Aristotle on Causality (A History of Western Thought 15)

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This is part 15 of the ongoing series A History of Western Thought. In this video, we discuss Aristotle's perspective on causality. These are Aristotle's four causes: the material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause.

[@CamillusofRome]

C.S. Lewis invokes the Formal and Final causes in the last essay of the The Abolition of Man.

[@CamillusofRome]

@Rubes Ruiz I read and profit from insights from non-Christians and thus have no problem learning from insights from people like Lewis who hold hetrodox opinions on some matters. I prefer to take things on a case-by-case scenario rather than risk throwing babies out with the bathwater.

[@JW_______]

@Rubes Ruiz I don't think that's accurate. Don't want to start a debate here on the matter, but if you cite where he says or implies that I can look to see if I agree or disagree with your statement.

[@vngelicath1580]

@Rubes Ruiz Where does Lewis make the claim that Scripture has errors?

[@611Cowboy]

So you are saying aethists believe purpose also came out of nothing?😂

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

NO ! A cause is NOT one thing happens than another thing usually happens. A cause makes the other thing necessary ! Take away the necessary and you take away the cause. Hume was simply wrong in his analysis of causation.

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

How you come to believe something is a cause is by no means identical with what actually makes something a cause. This was Hume's mistake.

[@winnietheblue3633]

Are you planning to take this series through the middle ages up to modernity? I've found your content on modern philosophers to be helpful in understanding the anti-christian assumptions inherent in the culture and would love to hear more

[@DrJordanBCooper]

Yes, that's where the series is headed.

[@Renegen1]

8:50 "if I take my coffee and put it in my mouth, now I am actualizing something that actually exists within the coffee". I hope you listen to yourself and realize the problem of this theory, and why most people laugh at the mere mention of it. To say that the coffee 'actually has the potential to be drunk' is sheer lunacy. Ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish with these theories (although you may be just interested in teaching things, not improving them).

[@bornforburning777]

Can you explain why it's ridiculous? I am new to Aristotelianism and am sort of just taking it all in.

[@Renegen1]

There is no beginning or end to the explanations one can give if we describe drinking coffee as 'actualizing drinking the coffee'. Conventional science replaced Aristotelianism because it only sticks to what can be seen and proven.Actualizing properties in and out of existence poses a problem to that (such as coffee in my mouth) and perhaps the concept is misused.

[@bornforburning777]

​@@Renegen1 Sure; I guess from an epistemological perspective, there's an open question as to whether conventional science can actually see or prove anything. Which is in many ways what I think these Greek philosophers (especially Plato) were wrestling with; they were trying to see if you could prove that an object existed at all. The issue that I have with science is that it argues we can reasonably infer a whole (theorem) from the sum of its parts (datums). And I'm not sure that's true unless we presuppose a whole initially, which invalidates the scientific process. And this isn't even accounting for the fact that science, by definition, operates through human hands and eyes, which are admittedly flawed and prone to error. And that opens up a really messy can of worms regarding whether anything that's been deduced scientifically is valid. Anyways, thanks for your explanation. I really appreciate it. Definitely wresting with this idea that potential to be acted upon is an inherent property of the object. Cheers.

[@Renegen1]

I would say that objects have potencies, but that's the thing, they have potencies inherent in their nature. A TV doesn't have the potency to show a comedy movie, but it might have the potency to conduct electricity.

[@negativedawahilarious]

how about a coffee glass has the potential to be broken ?

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

Causality is not an empirical relationship, it's a logical relationship. If you approach the problem empirically, then you will only find sequence. There is a logical relationship between a cause and its effect that has to do with Form.

[@theletterm5425]

I don‘t quite understand the distinction between the teleological vs. the mechanistic worldview. They sound the same to me. Aristotle would say that the eyes have a purpose of taking in light and looking at things, while the enlightenment philosophers would argue against that purpose and that the eyes simply do act in this manner? Unless Aristotle was making a religious argument, that some god designed the eyes for this purpose, there really seems to be no tangible difference, does there?

