Where is the efficient cause in Aristotle's natural motion?

[utunumsint]

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?

Each effect we observe in nature must be explained in terms of a whole series of causes. Not just the immediate cause. For example, all life depends on the efficient causality of the sun as the primary source of energy for the planet. The sun itself depends on the four (maybe five) fundamental laws of physics to operate the way it does. Those four laws seemed to be efficiently caused by the big bang and seem fairly contingent (they could have been different than what they are).

Even if you stop there with only the big bang as the material prime mover, you see that all things are indeed moved by another when you see all motion in terms of such a whole series of causes.

Also, it has been suggested that the term “laws of physics” might better be explained in terms of causal powers inherent in objects.

I believe it could be done by
(i) asserting that natural motion is caused from within
(ii) Aristotle already asserts this of the 5th element (in the super-lunary realm) ie the celestial bodies.
(iii) why can these principles not be applied to all 5 elements as a group - if possible a greater continuity and systemic harmony would result.
(iv) of course it would mean we must accept that there are two discontinuous forms of “soul” (and therefore of “animation”) both found in the sub-lunary realm.

Actually it would prob be a step towards seeing a single continuous continuous hierarchy of increasingly complex “life” from mineral to angel.

Sounds interesting. But perhaps, instead of using the word “life”, we could use the word “Being”. Also, I’m not sure what you mean by soul in this context.

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Some have also argued that Aristotle’s proof of the existence of a Prime Mover in Physics VIII only demonstrates the existence of the outermost celestial sphere, or that it only proves a God who is the cause of the motion of the celestial spheres but not of their existence as substances. Certainly that is not Aquinas’s interpretation of Aristotle since he says explicitly: “The opinion of those who claimed that Aristotle thought that God is not the cause of the substance of the heavens, but only of their motion, is false.” Since, however, the context of this statement is in reference to the metaphysical treatment of the being of the celestial spheres, it might not seem to apply to what natural science says of these hypothetical spheres. Yet in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics VIII, Aquinas takes pains to refute Averroes, who had interpreted Aristotle as maintaining that the celestial spheres are pure forms that exist with absolute necessity, that is, without any potentiality for nonbeing. Hence Aquinas explicitly denies that Aristotle’s proof concludes only to the motion of an outermost celestial sphere:

In the forgoing arguments [of certain commentators] it is supposed that the first moved thing, namely the celestial body, is moved by itself. From which it follows that it is ensouled; which by many is not conceded. Yet to this it must be said that if the first mover is not said to be self-moved, it is necessary that it should be moved immediately by what is entirely non-moving. Hence Aristotle draws this conclusion with a distinction, namely, that it is necessary either to come immediately to a prime unmoved mover, or to a [relative] self-mover, from which again one comes to a prime unmoved, separate, mover.

From Benedict M. Ashley’s The Way toward Wisdom.

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Interesting one from Father Ashley’s book.

Category of Qualities (Defined as the property of substances that formally determines it and distinguishes it from other substances)

• Formal Qualities:
• Perfecting
• Habits:
• of well-being
• Beauty
• health
• of activities
• intellectual virtues
• moral virtues
• Dispositions (Corresponding to habits but are unstable)
• Other
• Active
• Spiritual - Active Intellect
• Corporeal
• vital
• Nutrition
• Growth
• Reproduction
• Movement
• non-vital
• Gravity
• Electromagnetism
• Weak Nuclear Force
• Strong Nuclear Force
• Receptive
• Spiritual - Active and Passive Intellects
• Corporeal
• Sense
• Internal
• cogitative
• memory
• imagination
• common sense
• external
• sight
• hearing
• taste
• smell
• touch
• Appetites
• irascible
• concupiscible
• Terminating Qualities
• lines: (curvices, straight)
• planes (triangles, squares, etc)
• solids (cube, cone, pyramid, etc.)

 

[thinkandmull]

T&M, you didn’t know that Aristotle held the celestial spheres have souls,
you didn’t recognise Newton’s 1st and 2nd laws of motion
and you still don’t know what rectilinear (no, not rectangular) motion is .

So, no, on this particular topic I do find it difficult to believe you know what you are talking about yet. That doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.

