Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
43. Dividing the Causes, Applications, and Preface to End in Nature
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/043-dividing-the-causes-applications-and-preface-to-end-in-nature/

[0:00] right? You may wonder something else. Now, sometimes we divide one of the four causes against the other three, right? So sometimes we divide matter

[0:16] against form, mover, and end, and sometimes form against matter, mover, and end, and sometimes mover against matter, form, and end, and sometimes end against matter,

[0:51] form, and mover. maker. four possibilities, right? But does each of these reveal something, right? Is there some reason, right? Or you might sometimes distinguish that one cause against all the other causes, right?

[1:13] Why might we distinguish matter against the other three kinds of causes? Because matter is kind of substantial, and other things. full of, if you think more of matter is... What is matter, see, Especially the first matter. Yeah, by form moving in, we're all in terms of what.

[1:46] Act. Yeah, form is act, right? The mover. You know the old saying is every agent acts insofar as it's an act, right? And the end is an act, right? Ability is for the same act, right? And that's very important when you talk about God as a cause, huh? Because God is pure act, right? Therefore, God can in no way be a pure act. cause in the sense of what matter, right?

[2:15] Now he's not an intrinsic form of things, but he can be a cause in the sense of the model or the exemplar. So, our soul is made to the image and likeness of God, right? God is an exemplar cause, and God is obviously the mover or maker, right? And is the end of the whole universe, right? But because he's pure act, it can only be one of those kinds of causes.

[2:40] He cannot be a cause in the sense of what matter, right? You see that? So matter is essentially something imperfect, right? You were mentioning before too, you know, when they looked for the first cause, they actually thought of matter as being the first cause because that's the cause most known, right? And they attributed to matter that it be one and simple and unlimited in some way and even eternal or unchanging, but they didn't attribute to the first cause in that sense perfection, right?

[3:15] Perfection is tied up with actuality and therefore the other causes. Um. So if God is a cause in these senses over here, he could also be the most perfect thing in the world, which he is. But if he's a cause in the sense of matter, the first cause, he'd be the least perfect of things, right? Okay. I was mentioning before how how when we try to figure out what the end of our reason is, we have reason to say that the end of our reason is to know the first cause.

[3:50] That's the final goal, right? And the end of our reason is to know the best thing there is. But the first cause was matter, and the best thing would not be the first cause. But if the first cause is end of the whole universe, it's going to be also the best thing. Best thing.

[4:13] So form and mover and end are based on actuality and matter on passivity, right? That's a very important contrast between matter and the other three. Because it's very important in understanding what kind of cause God could be, right? You know, it can't be an intrinsic form because an intrinsic form is in some sense a part isn't it? And Aristotle quotes a bit the idea of matter, right?

[4:44] But the extrinsic form, the exemplar, that's not a part, really. The other things are modeled, right? After. So I tell the students, "that God is a cause, how many these four kinds of causes has God a cause?" And the answer is two and a half. He's a cause in the sense of the end, the mover, and the model, but not the intrinsic form, right? And in no way a cause is matter, right?

[5:13] So don't call him a mother, right? Even though in some things he might be like mother, but he's very misleading. Now, is any reason to distinguish form from matter, mover, and end?

[5:34] Any context where we might distinguish form against matter, mover, and end? What would be the reason for doing that? Mathematics. Okay. Another interesting passage. Now, if you look at Thomas's commentary on the first,

[6:07] on the second book rather, on the physics or natural here, towards the end there, he gives a kind of reason why there are four kinds of causes. Okay. Interesting. He does this. No, it's in Aristotle, but Thomas does it. He goes back to a kind of common notion of cause that a cause is that which something depends upon for its being or for its what becoming, right?

[6:39] And then he says it has being through its what form, okay? But in becoming, you need some matter, right? To be formed by the mover for some what end, right?

[6:58] So taking matter, mover, and end, as they're more known to us, right? Not in a partis sense, they all seem to be tied up with becoming, right? Matter is that which something comes to be, right? The mover is the cause of the becoming, right? The mover. But he moves the matter towards some end, right? So that's why you have four causes. That's a beautiful thing, right? You know?

[7:33] And sometimes I see Aristotle and Thomas divide mover against the other three. And what do you think is the reason for putting matter, form, and end sometimes together and leaving out the mover?

