This might be the last Aristotle topic that is still vexing to me, but how exactly does the Unmoved Mover work as a first final cause and/or a first efficient cause? So, I get that the final cause has to be prior to the efficient cause. But is the Unmoved Mover an efficient cause of anything? My problem is that in Metaphysics Lambda, the Unmoved Mover is not described as an efficient cause, but only as a final cause. Aristotle also affirms in Lambda that motion has to be eternal (IIRC comes from Physics VIII), which seems to imply that the universe has an infinite chain of efficient causes. So, you get this picture of there being two eternal principles: the Unmoved Mover, and the cosmos in motion. However, in Metaphysics Little Alpha, 994a, Aristotle argues precisely against the idea that you can have an infinite chain of even efficient causes. So, it seems like the idea that there are two coexisting eternal principles idea is wrong, since the cosmos cannot be the infinite chain of eternal causes that it appears to be. However, Aristotle does not fix the problem and call the Unmoved Mover an efficient cause at any point whatsoever. I am not sure how to rectify this. Any thoughts? I think the idea might be that "eternal things can be infinite sources, and since motion is eternal, there can be infinite efficient causes in a temporal sense", but this might be a copout.
The issue I would say is that the province of aristotle’s idea for motion was likely from zeno, the sage that understood that the idea for motion was probably a busted broken idea
>>25181717Provenance*
>>25181639I haven't gone through the Greek with a fine-toothed comb, but i dont get the sense Metaphysics Little Alpha really denies an infinite series of efficient causes in the sense of an infinite set of changes following one another.In little Alpha he is defending philosophy against the idea that we cannot know anything at all because no first principles could be found due to infinite regress.This emphasis on finding first principles can be seen in the example he gives of a non-regressing explanation of sources of motion:>a man is moved by the air and this by the sun and the sun by strife and of this there is no limitI'd say this is the most 'efficient cause'-like example he gives, but the series is not really like a temporal series of efficient causes. Strife as the end point works more as the first principle that explains all efficient causes, not really a temporally first cause. A modern example of such an explanation would be something:>a man moves because of his muscles which move because of actin fibers which move because of ATP reacting to ADP which react because of thermodynamicsAnd then you kinda hit a dead end because modern physics has a hard time going more fundamental than thermodynamics. This is a different type of series than:>the atoms in a man move because they were hit by other atoms, which moved because they were hit by other atoms, etc. ad infinitumFrom what i could tell from a quick glance at the literature, this is essentially the differentiation Aristotle makes between accidental causation and proper causation:>And some causes are accidental, or in its genera; thus the cause of a statue is in one way a sculptor and in another Polyclitus, in that being Polyclitus is accidentally conjoined to the sculptor. (Physics II.3, 195a32-35)Here the proper cause is 'a sculptor', a more general principle, while the accidental efficient cause is Polyclitus, the particular instance of the sculptor. taken like this, i guess the explanation is that proper causes cannot be infinite, while accidental causes can be.
>>25181639This is controversial stuff and I’m as much a pseud as anyone else but God is a final cause alone, for Aristotle, imo. An efficient cause need not be a physical object (the art of weaving etc) but it is still secondary to its telos, therefore God can’t be an efficient cause in any way. The obvious question is “then why does anything exist besides God at all?” Aristotle does not answer this, I don’t know that he thought it was answerable. Think of the mathematical books at the end of the Metaphysics - Aristotle is attacking Platonist attempts to deduce subordinate realities (the Ideas, the mathematicals) not only from the One, but even from the One and the Indefinite Dyad taken together, and showing the logic is faulty - like a preview of what Kant would do to him some day actually. Otoh there is definitely an emanationist structure to Aristotle’s cosmotheology (God, lesser UMs, spheres, earth, evil as privation). But I’m doubtful he would have tried to deduce all this like Plotinus, I think he would have said he found it right in front of him. You do need an infinite chain of efficient causes for a sempiternal universe but this ‘bad’ infinity (an infinity that is never fulfilled) is caused by the teleology of God. The middle term here is circular motion. A revolving circle is infinitely changing and unified at the same time. Dozens of revolving circles account for the multiplicity of life. I agree there is something wrong here, but I think it was his view. The infinity of efficient motors is infinite per accidens, not per se. A leaf blows - I can in theory trace this back to God and so the chain is finite per se. But God’s teleological action is not finite but sempiternal because of circular motion.> eternal things can be infinite sources, and since motion is eternal, there can be infinite efficient causes in a temporal senseBingo, imo. The bridge between eternity and sempiternality is the circle.