I am not “running away”, I simply didn’t raise the thread thinking I would have to start from scratch on this topic. Life is short, my apologies for not having the time to assist you in these things any further.

My question was simple: since in Aristotle’s time things nothing moved inside a vacuum, but had forces acting against motion, what exactly did Aristotle say that was mistaken?

Rectangular motion I assumed was motion that went around right angles. Even with Newton’s belief that motion will continue unless impeded, would it need another motion to make it go around a right angle? Again, a simple sentence or two will clarify so I can follow the discussion

 

[thinkandmull]

Book3, Chapter XXIII.
Here’s Rickaby’s Commentary:
The corpus coeleste, ‘the heavenly body’ par excellence with him, is the tenth and outermost crystalline sphere,which by its diurnal motion from east to west controls the motion of all inferior material things, and is called the primum mobile. St Thomas argues that this outermost sphere itself is moved by some intelligence, either by a soul animating it, or by an angel, or immediately by God.

Aquinas least likes Aristotles solution ( a celestial soul) but as there is no easy way to judge the real truth he accepts it as possible though he prefers an angel or God.

Book3, Chapter XXIII? What work is that from? (i want to look it up)

 

[Peter_Plato]

Book3, Chapter XXIII? What work is that from? (i want to look it up)

Summa Contra Gentiles.

My suspicion is that BH has misread what Aquinas is doing there, but I haven’t had the time to properly address it.

I don’t think Aquinas was claiming that the motion is the efficient result of some kind of spooky “soul” action, by mental telepathy on the part of angels or God’s direct intervention, but rather that the kind of motion in question ultimately requires a mind to explain it.

This would be something akin to Lane Craig’s argument that a mind (intention) must ultimately be behind a universe that comes into being at a discrete point, since the apparent causal “arbitrariness” of the coming into being can only be explained by intention and not by efficient causation.

I am not offering this as a complete account, merely something to ponder.

 

[utunumsint]

Summa Contra Gentiles.

My suspicion is that BH has misread what Aquinas is doing there, but I haven’t had the time to properly address it.

I don’t think Aquinas was claiming that the motion is the efficient result of some kind of spooky “soul” action, by mental telepathy on the part of angels or God’s direct intervention, but rather that the kind of motion in question ultimately requires a mind to explain it.

This would be something akin to Lane Craig’s argument that a mind (intention) must ultimately be behind a universe that comes into being at a discrete point, since the apparent causal “arbitrariness” of the coming into being can only be explained by intention and not by efficient causation.

I am not offering this as a complete account, merely something to ponder.

I know Feser said in Aquinas that mind is best explained in terms of formal and final causality with human physical actions in terms of efficient and material causality. That said, non living material objects do not display formal and final causality in the same way intelligent beings do.

Also, I found this discussion in book II of the SCG on Plato’s account of the souls interaction with the body as opposed to Aquinas’ Aristotelian account very interesting where he rejects the Platonic notion that the interaction of the soul with the body is through contact of power. This is essentially what Feser is saying in Aquinas and on the Philosophy of mind against the modern Cartesian interaction problem.

God bless,
Ut

 

[thinkandmull]

“The opinion of those who claimed that Aristotle thought that God is not the cause of the substance of the heavens, but only of their motion, is false.” Is that from the Summa Contra Gentiles also?

 

[thinkandmull]

I know Feser said in Aquinas that mind is best explained in terms of formal and final causality with human physical actions in terms of efficient and material causality. That said, non living material objects do not display formal and final causality in the same way intelligent beings do.

Also, I found this discussion in book II of the SCG on Plato’s account of the souls interaction with the body as opposed to Aquinas’ Aristotelian account very interesting where he rejects the Platonic notion that the interaction of the soul with the body is through contact of power. This is essentially what Feser is saying in Aquinas and on the Philosophy of mind against the modern Cartesian interaction problem.

God bless,
Ut

I’ve found Feser to be overly harsh of Descartes. I don’t think Descartes has to be interpreted the way Feser interprets him on the soul. Aquinas actually is the one who gets into inconsistencies when he says that the bodily part of the head that does the “seeing” cannot have color in order to see color. By that principle it could have shape either in order to see shape

 

[utunumsint]

“The opinion of those who claimed that Aristotle thought that God is not the cause of the substance of the heavens, but only of their motion, is false.” Is that from the Summa Contra Gentiles also?

