Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 49: The Four Causes and Their Applications in Definition

Transcript
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Like the limits of Worcester should contain nothing of anything around Worcester, right? Nothing outside of Worcester. There shouldn't be any part of any other town within the city limits of Worcester, right? And therefore it seems that within a definition there shouldn't be any other thing than the thing being defined, right? But if I define, let's say, a point as the end of a line, because that's what a point really is, it's the limit of a line, I have to bring a line into my definition of a point, right? So I bring something other than point into the definition of point, right? Because point is something of another. And so to define it, I have to say what it is, and of what it is, what it is. You see? So if I was defining health, I might say, well, health is the, what, good condition of the body or something like this, huh? But no, it's health and the body are not the same thing. Because sometimes the body is healthy and sometimes it's sick, so it can't be the same thing. But health is not a substance, it's a certain disposition of the body, right? But a good disposition of the body, right? So I can't really say what health is without saying, bring in the body something other than it. But notice, what Aristotle is pointing out in the seventh book of wisdom is that definition is found first in substance, right? And then in the secondary way in accidents, right? So the species making differences would be, have different categories for accidents and substance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would it, for substance, would it be those three, one of those three necessarily? Well, as I say, the fact that in defining a substance you have genus and differences, right? Yeah. Corresponds to the fact that intrinsically it's composed of matter and form. See? Not that genus is the same as matter, or difference is the same as form, but genus is taken more from what is material in the thing, huh? And difference is what is more formal in the thing. Mm-hmm. Okay? So we define, you know, you know, we say, you know, body, a living body, right, huh? Living body with sensation, huh? These more formal things are always the last difference. Now, let's take a few applications here on the four kinds of clauses. You see, a friend of mine was taking a philosophy of course at the University of Minnesota from a noted scholar. And the old scholar was saying, you know, that Aristotle got this theory of the four causes, and he looked for four causes for everything, see? Well, Aristotle doesn't do that, right? In every science, you have to examine which causes you look for, right? Mm-hmm. And you've got to do that, you know, for an actual philosophy here, right? Mm-hmm. But in wisdom, in metaphysics, he does it for metaphysics, he asks which causes, right? And the same thing would be done in geometry, right? Now, in geometry, you might have only one cause. The name is a cause called form, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? In my stock example, to take a theorem to have to advance in geometry, I say, when straight lines intersect, these angles will be equal, right? Now, why are those two angles equal, right? Well, it's really because the lines intersecting are straight, right? Because the lines intersect, that's where you get angles. Mm-hmm. But the reason why they are straight is that the lines intersecting are equal. Now, the way you show that is saying that if this is a straight line, and this is a straight line meeting it, then A plus X must equal two right angles, right? Why? Because this is a straight line meeting a straight line, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And you have the earlier theorem that when a straight line meets a straight line, it makes either two right angles, right? Mm-hmm. Or angles equal two right angles, because it's almost obvious, right? So A plus X must equal two right angles, and B plus X, the same reason, must equal two right angles, huh? And the rest is just those statements known to everybody, the axioms. Quantities equal to the same are what? Equal to each other. Yeah. So A plus X must equal B plus X, and then the axiom that equals the factor and equals the results equal, right? Mm-hmm. And all of this goes back, in fact, that the lines intersecting are straight, and therefore these two must be equal to those two, right? And then subtract the each other, right? But if one had been bent or curved off, then they would not have been in fact equal, right? Now, you don't give, you know, why it's good that this be so, right? You know? Okay? But Mark used to say, you know, you don't say that a geometrical sphere is round so it can roll out of danger or something. Or a geometrical, you know, frame or a geometrical pyramid is pointed so it can defend itself, eaten or consumed, right? There's nothing there else. It's a cause, right? But now, I often give my students the definition of marriage, right? Okay? And I say marriage is the stable union of a man and a woman choice for let's say children. Okay? I define marriage in the full sense, huh? And maybe, you know, some marriages, you know, they're not too stable. But then they're defective as far as being in marriage, right? Okay? Now, having defined marriage here, how many kinds of causes are in the definition here of marriage? So when I say stable union, which kind of cause am I talking about? Four. What? Second. Yeah, the four, right? There it comes to the unity of things, right? To the wholeness, which would be considered to be the four, right? When I say of a man and a woman, this is, what? Matter. Yeah, see? Because all parts, I would say, is composed of like