Aristotle's Unmoved Mover

A look at Aristotle's famous argument for an unmoved mover, which can be read in Metaphysics, Book XII, parts 6 to 8, and in Physics, Book VII.

I. The Universe is Infinitely Old

To begin with, Aristotle argues that change and time must be infinitely old, and hence the universe must have existed forever. This is because if a change occurs, something has to cause that change, but then that thing changed in order to cause the change so something must have caused it, and so on back into infinity:

II. Something Cannot Change Itself

He then argues that something cannot change itself. This is because the future state of something does not exist yet, and so cannot make itself real. Only something that already exists can cause a change to happen. So any change that is occurring must have some cause:

But the cold air is itself changeable as well. It causes the water to change into ice, but it itself can change by becoming warm, or changing location, etc. Call it a "changeable changer."

III. There Must Be an Unchangeable Changer

If everything were a changeable changer, then it would be possible for change to stop happening. Because changeable changers, by their very nature, could stop causing change, and so it is possible that there could be a gap, wherein everything stops changing:

But change cannot stop, as per the first argument Aristotle gives. It has been going eternally, and will never stop. So not everything is a changeable changer. There must be at least one UNchangeable changer. Or to use the classic terminology, an "unmoved mover." Something that causes change, without itself changing, which provides a smooth, continuous source of eternal change:

IV. Attributes of the Unmoved Mover

The unmoved mover must be immaterial, because matter is changeable.

The unmoved mover must cause change as an attraction, not as an impulsion, because it cannot itself change. In other words, as an object of desire. This way it can cause change (by attracting things to it) without itself changing.

As an object of desire, it must be intelligible.

As an intelligible being, it must also be intelligent.

As an intelligent being, it thinks about whatever is good, which is itself. So it thinks about itself.

The Briefest Look at the Metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas

A brief list of the metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas. This is the philosophy of changing things; what specific changing thing there are, and what their nature is, is the job of science. This is much more general than natural science, applying to changing things in general, regardless of what types of changing things exist.

Form and Matter

Typical objects consist of matter that is structured a certain way. For example, an elephant consists of matter that is structured in the form of an elephant.This also entails...

Final Causes

...that they have a disposition to behave a certain way. Example: an elephant is disposed to reproduce, run away from enemies, eat, and so forth. This also entails...

Actual and Potential

...that a behavior is a potential to act a certain way, whereas that object is actually acting a certain way now. Example: right now the elephant is actually sleeping, but potentially running away from a hunter; later, it will be actually running away from a hunter.

Existence and Essence

From the "form" above, we have the definition of something, such as "an elephant." If that essence/form is to be real, it must be conjoined with matter. But for most things, this definition does not entail that thing's existence. Example: what an elephant is (large mammal with trunk, ears, etc) does not entail that it exists. It may or may not exist, but its definition alone does not entail that it does.

A Case for Causal Dispositions

It seems to be something we almost take for granted. But it is notoriously difficult to come up with a theory that describes what it is, exactly. What is causation, exactly? This article was inspired by Causation: A Very Short Introduction.

David Hume

One popular analysis of causation is that it consists of an event, followed by another event. Since we can't see, or detect, the actual causal connection between the two events, and all we detect are the events themselves, then this is all causation boils down to. This theory was popularized by David Hume, who was an empiricist and thus believed all knowledge comes through sense experience.Through the regular succession of events, we form a habit in our minds that event A will be followed by event B, and this is all causation is.

Problems with Hume

The theory cannot deal with accidental or coincidental correlations. When we do a  randomized control trial on some new drug, and we see a percentage of patients improve, this event might be correlated with many different factors, such as a different diet eaten by the patients that improved. We seek to find out if the drug itself was the causal factor, and not just a correlation. As it is often said, "correlation is not causation."

In further addition, the Humean theory cannot deal with one-time causes. Perhaps there is some unique cause and effect that occurs only once in the history of the universe. But since Hume's theory requires regular correlation for something to be considered a cause/effect relationship, then single unique events cannot count as causation, even though after examining such a case we might conclude that it is in fact a cause/effect relationship.

