Dividing the Causes, Applications, and Preface to End in Nature

Orientation #

He continues from the pairing of the four causes two-and-two (the class opens mid-discussion, “You may wonder something else”) and ends by prefacing “the rest that I’ve attached to this”: Aristotle’s next question in natural philosophy, whether nature acts for an end, which he says he will treat under importance, misunderstandings, custom, and only then the arguments. The previous class covered the corollaries of the four-cause distinction and the two-and-two pairings; the next takes up the argument that nature acts for an end.

The class, in order #

1. Matter against the other three (“God can in no way be a cause in the sense of what matter”) #

Point: one cause is sometimes divided against the other three, four ways; matter against form/mover/end reveals the contrast of passivity and actuality.

1. Form is act; the mover acts insofar as it is in act (“every agent acts insofar as it’s in act”); the end is an act, since ability is for the sake of act. So form, mover and end are based on actuality, matter on passivity; matter is “essentially something imperfect”.
2. Therefore God, being pure act, can in no way be a cause as matter. He is not an intrinsic form either (an intrinsic form is in some sense a part), but he is a cause as model or exemplar (our soul is made to the image and likeness of God), as mover or maker, and as end of the whole universe.

• His stock question to students, “of how many of these four kinds of cause is God a cause?” Answer: “two and a half”: end, mover, and model, but not intrinsic form, and in no way matter. “So don’t call him a mother”, even where he is like a mother; it is very misleading.
• The early philosophers took matter as the first cause, because it is the cause most known to us; they gave it oneness, simplicity, unlimitedness, even eternity, but not perfection, since perfection is tied to actuality. If the first cause were matter it would be the least perfect of things; if it is end of the universe it is also the best thing. This connects to his earlier point that the end of our reason is to know the first cause and to know the best thing: these coincide only if the first cause is end, not matter.
• He flags the matter/actuality contrast as “very important in understanding what kind of cause God could be”.

2. Form against the other three; Thomas’s reason for four causes (“a kind of reason why there are four kinds of causes”) #

Point: form may be set against matter, mover and end (student’s suggestion: in mathematics); Thomas grounds the number four in the common notion of cause.

• Thomas, near the end of his commentary on Physics II (the argument is Thomas’s, not in Aristotle): a cause is that on which something depends for its being or its becoming. A thing has being through its form; but in becoming you need matter, to be formed by a mover, for some end. So matter, mover and end, taken as more known to us, are all tied up with becoming; form with being. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

3. Mover against the other three (“Why bring in a carpenter?”) #

Point: matter, form and end are grouped together, leaving out the mover, when we ask what a thing is rather than how it came to be.

• Chair: wood (matter) in a shape suitable for sitting (form, end); the carpenter is responsible only for its coming into existence. Student’s phrasing: the three are extrinsic/intrinsic to the thing as it now is, the mover is other.
• The word “cat” on the board: three letters in a certain order signifying the animal; the writer need not enter into what it is. (Aside: at the Dumas conference [ed.: name unclear in recording] the Dominican Lawrence Dewan used the same “cat” example and referred to his.)
• Aristotle’s biology: Parts of Animals treats what the parts are made of, their order and their purpose; Generation of Animals separately treats their production, the mover. Teeth: made of something hard; front teeth shaped for biting, back teeth for chewing; how they came out of the mouth is a separate question.

4. End against the other three; seven groupings (“the cause of all the other causes being causes”) #

Point: the end is divided against the rest because it is the cause of the other causes being causes.

• Sitting is why carpenters make chairs; because the carpenter shapes the wood, the wood becomes wood of a chair and the shape comes to be in the wood; the carpenter does what he does for the sake of sitting.
• Application, “very important” in the twelfth book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics XII]: we first arrive at God as first mover and maker (in both Summas the first proof is from motion, the first two in the Summa Theologiae; then the proof from the maker), but Aristotle goes on to show God is also end of the whole universe; otherwise he would be first mover but not altogether first cause.
• Augustine, “we are because God is good”: good goes back primarily to the end; he made things for the sake of sharing his excellence.
• Tally: seven ways to divide the four causes: three ways two-and-two, four ways one-against-three. He sees no way to divide them into three, “although maybe someone else can come up with that”.