the matter. So this is like the matter. By mutual choice, mover, right? Mover or maker, into the sacred children, into the union. So you might have just one of the four causes, right? And you might have as many as, what? All four, right? Okay? Now, take another example here. Now, as in great school, we still use the catechism there, right? Okay. So we all memorize the definition of what? Sacrament, right? The definition of sacrament that I just got to remember from the catechism was an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. Okay? Now, to memorize that, the teacher never tied this up with the doctrine of the four causes. But, it's a definition that always stuck in my mind, right? Okay? They always say to people, you know, there's nothing wrong with the follower catechism. We didn't understand it too well, but we just go on to, you know, have things explained, right? Okay? Now, how many kinds of causes are there, in that definition? Well, honestly, you say instituted by Christ, that's the cause in the sense of what? The mover or maker. When you say to give grace, that's the cause in the sense of ending. in it, okay? Now, I have to kind of force this away, because, you know what it's said, huh? But, when you study the sacraments, we often, ...distinguish between the matter and the, what, form, right, huh? Okay? So I force that over there, see? And I say, okay, outwardly there you mean sensible, right, huh? And here I tie something with the words, right? It's like Augustine says the words come to the element, right? And you get a second right now, okay? It's not as explicit as it was in my definition of marriage, right? But in the way, outwardly signed here, you're thinking of, let's say, the water of baptism, take an example, and then the words, right? I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. So they speak of those as the matter and the form sometimes in the sacrament, right? Okay, so it's not as explicit here, but kind of, let me go back to the sensible matter there, and then the words which are, you know, making more explicit the signification of the signification of the human self. So in a way, in talking about the sacraments, when Thomas talks about the human self, you get the matter and the form of the sacrament, right? So you have all four, you know, eight causes, right? Being involved, right? So, now someone asked a question here. What is the church, let's say, right? How many causes do you have to bring in in the definition of the church, huh? Because obviously you have to talk about members of the church, right? And they're like the parts, right? Okay. And then there's a certain, what? So they order the church, right? Okay. All up to the Pope and so on, right? Okay. And we have a founder, right? They have a founding, so they start a church. And obviously the church has got a what? In their purpose, right? Okay. Now, if you say the church is a community of human beings, right? Who have faith over charity, right? How many causes are you talking about there, see? Is that just two? Do you have a matter of form? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a hint there. That's what the end is, right? Yeah. But then you start to study more, you see what you wish. Where did the faith come from, right? Just got to reading St. Paul's Epistle. Hebrews, I was talking about Christ as the initiator and the consummator of our faith, right? Yeah. Okay. But you might also talk about the what? Apostles, right? Apostolic faith, right? But like as you're going to talk about the city or the nation, right? There will be four causes involved. The citizens are like the matter, right? And then the way it's what? Board in the city, right? Different kinds of city, right? And then how at the end your purpose which is different in an oligarchy and a democracy, right? That's what the end of the city is. And then what we call George the father of our country, right? But, you know, I mean, in a sense in the book of the Constitution, on the father of the country, right, huh? What if you're talking about the army, right, huh? We need probably four causes eventually, right? Now, when you talk about God, though, right? You say God is a cause, huh? How many causes do you make use of when you say God is a cause? What sense has God a cause? Three. Two and a half. Take care of it, right? Like the distinction, right, between the intrinsic form and all the exemplary. Especially a cause in the sense of the mover and the end, right? Because usually we think of God as being the exemplary and kind of bringing it in with his being the maker, right? See, I pray sometimes I give in Thomas cause the officiante exemplary something like that and they're running together. You know, the officiante cause is making others like itself, right, huh? You know, so it's kind of an exemplar as well as the officiante cause and kind of brings them together. So maybe just one cause you want to talk about, the form, like my example from Geometry. It might be all four causes like the other examples I was giving. Or it might be, you know, two or three, right? Like in talking about what sense God is a cause, huh? That's the way, in a way, we divide theology, huh? We consider God by himself, right? We're in himself. Then God is the maker of the universe, right? And then God is the end, right? Know what the Lord is God says in the Psalms. He made us. We have people who are shepherds, huh? That's the three things. Three parts. Now the rest that I've attached to this, let's say a few words by way of stretch this to the window next. When Aristotle takes up the question now in natural philosophy, which causes you look for, right? He's fairly brief about matter, form, and mover, right? Because by the time you get to Empedocles and Xavier's, nobody has any doubt, really, that