philosophy: Aristotle

what type of thinker was Aristotle?

Empiricist – used sense experience to make judgements, to gain knowledge.

Materialist- the physical world is reality.

how did Aristotle find out the essence of things/if things existed?

Aristotle began with the world around him, the world of experience and senses

what was Aristotle’s method?

method was ‘by type and by difference’ reflective categorisation

how did Aristotle believe we learn?

learn by looking carefully at and reflecting on the actual objects we see in the real outside world.

We learn some things by experience; others by being taught (mathematics); others by practice and by following an exemplar (music; ethics).

what did Aristotle want to explain?

why things change but also why they are what they are in themselves and exist at all.

what are the four causes?

a way to explain why something exists or changes in nature

what are all the four causes?

1. material cause

2. formal cause

3. efficient cause

4. formal cause

what is the material cause?

What something is made of. For example, a table's material cause is wood.

what is a formal cause?

It’s form or shape makes it fit into a category so we can identify it

What defines an object as being one thing rather than another

what is an efficient cause?

What causes any change

what is the final cause?

what is the purpose of its existence?

what cause did Aristotle say is the most important?

final cause

what is the importance of purpose in Aristotle’s theory?

all things have a purpose, even if we do not realise it.

If something works well at fulfilling its purpose, that is what makes it good.

Aristotle said, when the purpose is fully realised then full perfection is reached.

If the object does what it is meant to, then it has achieved ‘goodness

what are the problems with Aristotle’s idea of good?

1. Not everyone agrees on a definition of ‘good’ (being loving or kind, obeying God, spreading happiness or pleasure).

2. Many (e.g. Bentham and Mill) would question the idea of something being good if it leads to a painful/harmful outcome e.g. good gun, good cancer

what are the problems with the idea of a final cause?

1. Too anthropocentric- too focused on human understanding of the purpose of things. Do inanimate things have a purpose other than being of use to us and if they have a purpose in themselves how can we know what that is?

2. Not everything has a purpose; e.g. male nipple.

3. Existentialists like Camus and Sartre say there is no fixed human purpose or goal; we create our own purposes.

4. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Aristotle’s ideas about the final cause leads him to assume a Prime Mover exists and this is no longer based on empirical evidence.

what are the problems with the efficient cause?

1. term is used too broadly to be informative or helpful; it covers too wide a range of changes (natural, biological, physical etc. and human-made ones due to thought processes).

2. Hume’s criticism: we have no actual empirical evidence of the link between cause and effect; we do not observe it we simply assume or invent a correlation in our minds

why must the prime mover exist through purpose?

universe itself must have a purpose/final cause – this for Aristotle is called the Prime Mover or the Unmoved Mover (or God).

how can the prime mover be understood through change?

Everything in the world is in a state of flux (change or movement)

Aristotle believed that change is eternal, that change or movement did not begin at one point – if it did ‘begin’ then the first changer or mover must also have been changed prior to this ‘first’ change and so on and so forth – so this is not possible and change must be eternal.

There must instead be an unmoved mover who is the source of all movement and change, but which in itself remains unchanged – this for Aristotle is called the ‘Prime Mover’ or God.

what is the prime mover like?

Not immanent, not involved in creation

Outside time and space – transcendent and eternal

Perfect

Not the creator - the universe has always existed

Only interested in contemplating his own perfect being

Creates change and movement like a magnet - attracts us to himself but not consciously.

Has this pulling power because everything seeks its own perfection and therefore desires and wants to imitate the Prime Mover’s perfection.

what are the religious strengths of the prime mover?

The Prime Mover is similar to the Christian God – perfect, eternal, transcendent – Anselm, Boethius

It’s a God worth worshipping in the sense that it is beyond our imagination, perfect, ‘other’.

Aquinas used the Unmoved Mover to develop his cosmological argument.

Removes the problem of evil – as Aristotle’s God is not able to know or intervene in evil.

God is the purpose of humanity and the universe for Aristotle – God is the final goal or aim of Christianity too (beatific vision- Aquinas)

what are the religious weaknesses of the prime mover?

HOWEVER, PM does not intervene, does not communicate with us, answer prayers, care about us.

PM is not omnibenevolent, moral.

God of the Bible is an immanent God who interacts with humanity; came to earth in human form as Jesus.

God of Bible is the creator.

what are the scientific strengths of the prime mover?

Uses empirical data and sensory experience – more scientific method than e.g. Plato e.g. per genus et per differentia.

Some scientists who would argue that the universe is eternal- continually contracting and expanding.

Evolution could be seen to be compatible because God leaves the earth to get on with change and its processes.

what are the scientific weaknesses of the prime mover?