5. Nature as “within”; matter and form, genus and difference (“Genus and differences correspond to what matter and form”) #

Point: since nature keeps the idea of “within” and finally means what a thing is, the intrinsic causes, matter and form, correspond to the parts of the definition.

• Not that genus is matter or difference is form, but genus is taken from what is more material in the thing (genus of man: animal) and difference from what is more formal. As matter can be formed in various ways, so the genus is determinable in its potentiality by diverse differences.
• Back to “our friend John Locke’s” difficulty: the three lines of the triangle in general are neither equal nor unequal but able to be either, just as wood as wood is neither chair nor table but able to be these.
• Student question: must the species-making difference fall under quantity, quality or relation, since those are within? He answers first for substance (matter and form make it up), then for accidents: an accident is “something of another”, so its definition must bring in what it is of. Seventh book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics VII]: either accidents cannot be defined or they have a definition in another sense. Definition comes from the word for limit: the limits of Worcester should contain nothing of any other town; likewise a definition should contain nothing other than the thing defined. But “a point is the end of a line” brings line into the definition of point; “health is the good disposition of the body” brings in the body, which is not health (the body is sometimes sick). So definition is found first in substance, secondarily in accidents; the differences of accidents fall in different categories from those of substance.
• Ordering of differences: body, living body, living body with sensation; “these more formal things are always the last difference”.

6. Which causes a science looks for; geometry has only form (“Aristotle doesn’t do that”) #

Point: against the Harvard scholar’s claim that Aristotle “looked for four causes for everything”, each science must examine which causes it looks for; Aristotle does this here for natural philosophy and in Wisdom for metaphysics.

• Geometry: only one cause, form. Theorem: when straight lines intersect, the vertical angles are equal. Reason: a + x = two right angles because a straight line meets a straight line (earlier theorem: two right angles or angles equal to two right angles); likewise b + x; then the axioms (equals to the same are equal; equals subtracted from equals leave equals). The whole goes back to the lines being straight; had one been bent, the angles would not be equal. No mover, no end enters.
• Aside: “Mark” used to say you don’t say a geometrical sphere is round so it can roll out of danger, or a pyramid pointed so it can defend itself.

7. Marriage: all four causes in one definition (“stable union of a man and a woman”) #

Point: a definition may contain all four causes.

• “Marriage is the stable union of a man and a woman by mutual choice for the sake of children” (marriage in the full sense; an unstable marriage is defective as a marriage). Stable union: form, since unity and wholeness go with form; man and woman: matter, as the parts; mutual choice: mover or maker; children: end.

8. Sacrament: the catechism definition (“outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace”) #

Point: the Baltimore Catechism definition he memorised as a child contains all four causes, though matter and form must be “forced” out.

• Instituted by Christ: mover; to give grace: end. “Outward” means sensible, and in the study of the sacraments the sensible element (water of baptism) is called the matter and the words (“I baptize you…”) the form; Augustine: the words come to the element and you get a sacrament. Thomas speaks this way of the sacraments’ matter and form.
• Aside: nothing wrong with the Baltimore Catechism; one should go on to have it explained.

9. Church, city, army, God (“How many causes we have to bring in”) #

Point: other definitions use two, three or four causes.

• Church: members as parts (matter), the order up to the Pope (form), a founder (mover), a purpose (end). “A community of human beings who have faith, hope and charity” gives only two, matter and form, with a hint of the end; further study asks where the faith came from: Paul’s epistle on Christ as initiator and consummator of our faith, and the apostles (apostolic faith).
• City or nation: citizens (matter), the way it is ordered (form), the end, which differs in oligarchy and democracy, and George [Washington] “father of our country” or the men who wrote the Constitution (mover). Army: probably four eventually.
• God: “two and a half” again; the exemplar is usually brought in with the maker, since an efficient cause makes others like itself; Thomas himself runs them together (causa efficiens exemplaris). So theology is divided: God in himself, God as maker of the universe, God as end (Psalm: he made us, his people and sheep).
• Summary: one cause (geometry), all four, or two or three.