there are those three causes, right? Okay? But there is some disagreement about end as a cause, right? And then the earlier guys really saw end explicitly as a cause, huh? And of course, in modern times you find many people denying end as a cause in the natural world, right? Okay? So, I'll just go right to that major question, right? Okay? Now, the first thing I do is to talk about the importance of this question of whether end is a cause in the natural world, whether nature makes things for some end or purpose, right? Talk about the importance of that question. And then, I talk about certain misunderstandings, huh? That people have of what this means, right? Which, in many cases, leads them to deny that nature makes things for an end, right? Okay? And then I talk about the influence of custom in their thinking on this question, right? Where, out of custom, they deny that nature makes things for an end. But then I come down to what is really the heart of the matter, and that is the causes, right? I mean, the reasons, for or against saying that nature acts for an end. Okay? But as I say, before I take out the arguments for and against, I talk about the fact that people sometimes reject this, not for a reason so much, but because they misunderstand what it means, huh? Or because of custom. And I think these are as influential as the arguments, if not more so, right? I always go back to the apology which they've read. I know you've read the apology, right? If you look at the apology, Socrates, in his prologue there, he's going to address not only his accusers in the courtroom, those who have actually started the charges against him and are trying to prove in court that he's a bad man and so on. But he's going to reply to his anonymous accusers. Okay? And he does both of these in his speech. But the anonymous means the unnamed accusers, right? He's talking about those who've been saying bad things about Socrates for years. And the members of the jury have heard bad things said about Socrates and they probably from that inclined to think he's bad before they ever hear the argument. He's talking about It's for or against, huh? That's an example of the force of what? Custom, right? He's more concerned, as he says that more than once in the apology, he's more concerned about the influence of his anonymous accusers than upon Miletus and Antitus and so on, or trying to prove in court. And we get a little bit of cross-examating one of these guys, right? And he could pretty well handle the guy, right? But the anonymous accusers he can't confront, right? And, of course, it's particularly difficult, you know, if you say, you know, that I'm innocent of any wrongdoing, but people have been saying, you know, for years I'm a bad doer. People say, well, there's smoke, there must be fire, you know, there must be something wrong with you, Socrates, there must be something wrong with you all these bad things, you know. It's like we hear bad things about some politician being crooked, you know. You may believe everything or know whether you should believe everything, but if you keep on hearing over and over again about him being crooked, you say, there must be something wrong with that guy, right? But more generally I stop with the students and I ask this general question, which is stronger in our thinking for the most part, argument or custom? And most students, I think, and rightly, will answer that custom is stronger. And the reason for that is that custom acts in our mind before we're able to really reason. And custom produces a habit that's like a second nature. So we accept the customary as if it were second nature, especially what's customary from the time we first came into this world, right? And then when we begin to reason, we tend to take as a starting point something customarily. So that's just influencing or just, you know, making more forceful, right? The influence of custom, right? When you take that as a starting point of your reasoning. So I want to make them aware of the customs that lead men to deny in our time that nature makes for an end or a purpose, as well as the arguments against, right? I often quote Max Planck, you know, father of modern physics here, as it's called. He says, you know, we don't really convince the older generation of physicists the new ideas, he says. What happens is they die off, see? And the new ones are taught the new ideas, you know, at the beginning of their academic career. And that's how the new ideas get adopted. That's kind of a striking thing, right? Because the scientists are the ones you'd expect to follow the evidence, right? But if even in them, the custom is stronger than the argument, right? What about the rest of us, you know, who are not so disciplined in our mental habits, right? You see? Of course, you can see this, you know, people coming from different, in different ages, say, you know, or different schools or different backgrounds. It's a uniformity or conformity of thought, right? I often quote, you know, from the Paston Letters, you know, one of the historians writing about the Paston Letters are back in, I guess, the 14th century, something like that. They're one, you know, major sources, you know, for, you know, what day living was like in those days. And in the Paston Letters, you read about the one who married the daughter off to her rich old money bag, see? And she doesn't want to marry this rich old, old money bag, right? And, of course, they're beating her every day until she agrees to do so. But, you know, one shouldn't think, he says, that the Pastons are cruel parents, something like that. What else would you do with the daughter to marry the man you wanted her to marry, right? You know, obviously you'd beat her, right? Until she agrees. Of course, things are going to kind of shock