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thinkandmull
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Aquinas: “But every body that moves some thing moved is itself moved while moving it.”
This is wrong. A billiard ball stops moving when it hits the other ball. The force inside the first ball is tranferred to the second
Someone said:
“Of course all presently observed motion had to have an efficient cause to kick it off (ie an acceleration).”
Not if motion is eternal, as Arostotle thought
“I believe anyone who passed their final year of Physcis at secondary school will accept Aquinas’s stick example as demonstrating ‘simultaneous causality.’”
The stick example has to do with supertasks: doing infinite tasks in a finite time. This attempt to use this concept of “simultaneous causality” to prove the existence of God outside an eternal world is like trying to get water out of a rock
“Now Thomas regarded the motion of heavenly bodies as Aristotle did. So they were moved by their natures which were intelligent and which desired to imitate God by their perfect motion.”
aquinas didn’t believe that stars where intelligent.
Finally, the purpose of this thread was to show how the first way contradicts Aquinas’s defense of Aristotle on the logical possibility of an eternal world of motion. Now, since God is NOT in motion like things in the world, it makes no different whether we call God the efficient cause or first mover. Therefore the first way and the second way are EXACTLY THE SAME, unless we say that the first way proves there can’t be an eternity of motion
This is wrong. A billiard ball stops moving when it hits the other ball. The force inside the first ball is tranferred to the second
Someone said:
“Of course all presently observed motion had to have an efficient cause to kick it off (ie an acceleration).”
Not if motion is eternal, as Arostotle thought
“I believe anyone who passed their final year of Physcis at secondary school will accept Aquinas’s stick example as demonstrating ‘simultaneous causality.’”
The stick example has to do with supertasks: doing infinite tasks in a finite time. This attempt to use this concept of “simultaneous causality” to prove the existence of God outside an eternal world is like trying to get water out of a rock
“Now Thomas regarded the motion of heavenly bodies as Aristotle did. So they were moved by their natures which were intelligent and which desired to imitate God by their perfect motion.”
aquinas didn’t believe that stars where intelligent.
Finally, the purpose of this thread was to show how the first way contradicts Aquinas’s defense of Aristotle on the logical possibility of an eternal world of motion. Now, since God is NOT in motion like things in the world, it makes no different whether we call God the efficient cause or first mover. Therefore the first way and the second way are EXACTLY THE SAME, unless we say that the first way proves there can’t be an eternity of motion
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utunumsint
Guest
Oh. I see. Here is how I understand it. Notice what he says when he establishes the principle:
And then what he actually says in the proof:
The key words are **through ** (per se) versus by (a seipso). It actually changes the meaning. The first, point 8.2 indicates that whatever is moved by violence is not moved by itself, meaning the source of the motion does not originate in the thing moved. The second usage is proposing that if a thing is moved through itself, then it has to be by violence, or by nature. The first instance, which is by violence, he has just proven in principle 8.2, cannot be an instance of a thing causing its own action. Therefore cannot serve as a counter example disproving the point he is trying to make. Namely, quid movetur ab alio movetur.
God bless,
Ut
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thinkandmull
Guest
You are trying to mesh two contradictions together.
"So, too, as is evident, what is moved by violence is not moved by itself
If it is moved through itself (per se), then it is moved either violently…"
Why are people so attached to Aquinas that they can’t except that he was imperfect? Leo XIII said that if there was anything found in the scholastics that was erroneous, it must be rejected
"So, too, as is evident, what is moved by violence is not moved by itself
If it is moved through itself (per se), then it is moved either violently…"
Why are people so attached to Aquinas that they can’t except that he was imperfect? Leo XIII said that if there was anything found in the scholastics that was erroneous, it must be rejected
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thinkandmull
Guest
Newton
" The vis inertiae is a passive principle by which bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted. By this principle alone there never could be any motion in the world. Some other principle was necessary for putting bodies into motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion. "
Not if eternal motion is simply a fact of nature
Aquinas:
[9] In the third way, Aristotle proves the proposition as follows [VIII, 5]. The same thing cannot be at once in act and in potency with respect to the same thing. But everything that is moved is, as such, in potency. For motion is the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency. That which moves, however, is as such in act, for nothing acts except according as it is in act. Therefore, with respect to the same motion, nothing is both mover and moved. Thus, nothing moves itself.