Also, Hume's theory seems to presuppose some form of real causation, and not just correlation, in that it theorizes that we see an event followed by another event. In other words, the event caused us to see it. So this theory presupposes something more than just correlation.We need a better causal theory than this one.

Counterfactual Theories of Causation

Perhaps causation amounts to this: saying that A causes B means that if A had not occurred, B would not have occurred. Saying that the drunk driver caused the crash means that if the driver had not been on the road, the crash would not have occurred. This "counterfactual" theory of causation was popularized by David Lewis and is generally classified as "semi-Humean."

But it too faces problems.

Problems with Counterfactuals

One problem is that this account relies on a fiction: if A had not occurred then B would not have occurred, but how do we know what would have happened if A had not occurred? We can't empirically observe the event not occurring, because the event did occur. Lewis's theory relies on a fiction, so Lewis himself supports the theory that these other worlds actually exist. An infinite number of alternate worlds. Never mind the fact that this might be a bit much to believe, it also still faces problems. We can't observe these alternate worlds, so we still can't observe what would have happened had the drunk driver not been on the road that night.

And there are more problems. An effect could have multiple causes. Consider a firing squad, all shooting at the prisoner at the same time. Any single bullet would have been enough to kill the prisoner, but he was shot by multiple shooters at once. So if a shooter did not shoot, the effect (the prisoner's death) still would have occurred.

Also, we can have a case where if event A had not occurred, event B would not occur, but we still say that A did not cause B. Consider that if you had not woken up this morning, you would not have walked faster in your way to work. But your getting out of bed was not the cause of you walking faster. It was a necessary but insufficient condition for faster walking. So here again we have a counterexample to the causal theory at hand.

Is Causation the Transfer of Energy?

We often like to think of physical science as dealing with fundamental reality, so perhaps causation is some basic event from physical science. Energy transfer seems to be the basic events that occur in physics, so maybe causation is nothing more than the transfer of energy.

Problems with Energy Transfer

But again we have counterexamples: if we inject money into an economy, it causes inflation. This is not energy transfer, as money these days is often in terms of just numbers in a computer. So not all causation can be described as the transfer of energy.

Is Causation Primitive?

Perhaps the problem is that causation is a basic feature of the universe, and cannot be broken down into simpler concepts. Just like right now we think quarks are the basic particle of matter, and cannot be explained in terms of anything simpler. They are the bottom level, so to speak. Perhaps causation is the same. Remember Hume, above? His theory seemed to presuppose causation at a very basic level, as it relied on seeing or sensing an event, followed by seeing or sensing another event. So perhaps this is why none of the above theories can capture what we mean by causation: it is just a basic feature of the universe, unable to be broken down anymore.

Causal Dispositions

But even if this is the case, we can still examine causation and describe it. The idea of dispositions is this: an object has certain hidden properties or powers that dispose it to behave a certain way. For example, an object that is elastic is disposed to "snap back", even if this effect never actually occurs. It is disposed to behave one way rather than another way. An object that is "elastic" is disposed to snap back, but not disposed to catch fire. An object that is "flammable" is disposed to catch fire, but not disposed to snap back. And so on. This seems to capture what we mean by causation better than any of the theories above.

Historically, empiricists have not embraced the dispositional theory of causation, because "dispositions" are ephemeral. They cannot be measured, observed, or quantified. You can observe and measure a property that an object actually has, such as mass, or charge. You can put numbers on them. But you can't do the same with dispositions because they don't even really exist yet, in a way. They are a propensity to behave a certain way, which is not a property that can be observed.

Yet, if this analysis of causation is plausible, then it is still correct, despite our inability to observe them.

Aristotelian Teleology

I. Not William Paley

To understand teleology, you first have to remove from your mind everything you may know about William Paley and the watchmaker, and anything relating to Paley such as Intelligent Design theory. The two versions of teleology are only etymologically related. With Paley, teleology is imposed from the outside, like a watchmaker who creates a watch. The parts of a watch have no inherent tendency to come together and function as a watch; the watchmaker imposes that order on them from outside. That is how Paley's teleology works. Aristotle's teleology is different: the teleology is located inside each thing. This cannot be emphasized enough. Every molecule of Paley must be purged from you mind before reading the rest of the article.

