B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
I am trying to get a better understanding of how the principle “whatever is moved is moved by another” is not contradicted in the natural motion of, say, a ball falling to the ground?
- Status
R
Rhubarb
Guest
As I recall, the natural motion IS the efficient cause of the movement of natural bodies. It’s inherent to the matter in question.
But Aristotle wasn’t my forte.
But Aristotle wasn’t my forte.
T
Trident_H
Guest
Yeah, that and whoever threw the ball up into the air to begin with! 
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
So anything allowed to move unimpeded according to its natural motion is in fact an unmoved mover of itself?
R
Rhubarb
Guest
Again, I don’t have the physics in front of me. I’m sure the answer involves the unmoved mover creating matter to have this property. I mean, he conceded that aether moves in perfect concentric circles, all the time and forever without change. But matter wasn’t the answer for Aristotle. That is to say, the chunk of matter itself will have causes themselves.
Again, that’s just what I remember about Aristotle’s explanation. I’m sure a more studied person can give a better reading of his work in this regard. Natural motion has been debunked so I didn’t study it as much as some of his topics that still are in debate today.
I
inocente
Guest
I’ve only read bits of him, but I think “natural motion” refers to elements moving to their “natural place”, which they want to do, the efficient cause is in their own nature, as opposed to “violent motion” which needs a continuous force from an external mover. All very strange to modern eyes. Read from the first para of page 71 and the following section in this book [Padamsee 2002] - books.google.es/books?id=8kIqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA71#v=onepage&q&f=false
P
Peter_Plato
Guest
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
I agree that motion is debunked but I am trying to understand why he felt he was consistent with his other principles.
WIMIMBAnother seems a valid principle to me.
I really cannot see how saying that the object is caused by God helps. All physical movement seems to require an efficient cause other than the substance being moved and to jump direct to God seems even less likely than positing a sort of mineral soul.
R
Rhubarb
Guest
Well like I said, Aristotle’s physics aren’t my strongest suit, and I don’t buy into his doctrine of causes. But I did some reading. If the efficient cause of a painting is the painter, why wouldn’t me musing be right? I think there might be an ambiguity in the word ‘cause’ at play. In modern terms we use causality differently than Aristotle did.
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
Thanks for this. Not quite focused on my question but good contextual stuff.
Specifically I now understand that it is “Occassionalism” that I am trying to avoid yet that is where Aristotle would lead us (or at least his Scholastic interpreters).
That is, he suggests that the “other” is in fact the “cause generans” - ie the “other” that initiated the natural motion. eg. the man who cut the rope with a large stone on the end.
Yet this is not convincing. The stone should slow down if the one-time only generans cause is absent after the first impetus of release because motion for Aristotle requires constant application of a force not, what we would call, a one time only initial impetus by the generans cause.
In any case, if the rope is cut carefully then no motion would be imparted by the cutter to the stone. (ie no initial impetus).
Some in the Scholastic period take the generans cause to be some sort of ontological formal cause which makes natural motion a property of the stone itself.
But this seems to just beg the question, end in occassionalism (God is directly the efficient cause of every single expression of natural motion…which effectively denies the stone of any substantial (ie an owned property of its nature) involvement in “natural” motion) or denies the principle of WIMIMBAnother.
The latter denial is precisely what some of the later Scholastics asserted interestingly enough (eg Ockham, Buridan, William of Saxony).
books.google.co.nz/books?id=x5FiMR3kd_8C&pg=PA845&dq=generans+%22natural+motion%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBGoVChMI65aZ_rzmxgIVpCmmCh1vcgA2#v=onepage&q=generans%20%22natural%20motion%22&f=false
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
Thanks for the link.
Very very readable! Unfortunately he doesn’t go deeply into this particular issue.
Ultimately I see no Aristotelian illogicality in asserting that natural motion is due to a mineral “soul.” It would keep the principle of WIMIMBAnother intact (as it does with plants, animals etc) and so allows that there is in fact “an other” even in mineral substances.
Obviously such a “soul” would have to be understood as corruptible and far inferior in powers to that of plant life (ie not involving growth, nutrition, reproduction). Yet still of the genus “soul” because it “animates” mineral substances - allowing them self-initiated natural motion when not restrained.
I
inocente
Guest
Not sure that’s right, I thought natural motion refers to the natures of the five elements rather than souls. I’ve seen the notion of things wanting to move to their “natural place” described as a belief in magical enchantment, and although a number of his ideas seem intuitive, sound plausible, and went unquestioned for centuries, they are nevertheless wrong. Just a warning, which you probably don’t need, to always test him.
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
Correct. Unfortunately, unlike other accidents/properties, an internal motor contradicts the principle that whatever is moved is moved by another… unless it can be shown there actually is an outside or inside other.
As arguments for an outside mover appear to fall over, even on Aristotles/Aquinas’ own terms, then we must look for an internal mover that is separate from the thing moved.
Aristotle’s primary tool for doing this with animals and the celestial bodies is “soul”.
A mere property of a substance cannot be considered, as a thing cannot be moved by exactly the same thing as itself. It must be moved by another part.
L
laircy
Guest
The laws of physics? I’m not sure if that is what he said, since I have not yet studied his physics, but will this next year. But applying it to today, we’d say the efficient cause of a body falling is gravity.
R
Richca
Guest
The efficient cause in the teaching of Aristotle in regard to the natural motion of the elements such as fire, earth, water, is the generans or generator that gave the form to the elements or to compound substances such as rocks. For example, if you dropped a rock you would be the accidental cause of the rock falling to the ground. The efficient cause of the rock falling to the ground after it left your hand is the generator who gave the substantial form to the rock. The rock itself has a formal cause of its motion, an accidental form such as weight or gravity (we now say it falls because of the gravity of the earth), but the efficient cause as I said is the thing that generated the rock and gave it its form and being.
B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
Already there re generans cause …did you read the intervening contributions since I first posted (eg #10)? Would be interested in your answers to the issues raised there re this the generans cause.
P
Peter_Plato
Guest
Well, this isn’t quite true. Aristotle and Aquinas would point out that some entities are composed of parts (are divisible) and the principle of “what is moved is moved by another” simply applies inside the “system” to the workings of those parts. One part is moved by another part. The principle holds because one part, technically, is “outside” another part even though it is within a wider system of parts.
I think you need to read Feser’s Aquinas or his newer book of Scholastic Metaphysics.
T
thinkandmull
Guest
I think we all define cause in the same way actually
T
thinkandmull
Guest
Aquinas and Aristotle thought of an eternal motion as going in a circle, as the heavenly bodies. In meditating on this, they could not see how the motion could go on like this with something spiritual (Aristotle perhaps did not believe it had to be conscious and intellectual). I have a hard time NOT seeing what they argued on this point too. However, if you think of the eternal causes as an infinite dominoes series, or an eternal free fall FROM an ever infinite material power (like a line getting closer to a point), or that each domino doesn’t just impart its motion to the next one, but ignites the next’s dormant energy, than I think you have a materialistic system that is internally consistent. This ignores the fact however that an eternity of material causes MAKES NO SENSE even positing an eternal supernatural mover
T
thinkandmull
Guest
Has anyone here compared different translations of Aristotle? Are they basically the same?
- Status