The soul does? How do we know that the world doesn’t move by an inner force as the souls of animals move animals. He says “if something moves itself primarily and through itself, rather than through its parts, that it is moved cannot depend on another”. Does anything move by its parts and not its soul or something external? Therefore, cannot the whole eternal movement, assuming eternal motion, but like the movent of an animal, except that it always was?
Someone said:
“I think Aquinas is arguing that the whole thing cannot move the whole thing (i.e. the human soul cannot move the whole human soul, but the soul can move a part of the whole, which is why a self-mover is composite).”
WHERE DOES AQUINAS SAY THAT?
Aquinas: “Plato accordingly said that the first mover moves himself because he knows himself and wills or loves himself. In a way, this is not opposed to the reasons of Aristotle. There is no difference between reaching a first being that moves himself, as understood by Plato, and reaching a first being that is absolutely unmoved, as understood by Aristotle.”
When God moves, He moves His whole self by Himself
Finally, what is the difference between a formal cause and an efficient cause?
" The vis inertiae is a passive principle by which bodies persist in their motion or rest, receive motion in proportion to the force impressing it, and resist as much as they are resisted. By this principle alone there never could be any motion in the world. Some other principle was necessary for putting bodies into motion; and now they are in motion, some other principle is necessary for conserving the motion. "
Not if eternal motion is simply a fact of nature
Aquinas:
[9] In the third way, Aristotle proves the proposition as follows [VIII, 5]. The same thing cannot be at once in act and in potency with respect to the same thing. But everything that is moved is, as such, in potency. For motion is the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency. That which moves, however, is as such in act, for nothing acts except according as it is in act. Therefore, with respect to the same motion, nothing is both mover and moved. Thus, nothing moves itself.
The soul does? How do we know that the world doesn’t move by an inner force as the souls of animals move animals. He says “if something moves itself primarily and through itself, rather than through its parts, that it is moved cannot depend on another”. Does anything move by its parts and not its soul or something external? Therefore, cannot the whole eternal movement, assuming eternal motion, but like the movent of an animal, except that it always was?
Someone said:
“I think Aquinas is arguing that the whole thing cannot move the whole thing (i.e. the human soul cannot move the whole human soul, but the soul can move a part of the whole, which is why a self-mover is composite).”
WHERE DOES AQUINAS SAY THAT?
Aquinas: “Plato accordingly said that the first mover moves himself because he knows himself and wills or loves himself. In a way, this is not opposed to the reasons of Aristotle. There is no difference between reaching a first being that moves himself, as understood by Plato, and reaching a first being that is absolutely unmoved, as understood by Aristotle.”
When God moves, He moves His whole self by Himself
Finally, what is the difference between a formal cause and an efficient cause?
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utunumsint
Guest
I see he says this in paragraph 11. I haven’t reached that point yet in my analysis. I’ll take a close look when I get there. Sounds like he could be wrong on this one.
Have you read Aquinas’ On Being and Essense? Even if you posit an eternal universe, those eternal objects, according the Aquinas, would be composites of essence and existence. Basically, his point there is that the thing’s essence cannot be the cause of its own existence, but must participate in existence. And so the essence would be in potentiality to existence, and thus even if the thing’s motion were eternal, it would still need a cause of its being eternally in existence. You would have to take a look at what he says in On Being and Essence to see if you agree with him or not.
I would say that they are both instances of the principle of causlality, but there are differences.
God bless,
Ut
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utunumsint
Guest
No. a seipso is not the same as per se. Any first year student of latin would know this.
God bless,
Ut
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thinkandmull
Guest
Do tell, what are the differences between the First and Second Way, since God is not a physical motion.
Also, arguing from Being and Essence is not the same as the First-Second Way. Anyway, do tell, how can you prove that matter is contingent?