II. Four Causes

Aristotle's theory is that an explanation of a thing requires knowing four different aspects of it:

1. Where it came from: it's efficient cause
2. What it's made out of: it's material cause
3. Its shape and structure: it's formal cause
4. What it does: it's final cause

Consider a volcano. It's efficient cause is the pressurized magma that gave rise to it. It's material cause is the magma and rock that it is made out of. It's formal cause is the shape and structure: the tube leading from deep in the Earth to the surface. And it's final cause is what specific effect it has: releases pressurized magma from the Earth's crust. The final cause is also called the telos. The volcano aims, or points, at that specific effect, or telos.

III. Aiming at a Specific Effect

Unlike with Paley, final causality does not directly indicate a designer. The only thing involved in final causality is that any cause which produces an effect produces that one effect (or range of effects) specifically, rather than just any effect. The formula could be written as:

• X causes A, B, and C, but it aims at A specifically over B or C in virtue of its structure

The specific effect that it aims at is in virtue of its structure (it's material and formal causes). For example:

1. A volcano causes a magma eruption, pyroclastic flow, mudflows, bird migrations, and burnt trees, but its telos is the magma eruption. It aims at that specific effect over the others, due to its structure. The other effects are accidental. 
2. A heart causes the pumping of blood and thumping noises, but it aims at pumping of blood specifically in virtue of its form and structure; the thumping noises are accidental.
3. An electron orbits the nucleus of an atom, but never attaches itself to the nucleus itself. In virtue of its negative charge, it is directed towards that specific effect (as well as a few others).

IV. Designer?

Aristotle thought that final causes were just a brute fact of nature. Aquinas, in following Aristotle, thought otherwise and provided an argument for the existence of God: the Fifth Way. However, there is nothing about final causality per se that demands a designer, unlike William Paley's teleology.

V. Science Purges Formal and Final Causes

During the Enlightenment, philosophers such as Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, as well as scientists such as Galileo and Newton, decided that science would best be served by focusing only on what can be mathematically quantified. In Aristotelian terminology, this would be material and efficient causes: matter and motion. Formal and final causes were purged from the new scientific revolution, because they are not quantifiable. This new philosophy was called mechanism: there are no final causes; there is just matter pushing against other matter. Like the parts of a watch. Which brings us to...

VI. Teleology After the Purge

So now you can see where William Paley's teleology fits into the picture. Post-Enlightenment, the world consists of meaningless matter that doesn't do anything specific. It's like the parts of a watch. And like the parts of a watch, if there is any order, it must be imposed from outside the system. This is the polar opposite of Aristotle's teleology, who would say that the world is not like a watch and that teleology (final causality) is inherent in the universe.

Aristotle's Revenge

Eliminative Materialism

Eliminative materialism seeks to “eliminate” the mind entirely, by denying qualia, or intentionality (the ability of something to be about something other than itself), or propositional attitudes (belief that x, hope that x, desire that x, etc). This follows necessarily from the modern version of materialism, which denies Aristotelian formal and final causes and only embraces material and efficient causes. If everything is just particles and forces bumping around (just material and efficient causes), then on this view there can be no mind because there can be no intentionality (pointing to something beyond itself). So EM says that beliefs, desires, and so forth do not exist and will be replaced by neuroscientific concepts: “activation of sodium ions in xyz dendrites”, and so forth.

It is important to note that this theory does not say that “activation of sodium ions in dendrites” is the cause of beliefs and desires (which would be trivial), but that there are no such things as beliefs and desires and so forth, there is only the neuroscientific facts.

One problem with this is that it does not involve replacement of the mind with successor concepts, but rather just examples of inference, metonymy, and semantic shift. You can infer smoke from fire, but you have not replaced the smoke with fire. When Barak Obama speaks, you can refer to him as “Washington” (a metonym) but you have not replaced Obama with Washington.

