Ancient philosophical influences

2  Aristotle

Essential terminology

The body

The Four Causes

The Prime Mover

Key scholars

Plato (c. 427 BCE – c. 347 BCE)

Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE)

The issues

  1. 1 How do we explain the existence of things?
  2. 2 What did Aristotle mean by the Prime Mover?

What you will learn about in this chapter

In this chapter you will examine Aristotle’s idea about reality, cause and purpose in the world and the Prime Mover.

‘All men desire to know’

This phrase begins Aristotle’s book Metaphysics and it sums up Aristotle’s desire to learn about and understand the world. Part of Aristotle’s philosophy investigated the nature of things and how we explain why things exist.

The OCR checklist       

The philosophical views of Aristotle, in relation to:

Learners should have the opportunity to discuss issues related to the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, including:

Aristotle, Physics II.3 and Metaphysics V.2

Aristotle’s understanding of reality

Aristotle wanted to explain ‘why’ things exist as they do. However, he rejected Plato’s idea that things which exist in some way participate in or imitate an ideal Form of that object. Instead, Aristotle focused on why a particular piece of matter existed: a car is made of matter, but all the bits of matter in it have a particular arrangement and structure as part of the car. They have a particular ‘form’; but this form is not a copy of an ideal Platonic ‘Form’ of a car.

Aristotle suggested that there are four different types of causes or explanations of why any object exists; this is what we now call the ‘Four Causes’.

Aristotle’s Four Causes

Aristotle looked for answers to questions about the nature or substance of things. What does it mean for an object to exist? What gives an object its particular characteristics and so forth? When Aristotle talked about the form of something he meant its structure and characteristics which can be perceived by the senses. This is a completely different approach to that of Plato. Aristotle identified Four Causes that explain why a thing or object exists as it does.

The material cause

The material cause answers the question, what is it made of?

The material cause refers to the matter or substance that something is made from (e.g. a table which is made of wood). The material cause also explains the properties of something: wood can be carved, it can be sawn, it can be burned and so forth. Without the material nothing would exist.

However, knowing what something is made of does not give a complete answer. We know that a table is often made of wood, and perhaps glue, nails, screws and so forth, but knowing this does not help us understand exactly what a table is.

The Four Causes

1 The material cause – what a thing is made of.

2 The efficient cause – the agent or cause of the thing coming to exist as it is. The existence of a painting or work of art is brought about by the artist who makes it. The artist is the efficient cause.

3 The formal cause – what makes the thing recognisable: its structure, shape and activity.

4 The final cause – the ultimate reason why the thing exists.

The formal cause

The formal cause answers the question, what are its characteristics?

The formal cause refers to what gives the matter its ‘form’ or ‘structure’. A table is not just a piece of wood, but it is wood arranged in a particular way. So, the difference between a pile of pieces of wood and a table is that a table has properties and functions that come from the particular arrangement of the wood and shape of the table. It would not be a table if the wood was put together in a different way.

The efficient cause

The efficient cause answers the question, how does it happen?

The efficient cause refers to the cause of an object or thing existing – in other words, the answer to ‘why’ the thing exists. A table exists because a carpenter made it. The carpenter is the cause of the table existing rather than it just being a pile of wood.

The final cause

The final cause answers the question, what is it for?

The final cause is the most important part of Aristotle’s thinking and is concerned with the function of any thing or object. If you take the example of a table, you could ask why it has been made the size and in the way it is, and of course an answer would be to say that it is laid out in this way so as to be used for eating, working and so forth. According to Aristotle everything is made for a purpose. This final cause is teleological – it is concerned with the function of a particular object or the reason an action is done (Aristotle, Metaphysics).

Aristotle is not saying that there is a purpose or sign of design in nature; he is saying that when you consider any object or thing it has some function, which is the ultimate reason why the thing is as it is.

Aristotle’s teleology

For Aristotle every single object and even the universe itself have a purpose, by which he means a reason for existing. Something is good if it achieves its final purpose, and this telos defines it as good. According to Aristotle if we could discover the telos of an organism, we could also discover what needs to be done to reach that purpose. He also believed that people have a purpose, and a good person is one who fulfils this purpose. Everything for Aristotle exists for a purpose.

Aristotle gave many examples to explain these ideas, such as that that of a marble statue. If someone asked what caused the statue he might get the following answers:

Metaphysics

Metaphysics means ‘after physics’. This is nothing to do with what you more commonly mean by ‘physics’ – what this is actually referring to is Aristotle’s book Physics; ‘after physics’ is just a reference to the fact that this book was classified by later philosophers as following on from his book Physics.