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thinkandmull
Guest
I clearly show were Aquinas contradicts himself and you are hung up on irrelevant words. “what is moved by violence is not moved by itself… If it is moved through itself (per se), then it is moved…violently.” How much more clearer can I make it?
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
The First Way is about a special type of efficient cause called motion. Strictly speaking, motion is any change in quantity, quality, or location ( local motion ). Some believe this should also include generation and corruption. But it seems to exclude creation and substantial change.
The Second Way is strictly about efficient causes. And this would include not only motion, as defined above, but also creation and substantial change.
God is the sustainer of any kind of series. There are only two kinds of series, per se
and per accidens. A per accidens series would be like: father begets son, who begets his son, on into infinity, or backwards into infinity. Each of these causes is independent of the other but the series extends to infinity in the past and the future. This kind of infinite is philosophically or logically possible
But each member of this series is or could be a member of a per se series. For example. What causes all my activities, my existence. My father has passed away, yet I still live and act. There must be a cause exising above me with the power to cause me to be and to act. Now if this bing is moved to act by another, then this must be moved by another and so on, and this cannot go on to infinity, there must be a first… But since each of these, if they exist, are themselves moved from potency to act, there must exist some being which is Unmoved and Unmoveable, which is pure act, and this we call God.
But if there are no intervening causes it is the Unmoved Mover, a pure act, who moves me directly to be and to move.
Linus2nd
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Above may be why you don’t often get convincingly far with your “arguments” Linus.
You rarely give your own personal views as directly applied to the specific discussion at hand. You seem to just throw in something generic from someone else - and don’t make it easy for others to engage your source (eg a book not freely available online) nor do you convenience your debaters by briefly summarising the argument of the author/commentator you recommend.
Then when people don’t seem to know what you are really on about you go all holier-than-thou “you haven’t read what I said or you have not studied it.”
.Anways, now that I have finally got somewhere with one of your typical opaque examples of the above we might continue a little…
First up, no I haven’t searched for your thread. It is you who are challenging my comments so if you haven’t got the time to briefly summarise your objection and source it adequately then I haven’t got time to read it.
WRT your quote from Newton’s Optiks (which I had to force out of you) that is interesting. I would have come back to you sooner if you sourced it correctly…the book does not appear to run to 540 pages (it doesn’t help that you didn’t mention the edition or the publisher). Nor does it help that you quoted/referred an article that you know no one here as easy access to … so you cannot be surprised when you get ignored on this point you are making.
However, after going through the copy of Optiks I do have access to (and a few commentary’s) I see you have cherry picked views on Newton’s quote and nothing is at all as clear cut as you have suggested above.
…continued…
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
…continued…
What I do agree with is that Newton considers the property of inertia in bodies to be a passive principle. Well that is pretty obvious really. A bit more interesting is that Newton hypothesised/mused (which is what his “queries” are) that inertia seems to be in potency to an activating principle. Its interesting because I hadn’t realised the Aristotelian matter/form analogy was so explicitly used of inertia in Newton’s mature speculating.
The question of course is what does Newton mean by “By this principle alone there never could be any motion in the world.”
Linus the interpretation you are taking is but one of a number of popularly debated views since Newton wrote this. Nor do I think it a mainstream or natural reading of query31 if further paragraphs in query31 are taken into account. I can see why your reading would appeal to Thomists seeking Aristotelian support in Newton.
Indeed, when Newton wrote this he was accused by Leibnitz and others of re-introducing the agency of occult scholastic principles (eg Angels or God) back into “modern” Physics.
I believe this was because Newton was in fact talking about a hidden “force at a distance” (ie attraction between objects without mechanical contiguity). Some thought he was speaking of God or angels. Many, including you by the sound of it, seem to have taken a similar view.
Yet, the most likely thing Newton meant by “Some other principle” wrt local motion is simply what we now call “force” (eg gravity) acting invisibly over great distances of, in his day, empty space.
“Force”, as we understand it today, was pretty much a completely new and extremely strange concept when introduced at Newton’s time. Easily misunderstood as “occult” angelic instrumentality.