Commentary on the Metaphysics:

1. Now common causes must be eternal, because the first causes of beings which are generated must not themselves be generated, otherwise the process of generation would proceed to infinity; and this is true especially of those causes which are altogether immobile and immaterial. For those immaterial and immobile causes are the causes of the sensible things evident to us, because they are beings in the highest degree, and therefore are the cause of other things, as was shown in Book II (290). From this it is evident that the science which considers beings of this kind is the first of all the sciences and the one which considers the common causes of all beings. Hence there are causes of beings as beings, which are investigated in first philosophy, as he proposed in Book I (36). And from this it is quite evident that the opinion of those who claimed that Aristotle thought that God is not the cause of the substance of the heavens, but only of their motion, is false. [against Ibn-Rushd]

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Interesting discussion in book II of the SCG in chapter 47:

[4] The principle of every operation, furthermore, is the form by which a thing is in act, since every agent acts so far as it is in act. So, the mode of operation consequent upon a form must be in accordance with the mode of that form.

So the operations or causal powers of a thing depends on the form of that thing. The form determines how that thing is in act. And every agent acts (operates or has causal powers) only so far as it is in act (determined by its form).

Hence, a form not proceeding from the agent that acts by it causes an operation of which that agent is not master.

Humm…maybe this?

Statement 1: an agent acts by its form to cause an operation.
Statement 2: an agent that acts by its form, but the form does not proceed from the agent, is not master of of the operation.

But, if there be a form which proceeds from the agent acting by it, then the consequent operation also will be in the power of that agent.

Statement 3: an agent that acts by its form, and somehow causes a form to proceed from it, is master of the operation.

Now, natural forms, from which natural motions and operations derive, do not proceed from the things whose forms they are, but wholly from extrinsic agents. For by a natural form each thing has being in its own nature, and nothing can be the cause of its own act of being.

I find it interesting how Aquinas jumps right away to the principles he set out in on being and essence. This seems to be the most fundamental catch all for him that ultimately proves WIMIMBA for anything.

So it is that things which are moved naturally do not move themselves; a heavy body does not move itself downwards; its generator, which gave it its form, does so.

Or, as we might say it, it is because of the form of matter and the particles that make it up that they have the causal powers they do which can also be explained in terms of the four fundamental forces in nature. This form is generated, for example, from the big bang. And ultimately all forms are have their essence conjoined to their existence by God as their creating and sustaining cause.

Likewise, in brute animals the forms sensed or imagined, which move them, are not discovered by them, but are received by them from extrinsic sensible things, which act upon their senses and are judged of by their natural estimative faculty. Hence, though brutes are in a sense said to move themselves, inasmuch as one part of them moves and another is moved, yet they are not themselves the source of the actual moving, which, rather, derives partly from external things sensed and partly from nature. For, so far as their appetite moves their members, they are said to move themselves, and in this they surpass inanimate things and plants; but, so far as appetition in them follows necessarily upon the reception of forms through their senses and from the judgment of their natural estimative power, they are not the cause of their own movement; and so they are not master of their own action.

So animals, although they appear to be self moved, are not really, because they fall under statement 2.

On the other hand, the form understood, through which the intellectual substance acts, proceeds from the intellect itself as a thing conceived, and in a way contrived by it; as we see in the case of the artistic form, which the artificer conceives and contrives, and through which he performs his works. Intellectual substances, then, move themselves to act, as having mastery of their own action. It therefore follows that they are endowed with will.

Only human beings fall under statement 3.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Peter_Plato]

So animals, although they appear to be self moved, are not really, because they fall under statement 2.

What is interesting here is that in the case of animals movement of one part is not entirely to be explained by some other part because there is some kind of integrating and organizing principle that brings together all the systems of the body of the animal. In the past, that was referred to as “being alive.” What precisely that means is still very much shrouded in mystery.