us a bit, right? People at another age, you just take for granted, right? And vice versa, the things we take for granted, right? You're crazy, you know? So you see the force of custom, right? So I want to talk about the customs of the modern world, right? That influence our thinking on this, right? Maybe even more than the arguments. And I also want to talk about certain, what? Misunderstandings of what this means, right? That lead people to, right? So we don't decide the question by these misunderstandings or by custom, but you have to realize that most people are more influenced by these, maybe, than the arguments. But then eventually we look at the arguments for and against, right? And then we weigh the arguments, and then whichever arguments you think, or whichever side you think is stronger, then you have to go back to the arguments of the other side and answer all of them, right? So what I do here is reproduce Aristotle's text, where he argues in favor of nature acting for an end, and I restate his arguments, you know, and expand upon one of them and so on. And I give the arguments against nature acting for an end, right? And then, of course, I agree with Aristotle, so I'll answer the arguments on the other side, right? Okay? But now, before doing all of this, the first thing I do with the students is to point out the importance of the question, right? Okay? And it's difficult to really exaggerate the importance of this question now. So, the first thing I talk about is the importance of this question for natural philosophy, or for natural science. And then the importance of this for ethics and for the whole of our life. And then the importance of this question for the arts that help nature, like the medical art, art of logic, and so on. And then usually a little bit of the importance of this for even theology, right? Okay? Because this should inspire the student to really want to grapple with this question, right? Okay? Now, going back to the very beginning of our course there, when Aristotle was stating what the goal of natural philosophy was, huh? It wasn't just to know the way natural things are, but to know their what? Causes, right? Okay? So, since the end is one of the kinds of causes, this is a question that pertains to the very end and goal of natural philosophy. It's part of understanding natural things, understanding their end or purpose. Now, nothing is more important in any science than its end. So, if the end is to know the causes, then this is a question that pertains to the most important thing in natural philosophy. And I sometimes add to that, something we saw today, that where the end is a cause, it's the cause of all the other causes. So, it has a special importance among the four causes. Okay? Sorry, would you repeat that last? Yeah. We saw that where the end is a cause, right, it tends to be the cause of the other causes being causes. So, it has a kind of primacy among the causes where it is a cause, right? Okay? So, in general, being one of the four causes is going to be important for the question of what is the, you know, the very end of natural philosophy, right? Because it's part of the end or goal of natural philosophy to know not only the matter or the form or the mover, right, in the natural world, but also to know ends in the natural world. But this particular kind of cause has a special importance, right? Where it is a cause, it's more important, it's the most important cause, huh? Okay? So, it's part of understanding the eye to know if the eye is for the sake of seeing. And part of understanding the ear is for the sake of hearing. It's part of understanding the heart is for pumping blood, etc., right? Or is that irrelevant to understanding what the eye is? Sounds kind of strange, right? Okay? Okay, then I go to the importance of the question for ethics and for human life, right? Now, the fundamental question in ethics... And for human life, it's about the end or purpose of human life, right? Does man have an end or purpose, right? Now, if man is among the things that are by nature, and you answer yes to the question that nature acts for an end, right? As Socrates and Plato and Aristotle do, then you would ask, does man have by nature some end or purpose, huh? And if so, what is that end or purpose? And then how can we best achieve it, right? On the other hand, if you say nature doesn't make things for the sake of something, then nature didn't make man or his parts for any end or purpose, right? And so man has no end or purpose by nature, nor do his parts of any end or purpose, right? And therefore, either man will have no end or purpose, or he'll just invent one for himself, right? So you can see that if that's the most basic thing in life and in ethics, the whole of ethics, the whole of human life, depend upon the answer to this question in actual philosophy. So I tell students, you know, your whole life depends upon this course. I'm so blasé, you know. But in an attempt to make this a little more concrete, you know, I'll come in one day and I'll say, I think I'll cut off your arm here, huh? My scalp, or I'll take it out to the lab and dissect your arm. I'm a little bit hazy about the structure of the arm. I think I'd cut your arm off, right? Now, I'm sure you're going to resist my cutting your arm off, right? But now is it just a question of who's stronger, you or me, whether I'm strong enough to grab you and cut your arm off, or you're strong enough to stop me, or would you say that I'm going to write your arm? That your arm is for you and not for my knowledge of anatomy. Of course, they want to say that your arm, what? That's a question of who's stronger, but that the arm is for the sake of you, right? And not for the sake of my knowledge of anatomy. Yeah, just a minute now. Your arm is not an artificial arm, right? It's an arm made by nature, right? Now, if you say that nature makes things for an end or purpose, then you might very well argue that nature has made your arm for the sake of you, that it makes the part for the sake of the whole, right? But if you deny that nature makes things for an end or purpose, that nature didn't make your arm for any end or purpose, no more for the sake of you than for the sake of my knowledge of anatomy. It's just a matter of whim, right? Whether you do it one way or the other, right? That's really the consequence of that, huh? Or I'll come in and I'll say, Now, if I come into class here and I set out to deceive all of you, right? And leave you in deception, right? Am I abusing you in your mind? Am I misusing my mind? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a minute now. My mind is something that I have by nature, right? Now, if nature doesn't make things for any end or purpose, right? It didn't make my mind for the sake of knowing the truth any more than for the sake of being deceived, right? So, you know, you can't really misuse the mind in that sense, huh? Because to misuse something or to abuse it is to go against its what? Purpose, right? Okay? So, you can't really say, I'm abusing your mind when I... Is it? Okay? Or I say, you know, suppose I discover that you'd make a good fertilizer for my garden, right? Okay? So, I'm going to put you in my grinding machine and grind you up and make a nice fertilizer for my garden, okay? Now, I assume you're going to resist my pushing you into my grinder, right? It's just a question of who's stronger, you or me, right? Well, I get you in that grinder, huh? Or would you say that you're for the sake of something better and more noble than fertilizing my garden? Well, if you say that man is something made by nature, if you say nature makes things for an end or a purpose, right? You might be able to reason out that man is made by nature as something better than fertilizing the garden, right? But if you say nature doesn't make things for an end or a purpose, right? Nature no more made you for something better than fertilizing my garden, than fertilizing my garden, right? So, why not use you to fertilize my garden, right? It's just a question of, you don't like that, you know, but so what? I don't like lobster, so what? You can eat lobster, you know? It's dormitory, you know? So, I try to impress upon them, you know, how everything depends upon the, what, answer you give to this, right? The whole of ethics, right? And so, men like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, those who follow them, they have concluded that nature does make things for an end or a purpose, so they seek to find the natural purpose of man, and once having found it, they try to seek, how can we best achieve that end or a purpose, right? But some of the moderns who deny that nature acts as an end or a purpose, like Sartre or somebody in that tradition, right? For them, the end or a purpose is something, what, freely chosen, right? And there's no basis in man, right? That end or a purpose. Now, secondly, you could say that, I mean, among the things outside of natural science, you can see it's also very important for the arts that, what, help nature, right? Like the medical art, right? Or the art of logic, huh? Because if nature, if nature acts for an end, right, then the purpose of the medical art is to help nature achieve its end, right? To help the woman give birth, for example, right? In a sense, the medical art then is, you know, heck, it's its parameters from nature, huh? But if you say nature is not making things the sake of anything, then the medical art now becomes completely, what? But open, whatever you can make something out of something, right? The same way for the art of logic, you know? Some of the modern magicians say that the rules of logic are arbitrary, like the rules of monopoly or some other game, right? You want to play out the rules, you can't. You want to play out the rules, that's okay, too, you know? But for Socrates, who said he was an intellectual midwife, right, comparing himself to medical art, for Plato and Aristotle, logic is an art that helps nature achieve its, what? It helps reason, right, achieve its natural purpose, huh? And then the rules of logic are not arbitrary, right? They are designed to help nature achieve its natural end, to know the truth, right? So when you study, like the syllogism, right, and see when a conclusion falls and when it doesn't fall, right, that's the sake of knowing the truth, right? Not being deceived by a bad argument and so on, huh? But if you say that our reason, being made by nature, has no purpose, right, then logic becomes something really arbitrary, huh? Now, of course, this is obviously important for theology, right? Because if nature makes things for an end, and nature doesn't have a mind, as you might eventually conclude, right, then it points to a greater mind, like Anaxagros and others have talked about, right? So it's going to have consequences for theology. So it's an extremely important question, then, first of all, for natural philosophy, but secondly, for ethics in the whole human life. And then for those arts that help nature, and even for theology, right? So it's hard to really exaggerate the importance of this question. In some ways, it's the most important question for them in their life. How does reading 13 prepare us for that? Now, reading 13 is Aristotle's arguments for saying that nature acts for an end, right? And he has five arguments there, right? Then, starting at the bottom of page three, I give you three main arguments against nature acting for an end. And I give you three main arguments against nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for nature acting for