[7:54] Those three are totally other than the mover. That's true. What do matter, form, and end? Why do they sometimes we bring in those three and leave out the mover? Because sometimes, like. with. a Chair, you see, it's got all matter, and form, and somebody sitting on it.

[8:17] yeah, yeah. The mover seems to be responsible for the chair coming into existence, right? When you look at what you got there, you bring in the matter and the form and the end, okay? And so one might say, you know, that that the chair is, you know, it's wood in that shape. It's wood in a shape suitable for sitting. That's what a chair is, right? Why bring in a carpenter?

[8:45] He's responsible for coming to be, right? We say, well, what is a chair? You know, it's wood in this shape. Wood in a shape suitable for what?

[8:59] Okay. So you'd say extrinsic and intrinsic, interesting. Or if I, you know, look at the word cat. Go back my favorite example, cat. Funny, I was at the Diamar conference. I was using my example of cat to illustrate some of these things, you know. And then the Dominican there, Lawrence Dewan, you know him at all? Anyway, he was giving a paper a little bit later on. He was using cat to illustrate something too.

[9:28] So he made a reference to my. He said in my thought, he's referring to. He's using the same example, but so easy. Who knows? What is this, right? It's three letters, right? In a certain order, signifying that thing was around there going to go, right? See, you don't have to bring the writer into the sense. You look at that, do you? C seems to be responsible for its coming into existence, right?

[9:53] Okay. Well, when you see cat there, right, just what it is now there on the board, right? It's letters in a certain order, right?

[10:05] C before the A and U for the D, signifying, right, the animal that be animals, right? You see, so there, these three come together, and that's left out.

[10:22] You kind of see that Aristotle's biological works, right, where he'll talk, like in the book on the parts of animals and so on, about what the parts of the body of animal are made out of, you know, and then the order of them, right, and then the purpose of them, right. And then a separate book in the book on the generation of animals, right, where the emphasis would be upon the mover, right, the production of these things, right.

[10:45] When you take just a animal, right, you look at like teeth, you know, so what are they made out of? Made out of something hard and so on, right? And and the teeth in front are different shape than the teeth in back. The teeth in front have a shape suitable for biting, and the teeth in back have shape suitable for chewing, right? And see, I can turn to the question: How did how did the teeth, you know, come out of my mouth, right?

[11:09] You know where they start from, you know, and so on, right? No protection of the tooth, right? But but the but the tooth that's there now, right? You talk about what it's made out of and the shape it has and its suitability for biting or for chewing or whatever it might be, right? Okay. So, Aristotle you know it's necessary here.

[11:36] And why is the end sometimes divided against the other three Because from the? End and beginning. Yeah, it's because you know cause of causes as you say. It's the cause of all the other causes being causes.

[11:54] This sitting is why the carpenters make chairs, right? And because the carpenter shapes the wood, that's how the wood gets to be the wood of a chair, right? And how the shape gets to be in the wood, right? But the carpenter does what he does for the sake of samskara. So the end is the cause of all the other causes being causes. That's very important to know in the fifth, in the twelfth book of Wisdom, right?

[12:27] When Aristotle is showing that God is the first cause of all things, right? We first arrive at God as the first what? Mover and the first maker. You know, if you look at the proofs in both Sumas, the first one is from motion, right? In the Summa Theologiae, the first two are from motion, and the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? And then the second or the third one is from the maker, right?

[12:56] So you see, God is the first mover or maker. But then Aristotle goes on to show that God is also what? The end of the whole universe. Otherwise, he would not, in fact, be altogether the first cause. But he, he'd be the first mover or maker, but not the first cause because the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when when Augustine says, "We are because God is good," right?

[13:24] Well, primarily, good goes back to what cause? The end, right? It's for the sake of what? Sharing his excellence, right? That he made things, right? Okay. That's a very important thing. So those are seven ways. They have a modification here. Seven ways you might divide the four kinds of causes into what? Two, right? Two and two. There are three ways you can do that, and four ways, one against what?

[14:02] Three. I don't see any way to divide them into three. Although maybe someone else can come up with that, you know, but. I think these are ways that I commonly see in different places where their group sometimes.