No evidence for PM- it is an assumption, not empiricist.

Universe is not eternal; A contradicts the Big Bang (evidence: Hubble’s Red Shift) – theory of Stephen Hawking – that the universe must have had a beginning.

Evolution – we adapt and change based on the influence of our surroundings and survival of the fittest, not because we are being eternally drawn to the God/the PM.

what are the philosophical strengths?

Based in use of evidence/observation of the real world and not just reason.

Accessible to all – especially Four Causes, logical steps.

God remains unchanged as the unmoved mover, makes sense for God to exist independently from the universe.

More logical basis than Plato’s World of Forms

what are the philosophical problems?

Why assume one PM? – could be many causes of change (Hume)

Fallacy of Composition – (Just because everything in the universe seems to have a Final Cause does not mean that the universe as a whole does).

Where did the PM come from – Aristotle himself said ‘nothing can come from nothing’. 

Camus, Sartre – only purpose is the one we make for ourselves

Nietzsche – no purpose (Nihilism)

Our view of purpose is flawed and limited – we are too anthropocentric e.g. trees’ purpose = paper?

Bertrand Russell – the universe ‘is a brute fact’

what are the similarities between Plato and Aristotle?

1. Neither is personally involved with the world; neither created it, cares about human morality.

2. Both have greatly influenced Christianity

what are the differences between Plato and Aristotle?

1. Consciousness

Form of the Good is not a ‘being’ with a mind; exemplifies a quality. Prime Mover is supremely conscious and contemplates itself.

2. Change

Form of Good is permanent, has no activity, is a refuge from the uncertainties of change.

what did Aristotle believe things naturally tend towards?

their telos

what do things go from?

potentiality to actuality

why does the prime mover never change?

it is pure actuality

why are things naturally drawn towards the prime mover?

things are naturally drawn towards their purpose/telos. It is this natural attraction of things towards the prime mover that sustains motion within the universe.

what is the prime mover made?

• This prime mover can’t be made of matter, because matter is subject to change. So, the prime mover is not a physical substance but a mind.

what does the mind of the prime mover experience?

this mind can’t be thinking about anything outside itself because these thoughts would mean changes in the mind. So instead, the mind of the prime mover is eternally experiencing itself.

what is an issue with Aristotle’s idea of purpose?

Aristotle asserts that everything tends towards its final cause or telos (i.e. purpose) as though what this telos consists of is an objective fact.

However, the purpose of something is arguably subjective and differs depending on perspective.

This suggests that a thing’s ‘purpose’ is not an objective fact or law of nature, but is just a subjective interpretation imposed by human minds. This sentiment is captured by the existentialist quote “existence precedes essence”, meaning things first just exist without a purpose/telos and then humans create a purpose/telos for them after the fact.

what is an issue with the prime mover for religious believers?

Unlike the religious interpretation of God, the prime mover is not said to be omnibenevolent, which avoids the problem of evil.

However, religious believers may reject this interpretation as it raises questions as to why such a being would be worthy of worship. Further, it wouldn’t be possible to develop a relationship with such a being and would make prayer pointless since the prime mover just exists and does not intervene in human affairs.

what is actuality?

the way something is in its current state.

what is potentiality?

the way actual things could become given certain conditions.

how does Aristotle not fully reject form?

Aristotle does not reject the idea of form itself, but only the separation of form from things. On Aristotle’s view, a thing’s form or formal cause is its essence; its defining quality that makes it what it is

how did Newton challenge Aristotle’s view?

challenged Aristotle’s belief that an object which is moved will simply stop moving by itself.

• Newton claimed instead that when moved, an object will move until met by an equal and opposite reaction. The problem with observing this is that on earth, the strong gravity and effect of friction amounts to an equal and opposite reaction on the movement of an object which causes it to stop.

• It doesn’t just stop by itself due to rest being its natural state, as Aristotle thought. This means that Aristotle’s inference that the constant motion in the universe must be maintained by something like a prime mover is false.

why can Aristotle’s view be defended against Newton?

while Aristotle was not truly scientific in the modern sense, nonetheless he believed in empirical observation which created the epistemological method which would lead to modern scientific methods and the resulting fuller picture of reality we have today.

it was Aristotle’s a posteriori approach involving empirical observation that led to Newton’s discoveries. So Newton only disproved Aristotle’s claims about reality, he did not disprove Aristotle’s a posteriori approach to understanding reality, in fact Newton used a developed form of that himself.

what is Plato’s One Over many argument to defend his view?

Plato argues for the existence of abstract forms, which he believes are separate from the physical world.