I recall Hofstadter attempting to make the case - unsuccessfully in my opinion - that a colony of ants has as a kind of emerging principle an organizational structure which “oversees” the functions of the individual ants and the overall welfare of the colony. It is not clear to me that such an overarching function can simply emerge from the assembly of the parts - individual ants, soil, air, food, etc. My suspicion is that at least part of the organizational principle is built into the information contained in the DNA of ants which must have included within it allowances for the different classes of ants - queen, workers, soldiers, etc., much like the DNA of higher order animals contains within it the information to specify the roles of cells - muscle, nerve, skin, bone, etc. - which organize the integral body structure,

The bigger question is whether organization such as that which directs an animal body or colony of ants can simply “emerge” from a collection of parts or whether that “agency” must depend upon a sufficient external mover which, for example, may have directed the compilation of DNA.

That kind of agency requires

1. foresight - the capacity to envision final ends or results and
2. the power to orchestrate the creation and assembly of existent beings at their most fundamental level (omnipotence, perhaps) to contrive the nature of individual things within the gamut of the nature of all things in order for individual beings to be directed towards final ends.

Was this what Aquinas was getting it? That at some point intentionality on a level very basic to existence is required to explain motion since material things cannot sufficiently explain why they are the way they are nor the ends to which they are ordered. “Another” is required, metaphysically speaking, to sufficiently explain not just the to bringing of things into being but also the maintainence of them in being at each moment since contingent things do not have the requisite means to sustain their own existence in the here and now.

This, I think, is where the ‘verticality’ of causation is important. The nature of things - or why things are the way they are - would seem to be a function of the four causes which could not be a past event, nor, strictly speaking, a present or future one, but, rather, an eternal or omnipresent one that accounts for all times, all events, all existents - which excludes any cause limited to space-time.

 

[Richca]

What is interesting here is that in the case of animals movement of one part is not entirely to be explained by some other part because there is some kind of integrating and organizing principle that brings together all the systems of the body of the animal. In the past, that was referred to as “being alive.” What precisely that means is still very much shrouded in mystery.

I recall Hofstadter attempting to make the case - unsuccessfully in my opinion - that a colony of ants has as a kind of emerging principle an organizational structure which “oversees” the functions of the individual ants and the overall welfare of the colony. It is not clear to me that such an overarching function can simply emerge from the assembly of the parts - individual ants, soil, air, food, etc. My suspicion is that at least part of the organizational principle is built into the information contained in the DNA of ants which must have included within it allowances for the different classes of ants - queen, workers, soldiers, etc., much like the DNA of higher order animals contains within it the information to specify the roles of cells - muscle, nerve, skin, bone, etc. - which organize the integral body structure,

 

[thinkandmull]

Interesting discussion in book II of the SCG in chapter 47:

So the operations or causal powers of a thing depends on the form of that thing. The form determines how that thing is in act. And every agent acts (operates or has causal powers) only so far as it is in act (determined by its form).

Humm…maybe this?

Statement 1: an agent acts by its form to cause an operation.
Statement 2: an agent that acts by its form, but the form does not proceed from the agent, is not master of of the operation.

Statement 3: an agent that acts by its form, and somehow causes a form to proceed from it, is master of the operation.

I find it interesting how Aquinas jumps right away to the principles he set out in on being and essence. This seems to be the most fundamental catch all for him that ultimately proves WIMIMBA for anything.

Or, as we might say it, it is because of the form of matter and the particles that make it up that they have the causal powers they do which can also be explained in terms of the four fundamental forces in nature. This form is generated, for example, from the big bang. And ultimately all forms are have their essence conjoined to their existence by God as their creating and sustaining cause.

So animals, although they appear to be self moved, are not really, because they fall under statement 2.

Only human beings fall under statement 3.

God bless,
Ut

Your quotes from Aquinas on animals in this post (111) are just how I interpret Descartes when he says that animals are machines. People like to say that Descartes was contrary to Aquinas on the soul, but I don’t see that they are necessarily opposed . Descartes speaks of the sensible soul in a human, but unless he directly mentioned Aquinas view, which he does not, than it is fair to say that Descartes may have simply spoken of the sensible soul as separate from the intellect in operation, but not in substance. Aquinas’s principle that the part of the pupil that sees cannot have color in order to see color… that Descartes did not believe. Descartes wrote that the pupil actually sees! Aquinas principle, to be consistent, would mean that the seeing part of the eye and brain could not see shape since it had shape. Therefore, by saying that something must completely lack that which it sensibly receives, Aquinas must be retreated to the position of saying that the soul DIRECTLY sees from the vantage point of the eye.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Summa Contra Gentiles.