Just as Kochiras, a good spokesman of this “force” view, articulates on p150ff of his book:
books.google.co.nz/books?id=X5iGIMPcrAoC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=%22The+vis+inertiae+is+a+passive+principle%22&source=bl&ots=G6ceMj5rsY&sig=PRXZ_rGVntRlgXWTOjW2QKY7RiY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eUA6VPiuO8nd8AWw9ILYDQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22by%20this%20principle%20alone%22&f=false
"As the passage continues Newtyon calls these further principles “active principles” and he attributes a vast and diverse class of phenomena to them…’…such as are the cause of gravity…’ "
Linus you’ve jumped to God far too soon, Newton is still speaking of instrumental agents of motion which put passive inertia into act.
Sure Newton eventually speaks of God but only when speaking of being-as-being not being-in-locomotion.
Obviously beings in locomotion still need to have their being explained … but if we have to do that to find God in the First Way then the OPs thread topic is proven - the First and Second Ways are in fact mixed.
What I do agree with is that Newton considers the property of inertia in bodies to be a passive principle. Well that is pretty obvious really. A bit more interesting is that Newton hypothesised/mused (which is what his “queries” are) that inertia seems to be in potency to an activating principle. Its interesting because I hadn’t realised the Aristotelian matter/form analogy was so explicitly used of inertia in Newton’s mature speculating.
The question of course is what does Newton mean by “By this principle alone there never could be any motion in the world.”
Linus the interpretation you are taking is but one of a number of popularly debated views since Newton wrote this. Nor do I think it a mainstream or natural reading of query31 if further paragraphs in query31 are taken into account. I can see why your reading would appeal to Thomists seeking Aristotelian support in Newton.
Indeed, when Newton wrote this he was accused by Leibnitz and others of re-introducing the agency of occult scholastic principles (eg Angels or God) back into “modern” Physics.
I believe this was because Newton was in fact talking about a hidden “force at a distance” (ie attraction between objects without mechanical contiguity). Some thought he was speaking of God or angels. Many, including you by the sound of it, seem to have taken a similar view.
Yet, the most likely thing Newton meant by “Some other principle” wrt local motion is simply what we now call “force” (eg gravity) acting invisibly over great distances of, in his day, empty space.
“Force”, as we understand it today, was pretty much a completely new and extremely strange concept when introduced at Newton’s time. Easily misunderstood as “occult” angelic instrumentality.
Just as Kochiras, a good spokesman of this “force” view, articulates on p150ff of his book:
books.google.co.nz/books?id=X5iGIMPcrAoC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=%22The+vis+inertiae+is+a+passive+principle%22&source=bl&ots=G6ceMj5rsY&sig=PRXZ_rGVntRlgXWTOjW2QKY7RiY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eUA6VPiuO8nd8AWw9ILYDQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22by%20this%20principle%20alone%22&f=false
"As the passage continues Newtyon calls these further principles “active principles” and he attributes a vast and diverse class of phenomena to them…’…such as are the cause of gravity…’ "
Linus you’ve jumped to God far too soon, Newton is still speaking of instrumental agents of motion which put passive inertia into act.
Sure Newton eventually speaks of God but only when speaking of being-as-being not being-in-locomotion.
Obviously beings in locomotion still need to have their being explained … but if we have to do that to find God in the First Way then the OPs thread topic is proven - the First and Second Ways are in fact mixed.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Re H1:
Too easily dismissed I think. Why cannot there be life simpler than plant life as Aristotle was open to. We cannot expect the moon to be anything other than unusual (being extra terrestrial) so taking the “life” queue from small, complex terrestrial isn’t exactly fair! In this sense even molecules/atoms are alive. I think Aristotle would grant them souls if he had a microscope to see them.
What about the other sub-option - other material parts (as opposed to a spiritual “part”) of the moon causing the motion (eg frozen material gassified by the sun’s warmth).
Re H2:
The moon, at least from Newton’s point of view, is not a good example. Even Newton would say H2 is false. This is because the moon is accelerating, therefore, even by modern Physics, H2 is excluded. A moon sized asteroid might be a better example?