EM theories of mind destroy reason and science, because both of those terms require intentionality and mind to function. Few materialists are eliminative materialists for this reason. However, if final and formal causes are rejected, then it is hard to see how there could be any other result than eliminative materialism. The mind, in pointing beyond itself as it does when it develops theories, and reasons, is an example of final causality.

Materialist Theory of Mind

The main materialist theories of mind state that the mind is a sort of software, running on the hardware of the brain. The program contains symbols that represent the world and are manipulated via algorithms. But there are many problems with this view.

1. Symbols: If everything is just particles bumping around, then nothing counts as a symbol unless some mind interprets it as such. Particles arranged in the form of a picture of the world can only count as a symbol of the world if some mind interprets it that way. Apart from an interpretive mind, the particles arranged in a picture of the world are just meaningless particles. Since the materialist account of the mind is that thought is a symbol in the software in the brain, but nothing material can be a symbol without an interpretive mind, then this theory loops back around to mind and is not successful in reducing mind to matter.

2. Algorithms: Similarly, nothing counts as a “program” or an “algorithm” unless some mind interprets it as such. I follow an algorithm to move around a desk, and a marble also rolls around a desk due to an earthquake, only I can be said to be following an algorithm. The marble, being unconscious, is not. For something to be a “program” requires a mind, then similarly this theory is similarly circular like above.

3. Representation: It is theorized that for something to be a symbol requires it to be associated with something for awhile. If A is constantly associated with B, then A comes to symbolize B. But the problem is that the causal chain from A to B extends beyond these two in both directions. The sunlight, hitting the snake, going to eyes, going into brain, brain event, a linked brain event, etc. It takes a mind to decide that A and B are the begin and end points. Thus, also circular.

4. Meaning: For the mind to process a logical deduction, the mind performs a calculation like a calculator. The calculator input takes 1 + 2 and then gives back the symbol 3. However, the accuracy of this entirely depends on someone interpreting the symbols to represent “1” and “+” and “2”. If we instead interpret the 1 symbol to actually mean “3”, and the 2 symbol to actually mean “4”, then the calculator will give nonsensical answers. I.e., without us around to interpret the symbols correctly, the calculator is not actually adding or subtracting or doing anything coherent at all. Similarly, materialism of the mind aims to have the logical thought process as an unconscious manipulation of symbols, but like the calculator, without a mind around to add (coherent) meaning to these symbols, the mind can’t be doing anything coherent at all. And once again, mind is needed to be brought in to explain mind, and the materialist reduction is unsuccessful.

Aristotelian Teleology

However, if formal and final causes exist in nature, then the above materialist theories of mind would not be a problem. If you have inherent tendency for things to point to something beyond themselves, then you could appeal to unconscious symbols, programs and so forth in nature to account for mind. If you have formal causes, then the intellect can contain these universal forms and give us knowledge about the world. The above theories would then be perfectly intelligible.

Dualism of the mind is a byproduct of the rejection of formal and final causes. Since the mind is the clearest case of these, it becomes necessary then to postulate another mysterious substance that is not material. If you want to avoid eliminative materialism but keep the mind, dualism follows necessarily. To avoid both, it is necessary to bring back formal and final causes.

The mind is where materialists dump everything that does not fit the mechanistic picture of the world (devoid of formal and final causes). This is why the mind will continue to resist materialist reduction. It is like cleaning a house by sweeping all the dirt in it under a single rug, and then claiming you are going to get rid of the rug in the same way.

Irreducible Teleology

1. Biology: Evolutionary biology is laden with teleological terminology: the heart is for pumping blood, the liver is for purifying blood, sex is pleasurable so that we procreate, etc. Since final causes are out, then these have to be eliminated some how. Philosophers of science have proposed a few ways of doing this.

One way is to simply reword them as efficient causes. “The heart’s purpose is to pump blood” really means “ancestors of this creature who had proto-hearts survived in greater numbers than their neighbors, passing along the genes for hearts, which became more complex over time because those who had more complex hearts survived in greater numbers... etc”.