My suspicion is that BH has misread what Aquinas is doing there, but I haven’t had the time to properly address it.

I don’t think Aquinas was claiming that the motion is the efficient result of some kind of spooky “soul” action, by mental telepathy on the part of angels or God’s direct intervention, but rather that the kind of motion in question ultimately requires a mind to explain it.

This would be something akin to Lane Craig’s argument that a mind (intention) must ultimately be behind a universe that comes into being at a discrete point, since the apparent causal “arbitrariness” of the coming into being can only be explained by intention and not by efficient causation.

I am not offering this as a complete account, merely something to ponder.

Try not to over think my response here but go back to T&M’s original assertion which I was in fact “answering”:
" I wasn’t aware that Aquinas (Aristotle?) thought they (the heavenly bodies) had souls…"

Clearly Aristotle did and even Aquinas, though grudging, accepts the possibility.

 

[Richca]

Your quotes from Aquinas on animals in this post (111) are just how I interpret Descartes when he says that animals are machines. People like to say that Descartes was contrary to Aquinas on the soul, but I don’t see that they are necessarily opposed . Descartes speaks of the sensible soul in a human, but unless he directly mentioned Aquinas view, which he does not, than it is fair to say that Descartes may have simply spoken of the sensible soul as separate from the intellect in operation, but not in substance. Aquinas’s principle that the part of the pupil that sees cannot have color in order to see color… that Descartes did not believe. Descartes wrote that the pupil actually sees! Aquinas principle, to be consistent, would mean that the seeing part of the eye and brain could not see shape since it had shape. Therefore, by saying that something must completely lack that which it sensibly receives, Aquinas must be retreated to the position of saying that the soul DIRECTLY sees from the vantage point of the eye.

The view of Aquinas on the soul and that of Descartes are worlds apart just as the philosophy and metaphysics of Aquinas and the philosophy and metaphysics of Descartes are worlds apart. Descartes said “I think therefore I am.” I think Aquinas would say that this is backwards, rather it should be “I am therefore I think.”

In regards to the human soul, I think the only similarity that can be found between Aquinas and Descartes is that they both admit it is spiritual and it has intellect or reason and will. Although Descartes seems to describe the reason or intellect as a thinking substance. For Aquinas, thinking and the intellect are not the same thing, thinking is an act or operation of the intellect, the intellect is a power and thinking or understanding is the act or operation of this power. The intellect is called first act while the act of the intellect is called second act. It appears for Descartes that the essence of the reason is thinking and so it is always thinking even while we are sleeping I guess; if the reason stopped thinking it would cease to exist. Such a view of the intellect can only be applied to God who is pure act.

Now, for Aquinas, the intellectual soul also has sensory and vegetative powers. This is not the case with Descartes. For Descartes, there are two kinds of created substances, namely, spiritual thinking substances which includes will, and extended corporeal substances or bodies. Sensory and vegetative powers that Aquinas ascribes to the soul, for Descartes, is simply matter in motion and pertains to corporeal substance, not to thinking substance. Accordingly, for Descartes, animals and plants do not have souls which for Aquinas are the substantial forms of animals and plants. Animals and plants for Descartes are corporeal extended substances, in other words, they are automata, or mechanical robots, a pile of atoms. It doesn’t appear in Descartes that animals and plants have any kind of principle that would distinguish them from inanimate things or rocks such as a principle of life. Animals and plants are nothing more than I suppose a more complex conglomeration of extended substance or elemental bodies and matter in motion.

The bodies of humans are also essentially automata or mechanical machines, though, says Descartes, the thinking substance or mind can move the body and there does seem to be some interaction between the soul and body and body and soul. The interaction between the two substances, body and spirit, Descartes was quite sure took place at some pineal gland.

As we have said, for Descartes, the bodies of humans and animals are mechanical machines or automata and he compares them to a watch. The body of a living man differs from that of a dead man just as does a watch or other automation as when a watch is wound up and mechanically moves of itself from the same watch that is unwound or broken and the corporeal principle of its movement ceases to act.

