Physics Flashcards
What does it mean to be natural?
- A very salient feature of natural things is that they are subject to change
- Science as we would call it Aristotle is thinking of it as the first order and cause and principle into natural things
- Our first task in developing understanding of a thing’s first by having acquaintance with its principles, it’s causes and it’s elements
- Aristotle agreed with his predecessors that there are such building blocks (first principles) of all things but he also think there is such a thing known as substantial form which is a building block or charging things
- So he asks the question of how many first principles there need to be of changeable things
- In the categories there are 10 categories one could accuse or predicate something of being
- There are also 2 different prediction relations in terms of said predicated of and present in
- These predication relations correspond to ontological relations as in how things are predicated in the real world
- Aristotle says that only primary substances can be subject of changes
What is change?
- What are the elements that one needs to posit to make sense of change?
- Aristotle agrees that all change has to be understood as occurring between opposites or contraries
- For example something goes from being blue to not blue
- On that account is illogical in
Aristotle’s opinion to say that things go from being blue to big - Aristotle says the most general way to describe the opposites is to go from lacking or privation to form or having
The parmenidean dilemma
The parmenidean dilemma argues that change is an illusion because if change was real it would have to come from what is or what is not and since change comes from neither then there is no change
The primary objects in Aristotle’s ontology that come and go away are preserved in the face of Parmenidean dilemma by analyzing change as occurring between opposites and going from privation to form. (the underlying thing, subject, matter for a change)
But Aristotle says that this is not enough and that there must be a third thing in addition to the opposites, that undergoes, or underlies the change (the underlying thing, subject, matter for a change)
The starting point of the change has to be the some subject + privation and then the endpoint of the change has to be some subject + form
Some descriptions of things pick them out as a musical, 3 dimensional things, sitting things but does not pick out their actual form but just some being that coincides with their own being
Substantial forms vs non substantial forms
Substantial forms pick our what something is in its own right while the non substantial forms do not pick out what something is in its own right but the being rather happen to coincide to the non substantial forms. This makes them accidental beings. (kookie objects)
For example socrates being a human is a substantial form as this is what he inherently is but socrates being wise is a non substantial form as this is not what he inherently is but rather what he happens to coincide with making it an accidental being. He can however not coincide with the form of human otherwise he loses his being so it is a substantial form to him. If he does not coincide with the form of being wise he still will retain his being
Resolving the dilemma about change
Change is from what is : subject
Change is from what is not : qua opposite
However it is not clear in the substantial forms what is exactly changing
This leads Aristotle to develop his hylomorphism which views both matters and form as principles or natural beings/natural changes
In his hylomorphic analysis of change Aristotle states that when a substance is generated, some appropriate type of matter comes to take on or receive some substantial
For example the bronze statue is generated
Bronze is the matter
Statue-shape is the form
Another example: the male has the matter in the sperm ant the female has the form in the egg
The analysis also states that generation and destruction are also changes for substantial forms
What are natural things?
Aristotle considers things to be natural if they possess a nature (principle or cause)
The difference between natural things and artifacts is that natural things have within them a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of its led and accidentally
And this principle or cause is in something because it resides in it which makes it a natural thing. (Note: these things also give them there being and allows them to be what they are)
It is also a natural thing because the principle or cause belongs to or applies to it non accidentally or coincidentally as with an accidental being or kookie object
Materialist predecessors: nature is the matter
What is it that we should identify as the source principle or cause of the changes
Aristotle thinks that both form and matter have a claim on being the nature of something
If you buried a wooden thing and it decomposed, it would come back as a tree, natural things lead to natural things
Aristotle thinks that that is true
The matter of something determines what it’s changes are going to be like
But form is also a good and maybe a better candidate to be the nature of the natural thing
After all, man is born from man, not bed from bed
That’s why the shape is the nature of the bed, not the wood
Aristotle thinks that it would be a mistake to think that the only thing that is relevant in understanding why things change is just this formal principle - that is what the Plato or Platanists think
Hylomorphic analysis of substantial change, e.g, of generation
Doggy matter receives/takes on doggy form
Causes (aititai)
Why do things happen? Why are things the way they are
Eg. why do birds have wings
Aristotle thinks that when we answer these questions we are citing the cause/the aitiai
This kind of knowledge is explanatory
X can be responsible for Y in different ways, for example X might be responsible for Y as
Y’s matter what Y is from or out of
Y’s form or essence, what Y is essentially
Y’s maker or produces or efficient cause
Y’s end or purpose, what Y is “for the sake of” - that is for aristotle another way of being responsible
The four types of causes
The material cause - out of which the constituent comes to be
The formal cause - the account of what the being would be
Efficient cause - primary source of change or staying unchanged
Final cause - the cause as end (telos)
We can specify the relata of these difference kinds of causal relations
More and less generally
Can pick out relate more or less precisely
We can talk about a person who is building, and they are the cause of the building, because they are a builder
The four causes of things
The matter
The form
The mover
That for the sake of which
Aristotle also thinks that there are a sense that the last three coincide and come to the same thing
It’s often the case, the form or essence of something is also what it is for
Eg. what an eye is and specifying it references the function and purpose of the eye
Do natural organisms have a telos (end)?