This is a problem because it seeks to explain final causes as “really” just a kind of efficient cause. But final causes are not efficient causes, and so this is a pointless exercise, like trying to explain how an apple is really just a kind of orange. It also leads to absurdities. It suggests that we can’t know what something is for unless we know its evolutionary history. But consider swampman. Swampman was created when lightning struck a puddle of mud. He is physically identical to humans. In his case, though, we can’t say that his heart is for pumping blood because his heart did not evolve. We can’t say it does anything. This is clearly absurd.

John Searle says that reducing final causes to efficient causes is a pointless exercise, because evolution isn’t supposed to be about teleology at all. Teleology should not be reduced, but eliminated. So the above exercise in explaining teleology is really an exercise in eliminating it.

However, eliminating teleology is impossible. Eliminating it in one place just makes it pop up somewhere else. Even in John Searle’s own proposal, which is to eliminate teleology by saying that it is in our minds, where we assign a normative value to the causal process. But “assigning a normative value” is itself goal-directedness, or teleology, and so this has just shifted the location of teleology without getting rid of it.

Daniel Dennet says that the functions of bodily organs and so forth are not there intrinsically either, but instead of saying that it is in our minds, he says that it is the result of the “purposes” and “goals” of natural selection. But if he is serious, then he is embracing Aristotle’s final causes. If it is just a figure of speech, then it has no explanatory power at all.

What he might mean is what he calls the “intentional stance.” We act as if the burglar alarm “knows” we are home. We act as if the fire alarm “knows” there is a fire. Similarly, Dennet says, we act as if nature has unconscious goals or purposes. But if this is just in his own mind, then it has no explanatory power at all. If it’s something in reality, then he is talking about unconscious final causes (Aristotelian teleology) and thus he is abandoning his naturalism. If he says that our intentional stance derives from natural selection, but natural selection derives its intentionality from our mind, then he is going around in a circle. Dennet is ambiguous as to what he means, and this rhetorical sleight of hand is what gives his position any plausibility at all.

Finally, teleology is most often relocated to DNA, which consists of “blueprints” and “algorithms” and the like. Dawkins speaks of genes being “selfish”. Etc. But as above, in a world of just particles, nothing can count as a symbol unless some mind interprets it that way. Yet DNA contains blueprints for lifeforms, and so “points to” or “aims at” something beyond itself, even though there is no mind interpreting it that way. It is an unconscious symbol. This is Arisotle’s final causes. Removing this unconscious teleology from DNA strips it of all the explanatory power that it has in biology.

2. Non-organic cycles

There are certain causal chains that have significance that others do not. The causal chain that begins with a cat and ends with a certain brain state is significant in a way that the causal chain that begins with the fur of the cat and ends six inches in front of our eyes is not.

There is teleology in the water and rock cycles as well. Water evaporates, condensation occurs, rains happens, and the cycle starts again. Igneous rock forms, then metamorphic, which melts into magma, and the cycle begins again.

It won't do to frame these in efficient causes only. The magma may cause bird migrations. Sediment may block water flow to a region. Condensation may cause arthritis. But each of these things are inherently directed towards a specific effect that is in their nature. Condensation may be the efficient cause of arthritis, but it is in it's nature directed at the specific effect of causing rain. That is what it inherently points to.

3. Laws of Nature

The modern conception of the laws of nature are inherited from Hume. Since final causes (inherent powers) cannot be observed or empirically verified, therefore they either do not exist or we cannot know about them. So to say that X regularly causes Y is just to say that there is a law like regularity between the two, but no inherent or necessary connection. Science is in the business of uncovering these law-like regularities.

But this does not seem right. Science always talks about idealizations, like frictionless surfaces, that are never actually realized. Science extrapolates these from a few experiments. It seems to be in the business of uncovering the hidden powers of things, not just a law-like regularity. If it were finding law-like regularity, then it would have to observe multiple instances of this and infer via induction that it holds everywhere. But on a Humean account, since there are no inherent powers or final causes, induction becomes impossible to justify.

Some (otherwise non-theistic) philosophers of science agree with this view, which they call “new essentialism.” That there are inherent powers in things, directed towards specific effects. This is, of course, nothing less than Aristotelian final causality.