[14:25] Now, when you study the word "nature" in all of its meanings, it keeps the idea of being within, and eventually, nature takes on a very broad meaning, meaning what a thing is. But nothing is more within a thing than what it is, right?

[14:59] Well, the inside causes are what matter and form, right? Now, do you see a connection between matter and form and the parts of a definition which expresses what a thing is, our genus and what differences, right? Genus and differences correspond to what matter and form, right? Not that genus is the same thing as matter or difference, anything as form, but matter genus is taken on what is more material in the thing, right?

[15:34] Like the genus of man is animal, right? And the differences are taken on what is more more in the thing. And t here is an analogy there, just as the matter can be what formed in various ways, right? So the genus can be determined in its potentiality by different, diverse differences, right? Okay, going back to the difficulty there of our friend John Locke, right?

[16:03] The three lines in the definition of triangle in general are neither equal or unequal, but they're able to be the one, right? Just like wood is not as wood is neither a chair nor a table, but it's able to be these, right? So, in a sense, the genus is the differences, a bit like matter is to form, right?

[16:28] The fact that matter and form are the intrinsic causes, right, and the nature of the thing is intrinsic, right, then the definition bringing out the nature, right?

[16:40] Although it has the form, not of matter and form, but of genus and differences, it has a connection with the what's in the thing, the matter and the form.

[16:55] Well, when we're defining, since we're defining the essence of something within it, when we're making these species, making differences, would necessarily follow that in Aristotle's categories, it would have to be quantity, a quality, or a relation, because those are within. With every species making difference, have to fall because it's an accident. Well, thinking of substance first, you know, or matter and form, right? Make it up, right?

[17:27] Yeah, yeah. In the case of accident, you got to be careful because an accident is something of another, really. And therefore, you define accident. You have to say what it is of what. It's got to be in something outside of it, right? So, in the seventh book of wisdom, when Aristotle is talking about definition again, he says that either accidents cannot be defined, right, or they have a definition in another sense, huh?

[17:58] Because the idea of definition, it comes from the from the word for limit, huh? Greek or Latin, Latin our word from the Latin, and of course a limit. Like the limits of Worcester should contain nothing of anything around Worcester, right? Nothing outside of Worcester. There shouldn't be any part of any other town within the city limits of Worcester, right? And therefore, it seems that within a definition, there shouldn't be any other thing than the thing being defined, right?

[18:25] See. But if I define, let's say, a point is the end of a line, because that's what a point really is—it's the limit of a line—I have to bring line into my definition of a point, right? So I bring something other than point into the definition of point, right? Because point is something of another, and so to define it to say what it is and of what it is, what it is.

[18:56] You see? See. So if I was defining health, you know, I might say, "Well, health is the what? Good condition of the body, or something like this." See? But no, it's health and the body not the same thing, because sometimes the body is healthy and sometimes it's sick. So if they can't be the same thing, but health is not a substance; it's it's a certain disposition of the body, right?

[19:21] But a good disposition of the body, right? So I can't really say what health is without saying bring in the body, something other than it, right? Yeah. Okay.

[19:37] But no, what Aristotle is pointing out in the seventh book of wisdom is that definition is found first in substance, right? And then in a secondary way in accidents, right?

[19:51] So the species making differences would be have different categories for accidents. and substance. Yes. Yeah. Would it for substance? Would it be those three? One of those three necessarily? Well, as I say, the fact that in defining a substance you have genus and differences, right? Yeah. Corresponds to the fact that intrinsically it's composed of matter and form. See. Not that genus is the same as matter or difference the same as form, but genus is taken more from what is material in the thing, and difference from what is more formal in the thing.

[20:30] Okay. Yeah. So we define, you know, you know, body, a living body, right? Huh. Living body with sensation, huh? These more formal things are always the last difference.

[20:55] Okay. Now let's take a few applications here of the four kinds of causes to see. A friend of mine was taking philosophy at Harvard University, sort of from a noted scholar. And noted scholar was saying, you know, that Aristotle got this theory of the four causes and looked for four causes for everything. Say, Aristotle doesn't do that, right? In every science, you have to examine which causes you look for, right?

[21:44] And he's going to do that, you know, for natural philosophy here, right? But in wisdom, in metaphysics, he does it for metaphysics. He asks which causes, right? Okay. And same thing would be done in geometry, right? Now in geometry, you might have only one cause, namely a cause called form, right? Okay. I might stop the example to take a theorem to advance in geometry. I say when straight lines intersect, these angles are equal, right?