10. Preface to the next question: does nature act for an end? (“whether nature makes things for some end”) #

Point: Aristotle is brief on matter, form and mover, since by Empedocles and Anaxagoras [ed.: “Xavier’s” in recording] nobody doubted them, but end as a cause was not seen explicitly by the earlier philosophers and is denied by many moderns.

• His plan: first the importance of the question; then misunderstandings of what it means, which lead many to deny it; then the influence of custom; only then the arguments for and against, “the heart of the matter”. He holds misunderstanding and custom as influential as arguments, if not more.
• Model: Socrates in the prologue of the Apology answers not only his named accusers but the anonymous accusers, since the jury has heard bad things for years and is inclined to think him bad before hearing the arguments.

His words #

• “Natural Hearing”: the Physics [ed.: Physics].
• “Wisdom”, seventh and twelfth book: the Metaphysics [ed.: Metaphysics VII, XII].
• “ability”: [ed.: potency]; “ability is for the same act”.
• “mover or maker”: [ed.: efficient cause].
• “model”, “exemplar”, “extrinsic form”: the exemplar cause, opposed to intrinsic form.
• “two and a half”: the number of the four causes God is: end, mover, model; not intrinsic form, not matter.
• “cause of causes”: the end, cause of the other causes being causes.
• “species making difference”: [ed.: specific difference].
• “something of another”: his description of accident.
• “definition” from the word for limit (Latin); the Worcester city-limits example.
• “causa efficiens exemplaris”: Thomas’s phrase running efficient and exemplar together (as he recalls it).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Physics II, near the end: the reason for four causes (reported, not read verbatim).
• Baltimore Catechism, definition of sacrament (quoted from memory).
• Augustine, “we are because God is good”; “the words come to the element” (quoted).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Physics II (the class’s text; next question: which causes natural philosophy seeks; end as a cause).
• Aristotle, Metaphysics XII (God as first mover then end); Metaphysics VII (definition of accidents; which causes metaphysics seeks).
• Aristotle, Parts of Animals; Generation of Animals.
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles, proofs of God’s existence (motion first, then maker).
• Euclid, vertical-angles theorem and the theorem on a straight line meeting a straight line (Elements I, inferred).
• John Locke, the difficulty about the general triangle.
• Paul’s epistle, Christ initiator and consummator of our faith.
• Psalms, “he made us, his people, his sheep”.
• Plato, Apology, prologue (anonymous accusers).

His questions #

• Why might we distinguish matter against the other three kinds of causes? Because form, mover and end are based on actuality, matter on passivity.
• Of how many of the four kinds of cause is God a cause? Two and a half: end, mover, model; not intrinsic form, in no way matter.
• Is there any context where we might distinguish form against matter, mover and end? Student: mathematics; he accepts and moves to Thomas’s reason for four causes.
• Why do we sometimes bring in matter, form and end and leave out the mover? The mover is responsible for the thing’s coming to be, not for what it is now (chair, “cat”, teeth).
• Why is the end sometimes divided against the other three? It is the cause of all the other causes being causes.
• Must the species-making difference fall under quantity, quality or relation? For substance the genus/difference corresponds to matter/form; for accidents definition is in another sense and the differences fall in other categories.
• How many kinds of causes are in the definition of marriage? Four: stable union (form), man and woman (matter), mutual choice (mover), children (end).
• How many causes in “the Church is a community of human beings who have faith, hope and charity”? Two, matter and form, with a hint of the end.
• Is there a way to divide the four causes into three? Left open: he sees none, “maybe someone else can come up with that”.