Descartes did away with the substantial forms of things as well as identifying matter with quantity or extension. In the Aristotlelian/Thomistics metaphysics, quantity or extension is an accident of a substance and the substantial forms of things along with matter are the two fundamental principles of material substances. Apparently, in Descartes’ scheme of things, there is no concept of matter as potency and forms as acts, nor any concept of potency and act that is even remotely akin, that I’m aware of, to act and potency as understood by Aristotle/Aquinas.

 

[utunumsint]

What is interesting here is that in the case of animals movement of one part is not entirely to be explained by some other part because there is some kind of integrating and organizing principle that brings together all the systems of the body of the animal. In the past, that was referred to as “being alive.” What precisely that means is still very much shrouded in mystery.

I recall Hofstadter attempting to make the case - unsuccessfully in my opinion - that a colony of ants has as a kind of emerging principle an organizational structure which “oversees” the functions of the individual ants and the overall welfare of the colony. It is not clear to me that such an overarching function can simply emerge from the assembly of the parts - individual ants, soil, air, food, etc. My suspicion is that at least part of the organizational principle is built into the information contained in the DNA of ants which must have included within it allowances for the different classes of ants - queen, workers, soldiers, etc., much like the DNA of higher order animals contains within it the information to specify the roles of cells - muscle, nerve, skin, bone, etc. - which organize the integral body structure,

It sort of reminds me of the complementarity of the sexes. Mammals are always (or almost always) male and female. They have sexual drives that lead them to each other in order to procreate. The overarching goal in most animals is not freely choosen, but the biological drives that stem from their physical makeup, hormonal systems, and ultimatly, their DNA, contributes to this overal goal of preserving the species. In this situation, there is some sort of etherial goal directedness here that transcendes the individuals but seems to reside at the level of the species. It seems to be the same way with the ants in your example, there seems to be goals built into them that serve the needs of the entire species (or at least the colony).

The bigger question is whether organization such as that which directs an animal body or colony of ants can simply “emerge” from a collection of parts or whether that “agency” must depend upon a sufficient external mover which, for example, may have directed the compilation of DNA.

That kind of agency requires

1. foresight - the capacity to envision final ends or results and
2. the power to orchestrate the creation and assembly of existent beings at their most fundamental level (omnipotence, perhaps) to contrive the nature of individual things within the gamut of the nature of all things in order for individual beings to be directed towards final ends.

Just thinking about the big bang where all the four fundamental forces were (theoretically) united and energy and matter were one thing. This is the first moment of the big bang. That first primordial state had within it the potential for every other physical manifestation in the universe, including physical life. Then the unfolding of all this pure energy into matter and anti matter, then fundamental particles, then standard particles, beginning with hydrogen, then through time leading to all the naturally occurring elements on the periodic table. If this doesn’t exhibit intentionality, exquisite regularity, and final causality or goal directness, then I don’t know what does.

Was this what Aquinas was getting it? That at some point intentionality on a level very basic to existence is required to explain motion since material things cannot sufficiently explain why they are the way they are nor the ends to which they are ordered. “Another” is required, metaphysically speaking, to sufficiently explain not just the to bringing of things into being but also the maintainence of them in being at each moment since contingent things do not have the requisite means to sustain their own existence in the here and now.

This, I think, is where the ‘verticality’ of causation is important. The nature of things - or why things are the way they are - would seem to be a function of the four causes which could not be a past event, nor, strictly speaking, a present or future one, but, rather, an eternal or omnipresent one that accounts for all times, all events, all existents - which excludes any cause limited to space-time.

Agreed. Final causality, and the other three causes iares manifest right now. Not just in the past.