[22:17] Now, why are those two angles equal, right? Well, it's really because the lines intersecting are straight, right? Because the lines intersect, that's why you get angles. But the reason why they are straight is that the lines intersecting are equal.

[22:39] Now, the way you show that is saying that if this is a straight line, and this is a straight line meeting it, then a plus x must equal two right angles, right? Why? Because this is a straight line meets a straight line, right? Okay. You have an earlier theorem that when a straight line meets a straight line, it makes either two right angles, right, or angles equal to right angles, which is almost obvious, right?

[23:12] So a plus x must equal two right angles, and b plus x, for the same reason, must equal two right angles. The rest is just those statements known to everybody: the axioms, quantities equal to the same are what. Equal to each other. Now, so a plus x must equal b plus x, and the axiom that equals subtracted equals results equal, right? All this goes back to the fact that the lines intersecting are straight, and therefore these two must equal to those two, right?

[23:50] And they subtract the other one. But if one had been bent or curved off, then they would not have been in fact equal, right? Now, you don't give, you know, quite good that this be so, right? You know. Okay, but Mark used to say, you know, you don't say that a geometrical sphere is round so it can roll out of danger, or something, or a geometrical, you know, triangle or geometrical pyramid is pointed so it can defend itself.

[24:23] Each and are consumed, right? There's nothing there except the causes, right? But now, I often give my students the definition of marriage, right? Okay, and I say marriage is the stable union

[24:47] of a man and a woman by mutual choice for the sake of children. Okay, I define marriage in the full sense, and maybe you know some marriages you know are not too stable, but then they're defective as far as being a marriage, right? Okay. Now, having defined marriage here, how many kinds of causes are in the definition here of marriage?

[25:31] Four, four, yeah. So, when I say stable union, which kind of cause am I talking about? Four. What? Second. Yeah, the form, right? Ever gains the unity of things, right, to the wholeness, would be considered to be the form, right? When I say have a man and a woman, this is what matter. Matter, because all parts, I would say, is composed of that matter. So this is the matter

[26:03] by mutual choice. That's the mover, mover or maker, And then the sake of children. is the end. So you might have just one of the four causes, right? And you might have as many as what? All four, right? Okay. Now,

[26:30] take another example here. Now, as a grade school, we still use catechism there, right? Okay, so we all memorize the definition of what sacrament, right? The definition of sacrament that I still remember from the catechism was an outward sign

[26:59] instituted by Christ to give grace. Okay. Now I memorized that. The teacher never tied this up with the doctrine of four causes, but it's a definition that always stuck in my mind, right? Okay.

[27:24] Um, we always say to people, you know, there's nothing wrong with the with the Baltimore Catechism. We didn't understand it too well. I mean, you should go on. You know, have things explained, right? Okay. Now, how many kinds of causes are there in that definition?

[27:44] Well, obviously, you say instituted by Christ. That's the cause in the sense of what? The mover or maker. When you say to give grace, that's the cause in the sense of in. Okay. Now I have to kind of force this away because in a way it's said, but when you study the sacraments, we often Distinguish between the matter and the what form, right? Okay. So I force up over there, see, and I say, okay, outward there really means sensible, right?

[28:21] Okay. And here I ties up more with the words, right? And so, I Augustine says, the words come to the element, right? You get a sacrament, okay? It's not as explicit as it was in my definition of marriage, right? But in the way outwardly signed here, you are thinking of, let's say the water of baptism, take an example, and then the words, right? I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

[28:51] So they speak of those as the matter and the form sometimes in the sacrament, right? Okay, so it's not so many explicit here, but kind of we go back to the sensible matter there, and then the words, which are you know making more explicit the signification of the signification human self. So the way you talk about the sacraments, when Thomas talks about them, especially you get the matter and the form of the sacrament, right?

[29:16] So you have all four in the way it causes, right, being involved, right? So now someone asked the question there: What is the Church? Let's say, right?

[29:53] How many causes we have to bring in in the definition of the Church? One. Because obviously you have to talk about members of the Church, right? Who's and they're like parts, right? Okay. And then t here is a certain what? So the order of the Church, right? Okay. All the way to the Pope and so on, right? Okay. And then we have a founder, right? Someone founded certain structure.

