Aristotelian Causes
I am reading Edward Feser’s *Five Proofs of the Existence of God* (2017). His first “proof” depends on Aristotelian metaphysics, both the explanation of efficient causality in terms of actuality and potentiality and the distinction between initiating causality and a hierarchy of sustaining causes. I’d like to know where the best critique of these two Aristotelian/Thomist theses can be found. Any suggestions?
In my training in Analytic Philosophy, Aristotle’s Metaphysics was explained and then dismissed as being replaced by Modern Physics. The only Aquinas we read was “The Five Ways” in a Philosophy of Religion class, where the ideas of actuality/potentiality and hierarch of sustaining causes were dismissed as out-moded concepts. Courses on Metaphysics were either a History of Philosophy culminating in Kant, or taught as either/both Philosophy of Science or Philosophical Logic. And then there is the discussion of Necessity and Possible Worlds. Aristotelian/Thomistic concepts and theses were simply ridiculed.
What I am interested in are critiques—analyses and arguments—not dismissals and ridicule.
Comments (20)
My impression was that the key differences of opinion were over what constitutes a 'definition', and what constitutes a 'proof'.
No wonder philosophy discussions on forums never get anywhere. It always turns into a semantic dispute over terms people normally have no trouble understanding.
Non do I find the arising of such disputes surprising. You and I would both agree what 'big' means when we are talking about a cat, as it is in the context of things like cats that we learned to use the word 'big'. Why should we be surprised that we have different interpretations of 'big' when it is applied to things like universes or multiverses, that are completely removed from the scope in which we learned those words and in which they are applicable. I would be astonished if such disputes did not arise.
I have several problems with Feser's argument.
1. His Principle of (Aristotelian) Causality: Every change is a change from potentiality to actuality brought about by something with the actuality in question.
2. His Principle of (Hierarchical) Sustaining Causality
3. His claim that the existence of anything is the result of the actualizing of the potential to exist by something already actualized as existent.
4. His claim that anything that already existing cannot continue to exist with out something sustaining that existence, continually actualizing the (so-called) potential for existing.
5. His claim that while there may be an infinite chain of (temporally extended) initiating causes, there can not be an infinite chain of simultaneous sustaining causes.
What I would like to know is whether there are any good arguments against these theses, especially #1 and #3. #3 seems to treat existence as a property that something may have as either potentially or actually, similar to the potential for hotness. And that just as something that is actually hot "activates" the potential for hotness in another object, so to something that exists activates the potential for existence in another.
The problem I have is with Feser's (Aristotle's and Aquinas's) view of causality. I'd like to think that it is not just a disagreement about the meaning of the term 'cause', but rather about what account we can give of the causal relation, viz., what makes the proposition ^A causes B^ to be true?
There are attempted examples out there of 'simultaneous causes' (eg the dent in a pillow from a rock that is sitting on it) but they generally rely on failing to understand physics.
I do not think that "simultaneous cause" is Aristotelian. In my understanding of Aristotle's four ways that "cause" is used, cause is always temporally prior. Some people interpret final cause (and this is probably a more common interpretation) as posterior. This is because they apprehend the existence of the material object caused, as the cause, and do not acknowledge the immaterial form which is prior to the object's material existence, as the actual cause.
I believe it is this ambiguity in meaning of final cause, which leads to the idea of a simultaneous cause. When the final cause, as the cause of existence of an object, cannot be properly located, as prior to the material existence of the object, and the need to assume it only arises after the material existence of the object, then it is positioned as simultaneous with the object (as a type of compromise).
I believe I explained this in the other thread where you posted. To go from cold to hot, a potential to an actuality requires an actuality, but the actuality is not the same actuality as that achieved. So the microwaves are an actuality, but they are not necessarily actually hot.
We have the potential for something, say the potential for the food to be hot. The food is not actually hot, and there is no necessity that the food will become hot. That is the key to understanding potential, the lack of necessity, contingency. So with potential, that particular potential may or may not be fulfilled. And, there are countless other possibilities, potentials which may be fulfilled beside that one. The food might become warm, it might get burnt, it might not get heated at all. This is contingency.