Thought point

Aristotle’s four causes

How would you explain each item on the list in terms of Aristotle’s Four Causes?

  1. 1 A house
  2. 2 A car
  3. 3 The sun
  4. 4 A flower
  5. 5 A human being

Teleological

The world ‘teleological’ originates from the Greek word ‘telos’. ‘Telos’ refers to the final goal or purpose of something. So any argument that is ‘teleological’ is concerned with making points about either the ‘goal’ or the ‘purpose’ of something.

Aristotle

Aristotle was a remarkable person. He tutored students on most traditional subjects that are taught at universities today. He was fascinated with understanding the physical world around him and the universe. His biology books were not superseded by anything better until 2,000 years later. Aristotle also wrote about other areas of study, including drama, rhetoric (public speaking), meteorology, sport and physics.

Formal cause

Make sure you do not confuse Aristotle’s formal cause and forms with those of Plato.

Plato and Aristotle

Aristotle was Plato’s student and continued to study many of the areas of study that first interested Plato. However, Aristotle’s approach was completely different from that of Plato. Plato was a rationalist, whereas Aristotle was an empiricist. Knowledge, for Aristotle, was not something remembered from the world of the Forms, but the physical world and experience were the basis of knowledge. Aristotle’s idea of education was also different from that of Plato, who thought that education consisted of bringing out knowledge that was already in the mind. Aristotle emphasised the value of studying the physical world, and thought that there were a variety of ways that people acquired knowledge: through observation, through being taught and through practice of what was taught. Aristotle’s approach is empirical and he is not as concerned as Plato with the world of Forms.

However, Aristotle’s writings always recognised the value of what he had learned from Plato and his books often refer to the ideas of Plato. Anthony Kenny has stated that ‘Aristotle always acknowledged a great debt to Plato, whom on his death he described as the best and happiest of mortals “whom it is not right for evil men even to praise” ’ (Kenny, A Brief History of Western Philosophy). The picture on p. 4 shows Plato pointing upwards towards heaven and the world of ideas and carrying his book Timaeus, while Aristotle carries his book Ethics and points towards the earth and the physical world. Why?

Aristotle the man (384–322 BCE)

Aristotle was born in Macedonia. At the age of 17 he moved to Athens, where he joined Plato’s Academy. In 347 BCE he moved to Turkey due to the growing political tensions between Macedonia and Athens. He spent his time there investigating science and particularly biology. In 341 BCE he moved with his family back to Macedonia to become tutor to King Philip II of Macedonia’s son, Alexander (who would later become Alexander the Great). After Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded a school called the Lyceum. He remained in Athens, teaching until 323, when Alexander the Great died. After Alexander’s death, it became difficult for Aristotle to stay in Athens as he was a Macedonian. Worried that he might die like Socrates, Aristotle and his family moved to Chalcis, where he died a year later.

Evaluating Aristotle’s theory of causality

Aristotle criticised Plato’s belief in the world of the Forms as there is no empirical evidence for its existence, but one could also say that there is no evidence for considering that only the material world is the source of true knowledge.

Many scientists and philosophers would also disagree with Aristotle over his belief that everything has a telos, final cause or purpose. Some would say that things exist simply by chance, or as Bertrand Russell said, the universe simply is – it is ‘brute fact’ and it does not make sense to ask what caused it or to think that it has a purpose. Existentialist philosophers, such Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, also thought it was pointless to think that the universe or anything in it had any purpose.

Some things do not seem to fit into Aristotle’s theory of causality, such as emotions: love, hate, despair and so forth.

Both Hume and Kant considered that causation is simply the way we as humans see things in the world around us – causation is simply a mental construct.

However, even today scientists do work in a similar way to Aristotle as theories about the universe are based on experience and observation of it.

Aristotle’s theory also shows that there can be several explanations for something’s existence, all of which increase our understanding of it. For example we are aware of the material cause of a human and all the chemical components involved, but we can also accept other explanations for human existence, such as life being a gift from God. Aristotle shows that both scientific and religious explanations can work together – the Big Bang could be seen as the efficient cause of the universe and at the same time God could be seen as the final cause. Aristotle’s ideas have also been developed by Christian thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas.

The Prime Mover

According to Aristotle’s observations of the world around him everything that exists is always in a state of movement or motion. In other words, everything is in a state of continual change; nothing stays the same, as things are always developing, growing larger or older or shrinking in size and so forth.

Aristotle observed four things:

  1. 1 The physical world was continually in a state of motion and change.
  2. 2 The planets appeared to be moving eternally.
  3. 3 Change or motion always has a cause.
  4. 4 Objects in the physical world were in a state of actuality and potentiality.