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Blue_Horizon
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Ahemmm, I note my quote has a typo…obviously I meant the reverse
.“I believe anyone who passed their final year of Physcis at secondary school will NOT accept Aquinas’s stick example as demonstrating ‘simultaneous causality.’”
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Blue_Horizon
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BlueH
Linus
I really don’t understand the point Linus.
For modern Physics to be unable to explain natural/violent motion it would have to agree with the system of such a way of thinking. Aristotle held that the elements fire and air naturally lifted, earth and water naturally descended.
Modern Physics doesn’t hold to such a way of thinking. If a hot gas rises it is only because colder air which surrounds it is more dense. Therefore, like a bubble in water, the colder air is, by gravity, pulled down under the hot gas (say a hot air balloon) and literally lifts the balloon up and displaces it from its former position.
It takes a transfer of energy to do this (that balloon has heavy propane tanks). Where does that energy come from? It likely comes from the difference in mass of the equal volumes of cold/hot air as they displace each other.
Energy=Force x distanceMoved. The Force is supplied by mass x acceleration. The mass has just been described. The acceleration force is that due to the attraction of the air to the earth (9.8 m/s/s).
So modern Physics does not really accept there is such a thing as “natural motion” as you put it. Anything made of matter (including particles on fire and air) is pulled to earth unless their is a countering force that pulls or pushes it the other way.
Aristotle/Aquinas seem mistaken on this point if they thought the elements of fire and air “naturally” rose. Its just relative displacement.
But what has the cow to do with things? And why cannot modern Physics explain it?
I don’t appeal to his authority Linus.
I appeal to his inferred principles because they work every time in the observable world for bodies at speeds significantly less than that of light.
Unlike some philosophic principles which keep searching for an alleged hidden reason to explain their, to date, gaps in the realm of instrumental causes of temporal motion.
BY “Newton” I am just using a shortcut to describe that new body of knowledge called modern Physics.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
Oh is that all you mean.
This is not instrumental causality, when you start talking about the powers of a **nature **then you are really talking material cause (the unchanging medium underlying the change in question).
We are talking about being as being-in-motion not being-as-being.
This philosophic “crossover” is exactly what the OP of this thread is observing wrt the First Way.
What you are talking about is a sort of “remote efficient” cause but only in a secondary sense. Here the primary instrumental agent is material in motion (which does operate down to the molecular or even atomic level due to elasticity/compression in the stick as motion moves down it. However when you start talking about the essence or existence of atoms/molecules to be changed in that way…that is something else extraneous to instrumental causality wrt motion.
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Blue_Horizon
Guest
So which type of series is this?
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Newtons_cradle_animation_book_2.gif
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utunumsint
Guest
I was just thinking about this a little this morning. If a per se series can only be initiated by an agent cause that is from a different order of being, such as a being with a soul, then he is also confusing the first way with the fourth way! 
Of maybe the closeness of these proofs to one another reflects the integrated nature of Aquinas’ philosophical system.
God bless,
Of maybe the closeness of these proofs to one another reflects the integrated nature of Aquinas’ philosophical system.
God bless,
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utunumsint
Guest
I can see how you reach this conclusion. You are obviously pretty fed up with Aquinas. The way I see it, I have two choices:
*]I can think that Aquinas was having a bad hair day, and just did some sloppy work here and that the two instances are totally referring to the same thing and are obviously in contradiction.
*]I can think that Aquinas is being more subtle here and he actually means something different in these two passages. I take what makes these two passages to mean something different are the words “by itself” versus “through itself”. Granted this is a fairly small point of difference, yet through and by are not the same word, so I think I have something to work on here. There are a few reasons why I would think this is the case. Aquinas had these argument reviewed and debated while we was still around. Such an obvious and embarrassing mistake as proposed in 1, should have been caught by his Augustinian opponents if not by those sympathetic to his philosophy. Folks spent a lot of time while Aquinas was alive trying to discredit him. Also, I would invoke the principle of charity here and seek further clarity from other texts to see if there was a clear way of resolving this apparent discrepancy. I would not jump to the most damaging interpretation first before examining the other alternatives.
God bless,
Ut
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