[30:30] And obviously, the Church has got a what? In their purpose, right? Okay. Now, if you say the Church is a community of human beings, right, who have faith, hope, and charity, right? How many causes are you talking about there?

[31:01] Is that just two? You have matter and form. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a hint here. That's what the end is, right? Yeah. Yeah. And.

[31:16] But then you start to study more, you'd see what she was. Where did the faith come from, right? Okay, you just got the beginnings in Paul's epistle. He was always talking about Christ as the initiator and the consummator of our faith, right? Okay, but you might also talk about the what apostles, right? Apostolic faith, right?

[31:40] But like, is you're going to talk about the city or the nation, right? Will there be four causes involved? The citizens are like the matter, right? And then the way it's what ordered the city, right? Different kinds of city, right? And then you have the ender purpose, which is different than a oligarchy and a democracy, right? That's what the ender city is. And then what we call George, the father of our country, right?

[32:11] But you know, I mean, in a sense, the men wrote the Constitution. So the father of the country, right? Okay. When you're talking about the army, right? Huh? We bring in probably four causes eventually, right? Now, when

[32:35] you talk about God, though, right? You say God is is a cause. How many of the causes do you make use of? You say God is a cause, but since it's God, a cause,

[32:49] three, two and a half, two and a half. They're different, right? The distinction, right, between you know the intrinsic form and the exemplary. But especially a cause in the sense of the mover and the ender, right? Because usually when you think of God as being exemplar, we kind of bring it in with the as being maker, right? Huh? See, I freeze sometimes. Even Thomas, causa efficiente exemplare,

[33:28] something like that, and they're running together. You know, efficient cause is making others like itself, right? Huh? You know, so it's kind of exemplar as well as a efficient cause, and it kind of runs them together.

[33:43] So maybe just one cause you want to talk about the form, like my example from geometry. It might be all four causes, like these other examples I was giving, or it might be, you know, two or three, right? Like in talking about the what since God is a cause,

[34:03] but that's the way in a way we we divide theology. We consider God. By himself, right? In himself, and God is the maker of the universe, right? And then God as the end, right?

[34:20] Know what the Lord is? God says in the Psalms, "He made us, made people shepherds." Huh? That's the three things. Parts. Now the rest that I've attached to this, let's say a few words by way of preface to it. Under next,

[34:53] when Aristotle takes up the question now in natural philosophy, which causes you look for, right? He's fairly brief about matter, form, and mover, right? Because by the time you get to Empedocles and Xavier's, nobody has any doubt really that there are those three causes, right? Okay. But there is some disagreement about end as a cause, right? And now the other guys really saw end explicitly as a cause.

[35:23] And of course, in modern times, you find many people denying end as a cause in the natural world, right? Okay. So as you go right to that major question, right? Okay. Now,

[35:46] the first thing I do is to talk about the importance of this question: whether end is a cause in the natural world, whether nature makes things for some end or purpose, right? Talk about the importance of that question,

[36:04] and then I talk about certain misunderstandings that people have of what this means, right? Which, in many cases, leads them to deny that nature makes things for an end, right? Okay.

[36:23] And then I talk about the influence of custom in their thinking on this question, right? Where out of custom they deny that nature makes things for an end, but then I come down to what is really the heart of the matter, and that is the causes, right? I mean, the reasons for or against saying that nature acts for an end. Okay.

[36:49] But as I say, before I take up the arguments for and against, I talk about the fact that people sometimes reject this not for a reason so much, but because they misunderstand what it means, huh? Okay. Or because of custom, and I think these are as influential as the arguments. If not more so, right?

[37:18] I always go back to the apology which they've read. I don't know if you read the apology, right? If you look at the apology, Socrates in his prologue, there he's going to address not only his accusers in the courtroom, those who actually started the charges against him and are trying to prove in court that he's a bad man and so on, but he's going to reply to his anonymous accusers, okay?

[37:47] And he does both of these in his speech. What's anonymous means the unnamed accusers, right? He's talking about those who've been saying bad things about Socrates for years, and the members of the jury have heard bad things said about Socrates, and they probably, from that, inclined to think he's bad before they ever hear the arguments.