[@bornforburning777]

In your words; yes, he is making a sort of religious argument, in essence saying that the eye does not merely exist, it exists for the purpose of seeing; which is to say that it was made to see; which is to say that it was made by God. Aristotelian teleology requires a God (unmoved mover) to work. Enlightenment philosophy will wrestle with and eventually drop this idea that purpose is instantiated by an unmoved mover. Some (especially post-enlightenment) philosophers kind of substitute the unmoved mover with humanity itself, arguing that humanity is capable of projecting or creating meaning within an essentially meaningless / undifferentiated universe.

[@bobsagget9212]

Does the bible say the world is flat? Not a troll just wondering what the four corners mean

[@Jamric-gr8gr]

Four corners refer to the four directions if the Earth (Mainly, north, south, west, and east.) You need to remember that hible wasn't written in english and thus should be understood in a different way.

[@hayden642]

😻 Promo_SM!

[@JW_______]

I've never understood by what mechanism a formal cause occurs. How does a form cause its effect? Or is it a mistake to even think of formal cause in terms of mechanisms - for example if it operates at a more fundamental level of being?

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

You are thinking of formal cause as if it were an efficient cause. The form of a thing doesn't bring about the existence of the thing. Rather, the form of a thing is the essence of the thing itself. Aristotle 'four causes' are not four efficient causes -- rather, they are four parts of a comprehensive explanation for the existence of a thing. The efficient cause is what brings the thing into existence; the formal cause is the the essence of the thing; the material cause is the kind of matter in which the essence of the thing takes its form; the final cause is supposed to be the goal or purpose for which the thing exists. Mechanism only belongs to efficient causes. The problem is that in modern times we only think cause means efficient cause -- bringing something into existence. For Aristotle, 'cause' meant explanation.

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

Of course, you can be excused for thinking of forms as being efficient causes if you have read Plato. For this exactly what Platonism supposed. In Platonism, the immutable and eternal Forms are supposed to be the causes of temporal and variable things -- wherein the temporal and variable things come into existence and change by participating in the real existence of the Forms. Exactly how an immutable and eternal form can cause the existence of a temporal and variable thing, or cause it to change is never really explained by Plato. Plato just asserts form as an efficient cause in the same way that most of the Pre-Socratics simply asserted matter to be an efficient cause. Aristotle's explanation of the 'Four Causes' is basically his refutation of both Plato and the Pre-Socratics on efficient causality. By showing the true roles played by matter and form in the comprehensive explanation of a thing, Aristotle is able to indicate that an efficient cause is neither pure form nor pure matter. Pure Form by itself could never result in a material thing coming into existence, and Pure Matter by itself could never take the form of anything whatsoever. Therefore, an efficient cause of a thing must already contain within itself both form and matter.

[@JW_______]

@alwaysgreatusa223 Aristotelian vocabulary certainly does create a lot of confusion for modern readers like myself. "Cause," if it has any root meaning at all, would seem to indicate that one thing resulted in another thing (i.e., the cause and the caused), or at least that one thing preceded another thing in a hierarchical order of some kind. If formal cause is the essence of a thing, then what is the thing without the essence? How can form be both a cause and the caused?

[@alwaysgreatusa223]

@@JW_______ Of course, if you continue to insist that 'cause' always means a thing that brings another thing into existence, then you will fail to understand Aristotle. But you have to remember that Aristotle wrote in ancient Greek rather than in modern English. Form is not a cause for Aristotle in the modern English meaning of 'cause' - rather it is a reason for the existence of a thing. This is because Aristotle does not believe there can be anything in existence that does not have some form.

[@JW_______]

@alwaysgreatusa223 It just seems redundant to say that a thing can't exist without form when the form is the thing itself. I know I'm missing something, but I just don't get it. Is there a difference between a thing and it's essence?