time and space. Matter is capable of being changed

• Strengths:
  • Gives everything a reason/purpose
  • Perfection is something for all to strive for
  • Explains relationship between movement and change
  • Explains Aristotle’s ‘final cause’
  • Enormous influence on Christian thinking- God is cause of existence
• Weaknesses:
  • Aristotle is an empiricist (knowledge gained from sense) but prime mover is immaterial
  • Similar to Plato’s form of the good which Aristotle is against
  • Lack of evidence
  • Why is the prime mover needed, why not infinite regress?
  • Not fully, successfully explained
  • The belief the universe must have  telos has been criticised by many including Russell and Dawkins who say things are result of chance

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