Empirical

The word ‘empirical’ is used in philosophy to refer to a view or claim that is supported by observable evidence that you can study. ‘Empiricists’ (people who use an ‘empirical’ approach) believe that only truth claims based on empirical evidence are meaningful.

Aristotle, therefore, concluded that something must cause the movement or change without being moved and that is eternal. He observed that if something can change it moves from the actual state it is in and so has the potential to become another state: an actual tadpole is potentially a frog. He also concluded that for things to come into existence something else must have caused it to exist. Finally, it was his understanding of the eternal motion of the planets that made him realise that there must be an eternal cause of motion – a prime or first mover.

Aristotle was not talking about a sequence of events in time. His ideas about the Prime Mover are not simply that it started everything off in motion in the first place. It is more subtle than that. Change, in Aristotle’s view, is eternal; there cannot have been a first change, because something would have to have happened just before that change which set it off, and this itself would have been a change, and so on. Aristotle goes on to say that certain things (i.e. the planets and the stars) that we see ‘in the heavens’ are always moving, in circles, without any apparent beginning or end, and this is clear to our observation.

The Prime Mover

The unchanging cause of all that exists.

Thought point

Potentiality and actuality

How does Aristotle’s distinction between potentiality and actuality apply to the following?

  1. 1 An acorn
  2. 2 An embryo
  3. 3 The prime minister
  4. 4 A computer
  5. 5 A pig

N.B. Aristotle never suggested that the Prime Mover started everything off like pushing a line of dominos so that they all fall down. For Aristotle, the Prime Mover is the originating cause of all motion eternally which sustains the pattern of change from actuality to potentiality in the physical world.

What are the characteristics of the Prime Mover?

According to Aristotle the Prime Mover exists by necessity – meaning that the Prime Mover could not fail to exist and nothing caused it to exist. The Prime Mover cannot change and so Aristotle said that it is pure actuality by nature, and that nature is good. If it were not good it would have the potentiality to be better and so could change. Something which has pure actuality does not need to change.

The Prime Mover causes the movement of other things, not as an efficient cause, but as a final cause or even the final cause. In other words, it does not start off the movement by giving it some kind of push, but it is the purpose, or the end, or the teleology, of the movement. Aristotle was keen to establish that the Prime Mover is itself unmoved, or unaffected; otherwise the whole concept would break down. It is the object of everything. It causes movement as the object of desire and love.

The Prime Mover is Aristotle’s final cause, as it is the ultimate explanation of why things exist (think of Aristotle’s Four Causes – if all objects in the universe have a purpose then the universe itself would also have a purpose – a final cause). Aristotle suggested that the final cause leads to movement like the action of being loved, as love is about not just actions but also attraction. The Prime Mover is the ultimate reason and final goal of movement. An alternative way to understand this could be to think of a magnet that will attract iron objects towards it. Aristotle says that all action is ultimately aimed at the Prime Mover and this is like attraction because the Prime Mover is the cause of all motion.

In his book Metaphysics Aristotle also links the Prime Mover with God and concludes that God is ‘a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God’ (Aristotle, Metaphysics). If God caused motion by efficient physical means – pushing, or the equivalent, depending on the kind of ‘moving’ – he himself would be changed, so he must instead move by drawing things towards himself, while remaining unaffected. The final cause of movement, according to Aristotle, is a love of and desire for God. God is perfection, and everything wants to imitate perfection and is drawn towards it.

For Aristotle, God is the Prime Mover who is without parts and indivisible. In philosophy the term for being without parts is ‘divine simplicity’. God is pure actuality, containing no potentiality. God is also described as being ‘complete reality’.

So, what would this God as Prime Mover think about? It must be the best of all possible things to think about, because God is perfectly good. God could not think about anything which caused him to change in any way, nothing which could affect him, or make him react, or even change him from not-knowing to knowing. Aristotle concludes that God thinks about himself only. Nothing else is a fit subject. He even defines God as ‘thought of thought’, or ‘thinking about thinking’. At the end of this line of argument, Aristotle comes to the conclusion that God knows only himself; so he does not know this physical world that we inhabit, he does not have a plan for us, and he is not affected by us. He does not even think about the universe and what happens in it as this would mean that God changes as his knowledge would change.

God thinks only about being God.

Finally, Aristotle suggests how God relates to the universe. He suggests two ways (Aristotle, Metaphysics):

  1. 1 As a leader
  2. 2 In the order of the universe.

Aristotle argued that the first is more important than the second as the universe depends on the Prime Mover for its existence, but he also suggests that all things in the universe are ordered to some ‘final cause’ and ultimately to the Prime Mover. This fits in with the importance he places on the last of his Four Causes.