>>25181771I agree with this anon overall. The last paragraph though I would quibble with but it’s tentatively offered. The accidentality/essentiality distinction between Polyclitus and sculptor is not really like the distinction between a per accidens and per se series. “Policlitus” and “sculptor” are the same substance. Not so for the motor in a per accidens series vs a per se one. (This part of the plant moves another vs the soul of the plant moves this part)
>>25181986>The accidentality/essentiality distinction between Polyclitus and sculptor is not really like the distinction between a per accidens and per se series. “Policlitus” and “sculptor” are the same substance. Not so for the motor in a per accidens series vs a per se one. (This part of the plant moves another vs the soul of the plant moves this part).Do you mean that in the former, we have the same substance spoken about in different aspects, while in the latter, we have two parts of a substance vs. one part against one whole? I suppose that's why the sculptor example isn't the greatest example, because there isn't a chain of relationships that can extend infinitely unlike with the motor series example. Anyway, I suppose that:>I think the idea might be that "eternal things can be infinite sources, and since motion is eternal, there can be infinite efficient causes in a temporal sense", Is the way to go. One final cause, infinite efficient causes, because one type of cause must have a terminus for explanation while another can be endless due to the natures of those kinds of explanations like >>25181771 kind of explained.
>>25181771>infinite set of changes following one another.No shit.He believes in eternal time after all.
>>25182753Matter is a sea of infinite formless particulars given form, arbitrarily, and so give particularity to universals.
>>25183645I don’t think so. The unity of form and matter is central to Aristotle. Tbh this sounds to me like Thomism read back into Aristotle but I don’t think this is a legitimate move. It’s what Hegel would call representational thinking, or black and white thinking if you like. You have your matter-soup over here, and forms over here, and then they get united. The matter-soup accounts for particularity. I just personally don’t accept this and I think Aristotle is working against this kind of thought throughout. There is no matter without form, there is no particularity that is not intelligible, there is no primitive intelligible object that is not particular, there is no intelligible subsisting “over” the particulars; even the separated substances are not pure universals but particulars and this is something he mogs Plato over.
>>25182753Yeah basically, we could get into autistic weeds as to in what sense the essence/telos of a living thing can be described as a ‘part’ of the thing but yes. The divide I’m getting at is simply efficient cause vs telos. The solution is circular motion. It’s easy to scoff at this today but it points to how radically Platonism failed for Aristotle.
>>25183946>Yeah basically, we could get into autistic weeds as to in what sense the essence/telos of a living thing can be described as a ‘part’ of the thing but yes. >The divide I’m getting at is simply efficient cause vs telos. The solution is circular motion. It’s easy to scoff at this today but it points to how radically Platonism failed for Aristotle.Honestly, if you have the time to get into the autistic weeds, I would love to hear (well, read) all of it.
>>25184004I appreciate that but it’s mostly in Physics 8. Which I know you’ve already read. Very deep, turbo-autismo analysis of this there if you want to take another look.
>>25184070The problem is that it's difficult to imagine circular movement solving the problem because you have a substance taking turns being the agent and the patient to itself. Well, I'm not being fair. In a way, circular reasoning, circular motion, reflexive motion, etc., does *solve* that problem because that is exactly the structure you would be looking for, but now we have self-movers, not unmoved movers. And that's a substance with potency, not a substance that is pure act. Unless I'm missing something here.
bump
>>25183925He literally says in the first third of Metaphysics that Difference arises from matter.
It doesn’t. Causality is fake.