- maybe on test
When he think about telos, he is thinking about their internal end or purpose
Seed, becomes sapling, grows into a small tree, then a big tree, which eventually decays, turns back into dirt - what in this process, should we think of as the telos
Aristotle thinks that it is not the last thing as in the dirt, the tree is formed to be the big tree, doing all the tree things
The seed grows for the sake of becoming the fully formed tree
Similar with human development
However there is an important difference thinking about the form when it comes to living organisms and the form that we’ve been talking about with statues and houses, that could be described with their shapes
Aristotle thinks that when it comes to living things that what it is is identical to what it’s for
Form and essence of living organisms is soul
Soul = a living being’s capacities for performing vital activities
Performing those is its telos or end
The final and formal cause are the same in form as efficient causes
coincidental/accidental causation
There’s a distinction between proper or intrinsic causes and things that are accidental
Among those distinctions that Aristotle makes, he wants to point out one more thing
Sometimes you can pick something out by accident or by an intrinsic cause
How you specify the relata of causal or explanatory relations matters
Louis lane believes superman can fly = true
Superman can fly = true
Clark kent is superman = true
Louis lane believes Clark kent can fly = not true
Cannot substitute coreferring sentences
Suppose Drake = Julie’s brother
The parking lot was crowded because drake was there
The parking lot was crowded because Julie’s brother was there - not true
It matters how you describe the relata
If X is the intrinsic cause of Y, X must always or usually be productive of Y, should nothing interfere
Humans beget humans
Sculptors produce statues
Doctors produce health
Two distinctions
Luck and chance
Luck - is chance
Chance - is spontaneity
Chance is something that we might say contrasted to what is planned or executed by design - chance is just what happens, not because of some intrinsic cause
As aristotle distinguishes these - they apply these notions of luck and chance not just to any happenings, but those happenings that don’t always occur and are irregularly connected to the cause they are associated with, and they are purpose-serving
- There is a difference between being for something vs not for something
a. Purpose serving (or not)
b. They may be purpose serving in some cases - Always or for the most part cs not always or for the most part
a. Regularly occurring
chance /spontaneity are kind of coincidental or accidental cause of purpose serving effects. They do not regularly bring about the purpose-serving effects.
Why is there a beneficial teeth arrangement in humans?
Aristotle’s opponent thinks
The results of all these necessary movements is teeth with certain features in some arrangement
The beneficial teeth arrangement that results is coincidental - it’s just luck
Aristotle thinks that can’t be right, this is because what we are talking about here are natural things
Natural things regularly come to be in precisely these ways
That just can’t be by chance
Argument against the material opponent:
- A purpose-serving outcome is either due to spontaneity or chance or for the sake of something
- spontaneous/chance outcomes do not occur regularly
- Natural outcomes do occur regularly
- Purpose-serving natural outcomes can’t be due to spontaneity/chance
So, purpose-serving natural outcomes occur for the sake of something
So purpose-serving natural outcomes cannot be spontaneous
