Ancient Metaphysics
Potentially Me
In his book Physics, Aristotle claims to identify four foundational causes of things. These are the Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final. The material cause is the physical composition of the thing in question, that is: the glass of which the cup is composed. The formal cause is that which distinguishes the particular material cause from other material causes of similarity, that is: the property of ‘can contain water’ is that which differs the glass cup from the glass window. The efficient cause is that which causes the causes, or else that which does set into motion the being of the thing, therefore the Glassblower is the efficient cause of the glass cup for it is she who did set the being of the thing into motion. The fourth cause is known as the final cause. The final cause might be referred to as the end towards which the being of some thing was set into motion. What is to say: the function for which the glass was created, being the provision of a vessel to drink from. It is clear then that should a cup never be filled, yet having been created to be filled, that it is this state of fillèd-ness which the cup strives and moves towards as it continues to be a cup. This seems graspable enough, that things which are created are created for a function. But what about things which are not created? That is natural things. Both absolutely natural things like earth, air, wind, and fire; but also compounds of the absolute like plants and animals. These things, having not been made with any particular intentionality, would seem to lack any specific function, or end towards which they exist. Aristotle contends that all natural motions have final causes. For an immediate moment we may simply read this as saying that natural things have final causes. This brings forth the secondary curiosity: What is motion? and thereby, What is natural motion? As well as the primary curiosity: Can it be proved that natural things have final causes? I believe that Aristotle is correct to claim that natural things have final causes. In the following paragraphs I will begin by explaining the synonimity between motions and things, and thereby explain what motion and natural motion are. After this brief digression I shall return to our primary curiosity and explain why it is that natural motions must have final causes.
Terminology
Natural motion may be thought of as a compound thing consisting of the components Nature and Motion. Nature, as Aristotle understands it, can be defined as “the immediate substratum of things which have in themselves a principle of motion or change” (Physics 2.1 193a), so we can see that by ‘motion’ Aristotle means ‘change’. In defining change he claims that it is “the fulfillment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially” (3.1 201a). Typically this is viewed as having the potential to be on the other side of the room and then actualizing that potential, in other words walking across the room. So when I am at one wall in a room I have the potential to be at any of the three other walls, and so when I actualize one of these three potentialities (when I begin to walk towards one wall or another) then I have now actualized the potentiality of my potential to be at one of the three walls (IEP). However this phrase can be understood as essentially anything at all which has the attribute ‘Existence’, for all existent things change through time towards some more ultimate state of being than that at which they have been in the past or are in the present. If I am existing here in my chair and I have the potential to (still) be existing here in my chair seventeen moments from now, and then that potential comes to become actualized (I proceed to exist in my chair, hence changing from the present me to the seventeen moments older version of me), then this also is motion and/or change. So when Aristotle says that all natural motions have final causes, he means that all natural changes have final causes, and by this he can be interpreted to mean that natural things which exist have final causes. And when Aristotle, in defining nature, says ‘that which has within itself a principle of motion’ he means ‘that which has within itself the principle of its own existence and continued growth and/or change’, which can be reduced to ‘that which possesses the potential to perpetuate itself, and thereby to fulfill its own function’. A prime example is an Oak tree, the Oak tree is a natural thing because part of what it is to be an Oak is to produce acorns, and acorns evolve into other Oak trees. Therefore the Oak tree has within itself the principle of its own existence and the source of the perpetuation of continued change. For Oaks make acorns by being Oaks, and acorns make Oaks by being acorns, and so the function of the acorn is ‘to Oak’ and thus it does so by way of being what it is; and the function of the Oak is ‘to acorn’ and thus it does so by way of being what it is. In contrast, a chair is not a natural thing because a chair can in no way perpetuate the coming-to-be of future chair-kin and thereby the chair will also fail to perpetuate the continued process of change; nor can the chair fulfill its own function, what is to say the chair cannot sit upon itself. And so ‘Natural’ may be understood as that which perpetuates its own existence, and ‘Motion’ can be understood as anything which is in flux from one state, or essence of being, to another state, or essence of being. Therefore Natural Motion can be understood as ‘the state of being-in-change of a thing-which-is-natural’.
Interpretation
So now we have defined Nature, and also come to the admittance that motion is the actualization of change, even so simple a change as a change through time. From this understanding of the topic at hand it is now plain to describe not only why Aristotle was right, to suggest that all natural things have final causes, but in fact why he could not be wrong. Let us bring all the content together and lead from there. Aristotle claimed that all natural motions have final causes. A final cause is the end towards which some-thing was created and thus towards which it moves. A motion is the state of being-in-change of a thing. Existence is a kind of change due to temporality. And thus:
- Motion is the state of being-in-change
- Change is the ‘going-ness’ from one state to another
- Existence is a type of change
- Final cause is the end-toward-which a thing was created, and thus towards which it moves
- Nature is a thing which is able to perpetuate its own existence
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Therefore: Natural Motion, so long as it exists and continues to move through time, moves towards some end which it has the potential to be (continued existence), and this end towards which it moves can be understood as its final cause.
Conclusion
We can confirm the validity of this argument by looking back to the cup. It was admitted that: should the cup have never been filled (that is the post-efficient, pre-final cup of material/formal completeness) that it is this state of fillèd-ness at which it strives and moves towards as it continues to be a cup. So there lay two obstacles in the cup’s path to fulfillment of its finality: A) time, B) the coming-to-be of fulfillèd-ness, which in an artifact’s case is contingent upon the action of an agent. So as time passes an agent will fill the cup and thereby complete the cup’s final form. But an agent is only necessary to fulfill the final form of artifacts. We have already admitted that natural things fulfill their own functions, and thus time is the only obstacle of a natural thing realizing its final cause. It can now be understood entirely, based on my antecedent argumentation, that not only was Aristotle correct to state that natural motions have final causes, but in fact he could not have been incorrect, providing you proffer the requested assumptions up to that point. Reduced to a sentence: When some-thing exists, and can be expected to continue to exist, that thing is moving through time towards a future potentiality of itself, and is in fact actualizing the potentiality of that potential; thus, being the realization towards which it tends, this realization is known as the thing’s final cause.
Works Cited
Aristotle, and Richard McKeon. The Basics Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 2001. Print.
Sachs, Joe. "Aristotle: Motion and its Place in Nature." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.
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