He suggests that our ability to categorize things (like trees or beauty) depends on recognizing a shared, abstract quality (e.g., "treeness"). Since no individual tree fully embodies this ideal "treeness,"

Plato concludes that these forms must exist in a separate, immutable realm. This recognition, Plato posits, stems from an innate memory of the forms, enabling us to identify and categorize imperfect representations in the ever-changing physical world.

how does Aristotle respond to this argument?

rejects Plato’s separation of forms from physical things. He argues that a thing's form is its essence, intrinsic to the thing itself. For instance, the "form of treeness" is not a separate, abstract entity but the essential quality that makes a tree what it is. Forms, according to Aristotle, cannot exist independently from the objects they define.

how does Wittgenstein respond to this argument?

dismisses the notion of perfect abstract forms. He uses the example of family resemblances to illustrate that we categorize based on overlapping similarities rather than an ideal form. Categories are not metaphysical realities but conceptual tools shaped by social conventions and practical needs. They often have fuzzy boundaries and are subject to change, reflecting human experience and utility rather than objective divisions in reality. Thus, there is no definitive "form of treeness."

what does Aristotle say about Plato?

• there is only one world - the natural world

• two are bound and without the Matter the Form is non-existent

• forms do not explain physical change in our world since they are immaterial

• does not explain how we have knowledge of things, since Plato argued that they exist outside of space and time

why does Aristotle think that human life is organised and directed towards a final end?

we are essentially rational and rationality is our final cause + our highest aim is to fulfil our rationality

what is the primary of substance?

a way of saying ‘the first thing’

if there is a hierarchy to existence, some things are more fundamental than others, there must be a most fundamental ‘thing’ on which everything else depends

isnt a being but a binding force

what are the two states?

actuality

potentiality

what is actuality?

the state a thing is currently in

what is potentiality?

what something can become through change

what can the material cause be divided into?

prime matter and proximate matter

what is proximate matter?

matter that has some properties such as wood and cells

what is prime matter?

has no properties at all - did not exist but is theoretically necessary

what can the formal cause be divided into?

formal cause and exemplary cause - plan in someone’s mind

what do the four causes determine?

why something is the way it is

when discussing what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Aristotle would turn to whether the thing had fulfilled its purpose or final cause

any living things final cause was to be good at what it was meant to do

what conclusions did Aristotle come to?

• constantly in a state of motion

• planets are all in constant motion and appear to do so eternally

• change and motion are always caused by something

• objects in the physical world are always in a state of actuality and potentiality

what does Aristotle say about the Prime Mover in Metaphysics Lambda 7?

‘there exists a kind of eternal unmoved substance that is separate from sensible things’

what are some features of the prime mover?

• pure actuality - cannot be in a state of change → to be the cause of all motion it must be pure actuality and the only way is to have all necessary qualities

• independent - does not rely on anything else for its existence beacuse the prime mover does not change

• eternal - prime mover does not change, therefore cannot die

• immaterial - does not change so cannot be physical

• not the creator - no start to creation, matter had always existed, is just what causes there to be motion and change

• disinterested - not interested in our world, only in its own existence

what arguments support Aristotle?

• relies on the study of the natural world that we can experience

• overcomes the problems of infinite regress which some find logically incomprehensible - now a starting point for what exists

• avoids anthropomorphising this entity and this is a positive because it isn’t a ‘God’ but more akin to an entity or a force → avoids any confusion with a classical ‘God’ image

what arguments criticise Aristotle?

• does not interact with the world in a physical way but Aristotle believes in physical influence

• can only think of itself - seems unloving as it plays no part in our lives, does not fit the view of a ‘mover’ but an impartial force such as the big bang

• Russel - the world is a ‘brute fact’ and said you can’t engage in questions of what you can’t observe

• Dawkins - any form of ‘purpose’ we experience is simply us projecting onto it - purpose doesn’t exist in natural things

• what is the purpose of cancer - could be argued the purpose of the cancer cells is to replicate as quickly as possible, but this dosen’t fit Aristotle’s writings on eudaimonia

what are the similarities between the prime mover and the form of the good?

• both are transcendent and can’t be known using the senses - reason needs to be used to understand them both

• both are perfect, unchanging and eternal

• Prime mover is the telos of everything and the Form of the Good is the aim of everything - to know and understand the Form of the Good

what are the differences between the prime mover and the form of the good?

• different explanations for motion → PM attracts all towards itself as it is the ultimate final cause whereas FoG is unchanging and change only occurs in world of appearances

• location - is part of the material universe in an orbit beyond the planets whereas form of the good is in realm of forms

• how each is involved in the world - prime mover has no connection with things in the world whereas form of good participates in all forms and can be recognised in realm of appearances