What happens to the food, which potential gets actualized, depends on the efficient causes applied. This is why an actuality, an activity, is required to actualize any potential. So the argument is that if anything actually exists, then prior to that existence was the potential for that thing which exists. However, a further actuality (activity if you like) is required, to bring that actual thing from the potential for that thing to the actual existence of that thing.
I see in #3, that the cause must be "actualized as existent":
Quoting Mitchell
How do you infer that the cause must be a particular type of actuality "itself be hot"?
But when I go and read on SEP, or a layman's philosophy book, it doesn't get bogged down with semantics. Things are defined as needed to setup the argument or examine the different positions, and that's that.
What really brings the issue to mind was a discussion on here a while back concerning whether color irrealism was a threat to direct realism. That went about 31 pages until the discussion was completely derailed by arguments over what "direct" and "realism" meant.
I'm not familiar with the examples, I'm only going on what #3 says, along with my understanding of the Aristotelian explanation of causation. It may seem uninformative, but it becomes important in the context of the cosmological argument.
If we look at all material things as temporal, meaning that they come into existence, and contingent, meaning that the potential for them precedes the actual existence of them, then to avoid an infinite regress of material things we must assume a first material thing. By the description, or definition of "material thing", it is necessary that the potential for that thing existed prior to the thing itself. Now we need an actuality to account for that potential being actualized, so we must conclude that there is an actuality which is other than a material thing.
Now that you mention it, that sounds right. , do you recall where that statement about 'simultaneous causes' came from?
Quoting Mitchell
Science recognizes two different modes of heating; conduction (or convection) and radiation. In the former heat is conducted from something hotter (air, water, a metal container and so on) to something less hot. On the other hand, an example of radiation is the sunlight heating a brick wall or your body. The light itself is not hot, just as the microwaves that heat the coffee are not themselves hot. In both cases the theory is that the radiation agitates the molecules to move faster and this faster movement manifests as heat.
Yes! And I think that heat by radiation provides an example where the Aristotelian account of change fails. But then, some think I misunderstand that account of causation. Again, my understanding of that account of causation is that object A can cause object B to go from being potentially X to being actually X only if object A is itself actually X.
'The purpose of the book is to prove the existence of God, and Aristotle's arguments are just a tool to that end, and a tool that Feser has no qualms about changing and adapting to fit his needs.'
If that's correct then I imagine that in the proof that Feser describes as Aristotelian, the 'simultaneous cause' bits were added by him, not present in Aristotle's (or Aquinas's) original version. He would have done better to have presented the Aristotle or Aquinas version.
I had a thread once where I asked about the nature of heat radiation. There is a curious thing about the radiation of heat. In the way it is described, it appears like in order for an object to radiate heat, there must be an object to receive that radiation, just like in conduction, there must be a colder object to receive heat from the warmer. But many argued that an object may radiate heat into nothing, vacuum space, or something like that.
I think the issue is in the definition of "heat". Heat is a measurement of energy transferred from one object to another. Therefore radiation, as the medium between one object and another, is not actually heat until it is received by the other object. So for heat to be radiated requires that it be received by another object. And although we say that heat is what is transferred from one object to the other, the radiation itself, which is what exists between the objects, is not actually heat, it is the means by which heat is transferred.
Quoting Mitchell
I think that this is very clearly a misunderstanding. According to Aristotle's law of identity, an object is the same as itself. No two objects may have the same identity. So if an object becomes actually X, it is impossible that the object which caused it to be actually X, could itself be actually X, as that would defy the law of identity. Two distinct objects would be actually X.
Quoting andrewk
I think that's probably right. Feser's argument seems to be long and convoluted. Aquinas' is less so, but still quite complicated. Aristotle's cosmological argument is the most simple, and easy to understand. As I explained in a post above, it leads to the conclusion of an actuality which is prior to temporal, contingent things, so long as we deny an infinite regress of things.
The problem is that "time" in its general conception, is defined by the activities of those contingent things. This puts that actuality, outside of time, therefore eternal. So Aristotle proposed eternal circular motion, a circle so perfect that there could be no beginning or end. This is similar in conception to the modern Hartle-Hawking no-boundaries proposal. The theists take Aristotle's cosmological argument and adapt it for their purposes. But this increases the complexity by adding principles to adapt this pre-temporal actuality to God.