Aristotle

Key words:

• Causality
• Material, efficient, formal, final causes
• Actuality
• Potentiality
• Teleology 
• Intrinsic 
• Superflous 
• Prime Mover
• Unmoved 
• Empiricist 
• A posteriori 

Aquinas' First Way to prove God exists - motion/change. Anything which is changing is being changed by something else. The first cause/mover os everything is God. 

• Potentality to actuality - progression from idea to reality 
• Four Causes
  • material cause - what is it made of?
  • efficient cause - how was it made?
  • formal cause - characteristics
  • final cause - ultimate purpose 
• Final cause is the most important 
• Final purpose = teleology. When this is realised, an object has reached perfection and goodness
• The purpose of an object is intrinsic - cannot be changed 
• Nothing is superfluous 

• Answers questions such as:
• • what does it mean for something it exist?
  • what gives particular objects their characteristics
  • what causes everything?
  • why does change occur?
  • can something have matter but no form?
  • how do things move from potentiality to actuality?

• Knowledge is based on the physical world
• Causes are based on empirical evidence 

• Ideas from the world of sense experience - can be verified or falsified 
• Scientifically plausible
• Science and God are not necessarily mutually exclusive 
• Basis for popular ethical theories such as Natural Law and Virtue Ethics

• Is the material world the only source of true knowledge?
• Little evidence for the final cause - what if things happen by blind chance?
• Is there any purpose except existence?
• Causality cannot be applied to the Prime Mover 

• Eternal substance that is immune to change
• Causes all motion/change
• Responsible for all things
• Umoved, good, impersonal
• Final cause
• Matter without form
• Object of love and desire for the world
• Humans trive for the Prime Mover's perfection
• God 

• All movement depends on a mover 
• Final purpose of all things 
• Change is eternal - no first change, only a changer. 
• Unaffected

• Explanations for movement and change
• Gives ultimate purpose
• Reason for purpose (object of love & desire)

• Claiming God causes himself contradicts the theory of an uncaused causer 
• Why is there a Prime Mover - why not a chain of cause and effect?
• No one can experiece the Prime Mover
• Aristotle claims a person's purpose is immortal and yet also says the soul dies with the body