God bless,
Ut

 

[ynotzap]

Blue Horizon:
I can only give you my fallible version in answer to your OP. My answer will not involve a lot of metaphysical terminology, although it will involve the meaning of the terminology, I find it easier to understand without memorizing the translation of different terms, as long as I can capture the metaphysical meaning in common language, and be consistent with A&T meanings. That is left to be determined: so here goes:

Because universal laws (eg. the laws of contradiction) deal with being, a thing is or is not, we do our best to determine what is or isn’t, our quest for truth. In the process, we make distinctions, what is finite, what is infinite. An idea comes along stating that we can make a perpetual motion machine and we find that this is impossible because physical things wear out, and time is a measure of change, so we say physical things are finite, and time is not infinite, so the idea of perpetual motion can not be accomplished in a finite world
that’s is subjected to change (potency and act)

A dropping ball will continue to drop for all time, as long as time exists, as long as the ball meets with no resistance, but what is time if not the measurement of change, and if change (potency and act) how can it drop perpetually? (no change) The ball has to be in act, and that’s not the nature of the ball which is material, and if motion is not it’s nature, it has to be moved by another ( a secondary force) I can not understand how an idea of a series be even be associated with the idea of infinity Infinity suggests the idea of continuity, no break, whereas the idea of series conveys the idea of a break or separatness, or individuality. (cause and effect)

As I see it: When things are in motion, they move towards fulfillment, completion, purpose, metaphysically, they move towards God. Our being is not something static, but we from the moment of our creation, we were given a human nature, which is a material body and a spiritual soul subjected to change (potency and act), potency and act in created things is never static, but dynamic, and we are constantly Becoming, moving towards the fulfillment, purpose of our existence, which is God So our being, is a becoming being. God is the Uncause cause of all motion and the unmoved mover.

I see no contradiction with the natural motion of a ball dropping, and the principle of WIMIMBA- A&T When dealing with ideas, we are in a spiritual realm and can conceive the idea of infinity, but not so when dealing with finite created things. Math, since it is concepts (spiritual in nature) can deal with infinity, but when applied to material things experiences limitations, finiteness. So the conclusions of Math when applied to material things will always be less than perfect, perfection lies in the spiritual realm.

 

[utunumsint]

The view of Aquinas on the soul and that of Descartes are worlds apart just as the philosophy and metaphysics of Aquinas and the philosophy and metaphysics of Descartes are worlds apart. Descartes said “I think therefore I am.” I think Aquinas would say that this is backwards, rather it should be “I am therefore I think.”

In regards to the human soul, I think the only similarity that can be found between Aquinas and Descartes is that they both admit it is spiritual and it has intellect or reason and will. Although Descartes seems to describe the reason or intellect as a thinking substance. For Aquinas, thinking and the intellect are not the same thing, thinking is an act or operation of the intellect, the intellect is a power and thinking or understanding is the act or operation of this power. The intellect is called first act while the act of the intellect is called second act. It appears for Descartes that the essence of the reason is thinking and so it is always thinking even while we are sleeping I guess; if the reason stopped thinking it would cease to exist. Such a view of the intellect can only be applied to God who is pure act.

Now, for Aquinas, the intellectual soul also has sensory and vegetative powers. This is not the case with Descartes. For Descartes, there are two kinds of created substances, namely, spiritual thinking substances which includes will, and extended corporeal substances or bodies. Sensory and vegetative powers that Aquinas ascribes to the soul, for Descartes, is simply matter in motion and pertains to corporeal substance, not to thinking substance. Accordingly, for Descartes, animals and plants do not have souls which for Aquinas are the substantial forms of animals and plants. Animals and plants for Descartes are corporeal extended substances, in other words, they are automata, or mechanical robots, a pile of atoms. It doesn’t appear in Descartes that animals and plants have any kind of principle that would distinguish them from inanimate things or rocks such as a principle of life. Animals and plants are nothing more than I suppose a more complex conglomeration of extended substance or elemental bodies and matter in motion.

The bodies of humans are also essentially automata or mechanical machines, though, says Descartes, the thinking substance or mind can move the body and there does seem to be some interaction between the soul and body and body and soul. The interaction between the two substances, body and spirit, Descartes was quite sure took place at some pineal gland.

As we have said, for Descartes, the bodies of humans and animals are mechanical machines or automata and he compares them to a watch. The body of a living man differs from that of a dead man just as does a watch or other automation as when a watch is wound up and mechanically moves of itself from the same watch that is unwound or broken and the corporeal principle of its movement ceases to act.