To sum up:

Necessary being

This is a phrase used in philosophy of religion to refer to something which always exists and cannot fail to exist. Usually it is a phrase that philosophers apply to God.

In medieval philosophy Anselm stated that God is a ‘necessary being’, by which he meant God is a being that must exist and it is impossible for God not to exist.

The Prime Mover and Plato’s Form of the Good

Aristotle, we know, was Plato’s pupil and, therefore, was influenced by him. Like Plato, Aristotle believed that the universe was in a state of constant change or motion. Like Plato’s Form of the Good, Aristotle describes the Prime Mover as being transcendent and not involved with this world. Both are impersonal beings. According to Plato, the Form of the Good is absolute and the source of all morality, of all good actions in the world; however, this does not seem to be the function of the Prime Mover.

In the writings of Plato, however, the roots of Aristotle’s Prime Mover are to be found. In the Laws, Plato saw ‘religion’ as necessary to ensure order in the city. Basically, humans have to hold three key tenets: that gods exist (i.e. that the world is not a purely ‘material’ thing, product of chance or necessity); that they care for the world; and that they cannot be ‘bought’ or corrupted by people’s gifts or prayers. However, he makes clear that he does not pretend to give the last answer on such difficult questions. Plato does not elaborate and seems to give only a partial insight into possible answers. But Aristotle seems to want the answers to be more complete and so gives a more literal meaning.

Plato held that there are degrees of reality, with the forms constituting the highest reality, sensible objects a middle level, and images of things the lowest level. Using the Analogy of the Sun, Plato held that the Forms, especially the Form of the Good, are the source of the reality of all things. Aristotle, on the other hand, did not distinguish between degrees of reality between sensible objects and the non-sensible Prime Mover. The role of the Prime Mover is that of a cause of motion, rather than the origin of reality itself.

Both Plato and Aristotle seek coherent, consistent, comprehensive explanations for all of nature.

Evaluating Aristotle’s Prime Mover

Aristotle does not make clear the relationship between the Prime Mover and the universe, which the mover causes to move. According to Aristotle the Prime Mover started the chain of cause and effect in the universe without himself being moved. This idea seems contradictory, for how can something that is unmoved itself initiate movement in other things? While Aristotle does link the Prime Mover with God, Aristotle’s Prime Mover is transcendent and cannot interact in the universe in the way that believers often talk about God’s activity in the world. Aristotle’s idea of God is not a God who answers prayers or who can be experienced in any way.

It is also unclear as to the causal relationship between the Prime Mover thinking and the universe. Aristotle said that the Prime Mover was pure thought, but how can something which is pure thought move the physical universe? There is a disparity between an entity powerful enough to set the universe in motion and one unable to know it.

This immaterial view of God contradicts his materialist and empirical view of the universe as explained in his theory of the Four Causes. There are problems with the efficient cause because Aristotle’s Prime Mover becomes the efficient cause of his universe, although Aristotle argues it causes movement not as an efficient cause but as a final cause.

Modern physics seems to suggest that the universe has a definite beginning. This would indicate that the universe and matter are not eternal. Therefore, Aristotle makes an assumption that matter is eternal and does not explain where it comes from.

However, the Prime Mover does share characteristics with the Christian view of God in that he is eternal and omnipotent. It makes sense to say that there must be a first cause for the universe, and his ideas again influenced Christian philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas and his cosmological argument.

Summary

1 Aristotle

2 Plato and Aristotle

3 The Prime Mover

Review questions

  1. 1 What is the difference between Plato’s and Aristotle’s use of the word ‘Form’?
  2. 2 What is the connection between the final cause and the Prime Mover?

Terminology

Do you know your terminology?

Try to explain the following ideas without looking at your books and notes:

  1. (a) Aristotle’s Four Causes;
  2. (b) Necessary being;
  3. (c) Prime Mover.

Examination questions practice

Make sure that you do not confuse the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Students often lose marks in this way, which is a great pity. In addition, in examination questions try to show that you understand Aristotle’s ideas rather than just describing them.

Sample exam-style question

‘Aristotle’s theory of the Four Causes is convincing.’ Discuss.

AO1 (15 marks)

Here you need to make sure that the theory is explained clearly – give examples to illustrate it.

AO2 (15 marks)

There are a range of ways to answer this question. Some relevant points to assess are as follows:

Further possible questions

Further reading

A good starting point for further reading is the useful Dialogue article introducing Aristotle’s thinking (2001, Dialogue 17).

Magee, B. 2016. The Story of Philosophy. Oxford: Dorling Kindersley.

Raeper, W. and Smith, L. 1991. A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas. Oxford: Lion Books.