In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument from Physics Book 2, chapter 8, 199a9. Aristotle in this chapter tries to make an analogy between nature and action to establish that both, nature and action, have an end.
This argument developed as a respond to natural philosophers, who argue that the results of nature/natural processes occur just by accident but not for an end (198b16). Aristotle argues that events and results that come to be by chance only are present a few times. However, results of natural sequences or actions happen very often, and this is a sign that they must happen for the sake of some end not only by chance. Therefore, results of nature and actions must be only for the sake of some end. The argument states,
“Whenever has an end, the whole sequence of earlier and later actions is directed towards the end. Surely what is true of action is also true of nature, and what is true of nature is true of action, if nothing prevents it. Now actions are for something, therefore, natural sequences are for something” (199a9...
Action and reaction are the very threads that make up the fabric of our universe, conflicting forces that wage war against each other in hopes of gaining the upper hand and overcoming the other. Virtue versus desire, faith versus logic, tradition versus change, light versus darkness, (Republicans versus Democrats,) and good versus evil-all opposing facets of their respective fields that switch off control in a never-ending dance of push and pull.
"For example, if someone began to dig the ground in order to cultivate a field and found a cache of buried gold... Neither the man who buried the gold, nor the man who was tilling the field intended the discovery of the money, but, as I said, it happens as a result of the coincidence that the one began to dig where the other had buri...
The locus classicus for Descartes’ consideration on the laws of motion are the articles 36 through 45 of his Principles and the chapter seven of The World. In The World, Descartes introduces a fable about the creation of the world where he exposes the similitude between God’s creative and preservative acts. Descartes begins considering matter as devoid of all its secondary qualities: ‘let us expressly suppose that it [matter] does not have the form of earth, fire, or air, or any other more specific form, like that of wood, stone, or metal’ (AT XI, 33). Hence, Descartes claims that the only quality remaining in bodies is their extension, which is the only one we can conceive clear and distinct. In the beginning, then, God created an indefinite quantity of matter whose substantial quality is its extension.
...that fate. Events that lead to other events will eventually lead one to their fate. “Oedipus the King” is a great play that sets an example of what fate is. Oedipus chooses to flee from home, in attempt to avoid the god’s statement of his fate from coming true. However, Oedipus’s decision for fleeing is what was necessary to make his fate come true. Undoubtedly, this is what was meant to happen because Oedipus allowed it to. Perhaps if Oedipus ignored the god and never did a thing then perhaps the outcome could have been different for Oedipus. However it did not turn out that way and the choices that Oedipus made is what led him to his doom.
“Fate is nothing, but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence”, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Determinism and free will are incompatible. The events in people’s lives are already chosen for us, or determined. The expected behaviors of people are explained by natural laws and by experiences that they were exposed to. But this viewpoint does not explain people’s intuition. Although, there is a chain of physical causes that lead into people’s intuition.
As some believe that we humans have free will, they believe that we have the freedom of choice and the freedom of action. But, if all of our actions have a reason behind them, or if there is a causal explanation behind each of our choices, it is difficult to say that we actually have the freedom of will. For this reason, determinism challenges free will, as the determinist believes that all of our decisions are governed by some form of natural law, and that all of our behaviors are explainable by this law.
...e ultimate cause of everything? While its minor problems are resolved quite easily, Aristotle’s argument for the unmoved mover is predicated on a premise of unknown stability: philosophy. At the heart of the issue is the very nature of philosophy itself and its ability to tackle questions of any magnitude. If everything is knowable, and philosophy is the path to knowledge, then everything must be knowable through philosophy, yet the ad infinitum paradox Aristotle faces is one that shows that the weakest part of his argument is the fact it relies on the abovementioned characteristics of philosophy. If any one of those is wrong, his proof crumbles and the timeless God in which he believes goes along with it, but if they are all right, then there is one God, immovable and actuality, for as Aristotle says, “The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler” (1076a).
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he discusses the principles of virtue, choices and a desire for an end. In the 5th chapter of book 3, Aristotle gives a possible argument of someone who objects to his beliefs “But someone might argue as follows: ‘All Men seek what appears good to them, but they have no control over how things appear to them; the end appears different to different men” (1114b). Based on the objector’s generalization, he or she believes that all men strive to find the ultimate good, but they don't have the freedom or the wisdom to see things for what they truly are.
Aristotle believes that before the concept of time there were three kinds of substances, two of them being physical and one being the unmovable. The three substances can be described as one being the “sensible eternal”, the second being the “sensible perishable” and the third substance being the immovable. To further this theory the sensible perishable can be seen as matter, the sensible eternal as potential, and the immovable can be seen as that which is Metaphysical and belongs to another science. According to Aristotle, the immovable is God. It is the immovable that sets the sensible perishable into motion and therefore turns the potential into the actual.
There cannot have been a first change, because something would have to have happened just before that change which set it off, and this itself would have been a change, and so on and so forth. Aristotle believed that if the universe ever completely ceased movement there would never be a force that possessed the ability to begin the moving again without the presence of the Prime Mover. In chapter 6 of Metaphysics Lambda, Aristotle concluded that the world and time are not perishable. He vouched for the idea that there must be at least one eternal and imperishable substance; otherwise all substances, therefore everything in the world, would be perishable. Aristotle calls this source of all movement the Prime Mover. The Prime Mover to Aristotle is the first of all substances, the necessary first source of movement, which is itself unmoved. It is a being with everlasting life, and in Metaphysics Aristotle also calls this being
In The Metaphysics, Aristotle states, “All men by nature desire to know.” Although, this is a generalization, of this insightful statement about the nature of humans and human understanding this statement truly captures what Aristotle was trying to figure out about humans and their thinking. Everyone has a desire to know or to understand. As rational beings we tend to contemplate very simple ideas to the most complicated, like our existence, or parts of the universe, or the universe as a whole. Aristotle is known as the father of modern day psychology and biology, even though many of his ideas of these two sciences was proven incorrect. The most important concepts of Aristotle’s theory of human understanding are the notion of cause, the infinite, and the soul.
Therefore we are not free to act as we wish due to our actions being
Nature is complicated. It includes many different sorts of things and one of these is human beings. Such beings exhibit one unique yet natural attribute that others things apparently do not—that is free will.
Explain why arguments with contradictory premises are valid. This principle, referred to as ‘explosion’, is often used as an argument for the necessity of classical logic. Explain the way in which this argument works.