Descartes did away with the substantial forms of things as well as identifying matter with quantity or extension. In the Aristotlelian/Thomistics metaphysics, quantity or extension is an accident of a substance and the substantial forms of things along with matter are the two fundamental principles of material substances. Apparently, in Descartes’ scheme of things, there is no concept of matter as potency and forms as acts, nor any concept of potency and act that is even remotely akin, that I’m aware of, to act and potency as understood by Aristotle/Aquinas.

**The world is a machine in which there is nothing at all to consider but the shapes and movements of particles. ** Descartes: The Principles of Philosophy, II, 36

Persons will look upon this body as a machine made by the hands of God, which is incomparably better arranged, and adequate to movements more admirable than is any machine of human invention. *Descartes: Discourse on the Method, V. *

The whole class of final causes is of no avail in natural things. Descartes: Meditations IV

 

[thinkandmull]

The view of Aquinas on the soul and that of Descartes are worlds apart just as the philosophy and metaphysics of Aquinas and the philosophy and metaphysics of Descartes are worlds apart. Descartes said “I think therefore I am.” I think Aquinas would say that this is backwards, rather it should be “I am therefore I think.”

In regards to the human soul, I think the only similarity that can be found between Aquinas and Descartes is that they both admit it is spiritual and it has intellect or reason and will. Although Descartes seems to describe the reason or intellect as a thinking substance. For Aquinas, thinking and the intellect are not the same thing, thinking is an act or operation of the intellect, the intellect is a power and thinking or understanding is the act or operation of this power. The intellect is called first act while the act of the intellect is called second act. It appears for Descartes that the essence of the reason is thinking and so it is always thinking even while we are sleeping I guess; if the reason stopped thinking it would cease to exist. Such a view of the intellect can only be applied to God who is pure act.

Now, for Aquinas, the intellectual soul also has sensory and vegetative powers. This is not the case with Descartes. For Descartes, there are two kinds of created substances, namely, spiritual thinking substances which includes will, and extended corporeal substances or bodies. Sensory and vegetative powers that Aquinas ascribes to the soul, for Descartes, is simply matter in motion and pertains to corporeal substance, not to thinking substance. Accordingly, for Descartes, animals and plants do not have souls which for Aquinas are the substantial forms of animals and plants. Animals and plants for Descartes are corporeal extended substances, in other words, they are automata, or mechanical robots, a pile of atoms. It doesn’t appear in Descartes that animals and plants have any kind of principle that would distinguish them from inanimate things or rocks such as a principle of life. Animals and plants are nothing more than I suppose a more complex conglomeration of extended substance or elemental bodies and matter in motion.

The bodies of humans are also essentially automata or mechanical machines, though, says Descartes, the thinking substance or mind can move the body and there does seem to be some interaction between the soul and body and body and soul. The interaction between the two substances, body and spirit, Descartes was quite sure took place at some pineal gland.

As we have said, for Descartes, the bodies of humans and animals are mechanical machines or automata and he compares them to a watch. The body of a living man differs from that of a dead man just as does a watch or other automation as when a watch is wound up and mechanically moves of itself from the same watch that is unwound or broken and the corporeal principle of its movement ceases to act.

Descartes did away with the substantial forms of things as well as identifying matter with quantity or extension. In the Aristotlelian/Thomistics metaphysics, quantity or extension is an accident of a substance and the substantial forms of things along with matter are the two fundamental principles of material substances. Apparently, in Descartes’ scheme of things, there is no concept of matter as potency and forms as acts, nor any concept of potency and act that is even remotely akin, that I’m aware of, to act and potency as understood by Aristotle/Aquinas.

Descartes did not deny that “I am therefore I think”, but in the movement of his argument he said “I am thinking, therefore I know I exist”. He did not say his thinking caused his existence. Descartes spoke of the soul phenomologically, as experienced. He didn’t address whether technique-ly the sensible soul was really just the intellectual soul in action. He wasn’t concerned about that. Emphasizing words like “mechanical machines or automata” are missing the point about animals too: all Descartes was saying was that the animals were biological-physical, and we partly spiritual. As for matter and form, all that means is that, for Aquinas, a chair has TWO principles: prime matter and form. Descartes would say just “look its a chair”. You can’t prove there are two principles instead of one, so Descartes strayed away from the Scholastic language there