Does Aristotle's Final Cause Make Sense?
[Despite what scientists and philosophers have believed since Descartes, Aristotelian] final causes are really neither so egregious nor so absurd as one might suppose. Of course, what has always been assumed to be wrong with them is that since a final (from the Latin, finis) cause connotes an end or goal or purpose, to introduce final causes into nature and to suggest that such causes are among the necessary conditions even of the purely physical changes that take place in nature, is to conceive of such changes as if they were comparable to the purposive actions of human beings. And that is patently absurd: the wind doesn't blow, nor does water flow down hill, nor does fire burn, not do physical bodies move, for a purpose. So enough of that!
Still, rather than being carried away by diatribes, let us look for a moment at the facts, so as to see not merely what Aristotle thought final causes are, but also how they function in an Aristotelian scheme of things....
[T]he moment we stop to reflect upon it, is it not obvious that the actions, influences, effects--call them what you will--of the various agencies and efficient causes that are operative in the natural world are always comparatively determinate, or, perhaps one should say, regular? Thus we expect the action of the sun's ray on the stone [window] sill to have the effect of warming the sill, not turning it blue, or of chipping it into a thousand pieces, or of standing it on end, or of causing it to fly off and float about like a cloud.... In other words, since natural agents and efficient causes, as far as we can properly identify them and come to understand them, are found to have quite determinate and more or less predictable results, to that same extent we can also say that such forces and agencies are therefore ordered to their own appropriate consequences or achievements: it is these that they regularly tend to produce, and it is these that may thus be said to be their proper ends, though not, of course, in the sense of any deliberate or conscious purpose. Aristotelian final causes are no more than this: the regular and characteristic consequences or results that are correlated with the characteristic actions of the various agents and efficient causes that operate in the natural world.
Of course, if the agent or efficient cause from which a certain action proceeds should happen to be a human being, or, more precisely, an intelligent being, then clearly the final cause might well be the purpose, goal, and, in this sense, the end of that intelligent being who initiated the action.
--Henry B. Veatch, Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation
Postscript: Anyone who doubts the point might well ask himself what it would mean to do science if no final causes existed. What would there be to investigate? Aren't Aristotelian final causes one of the necessary presuppositions of science?
I don't think it's a good idea to look at what Aristotle said or wrote with respect to we now regard as classical physics. As I understand, he posited two kinds of motion, one on earth and one for the heavens (sky). On earth he thought things didn't move unless you pushed them, so the natural state was to be at rest or to move down towards the earth. Eighteen centuries later, Galileo (and Newton) convinced most people (but not the Catholic Church) that the natural state is motion at a constant velocity in a straight line. On the heavens, Aristtotle thought the natural state was movement in circles, circles being a "perfect" form and the earth was at the center of those circles.
ReplyDeleteI don't quite see how these "final causes" (ends, telos) are needed to explain what the physical sciences (physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy) investigate. In a sense, astronomy and physics are looking to understand how the universe works, theorizing on how it all started (Big Bang) and how it may all end (Big Freeze or something like that).
I think the relationship between acorn and oak is pretty obvious, and "final cause" is helpful in understanding what goes on. By nature the acorn has it in itself to become an oak under typical circumstances. What I posted does not imply that Veatch or I think that we haven't learned quite a bit since Aristotle's time. But let's keep the baby as we drain the bath.
DeleteBut then we're talking about biological entities. An acorn, albeit at the mercy of wind, squirrels and other things, can grow and sprout. A pebble, even if subject to wind and the environment cannot of course turn itself into a boulder. I don't recall if the example of a piece of wood being made into a table or some other object is mentioned specifically by Aristotle or was used by someone trying to explain "final causes" even in inanimate objects, but it's hard to argue that a particular tree is "destined" to become a desk rather than being consumed in a fireplace.
DeleteSo in biology we do try to understand how an acorn becomes an oak, or a tadpole into a frog, and why an oak drops so many acorns, or a frog lay so many eggs, but I still see that as trying to understand how the universe works, whether these entities have "final causes" or not.
I agree with this essentially. But notice that an acorn, no matter the circumstances, will not grow into a squirrel or a book. A stone has in its nature the potential to be ground into tiny bits if acted on suitably. Something else may not have that nature. There's nothing in Aristotle to suggest that he thought that inanimate things were essentially like animate things, but that doesn't make "final cause" a poor way to look at things. Each thing has a nature that includes potentialities that may never be actualized. I don't read ancient Greek, but I don't believe Aristotle spoke about things being "destined" to change into something else, only they had the potential for a particular kind of change in virtue of their natures.
DeleteDo you read modern Greek? Seriously, though, your mention of ancient Greek reminded me that I had transcribed the Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 edition article on Aristotle (which you can find here https://www.freedomcircle.com/pedia/aristotle ) and which does have some ancient Greek terms throughout. The interesting part, with respect to this blog, is that it attempts to describe Aristotle's interpretation of God, saying it's one of the three irreducible kinds of substances (the other two being Nature and Man) and that "He is the efficient only as the final cause of nature" (not quite sure how to interpret that).
DeleteBoth are Greek to me. Aristotle thought there had to exist an extra-natural pure actuality to continually actualize the potentialities of natural things. But there not be such a thing. As a philosopher friend pointed out, if as Aristotle believed, nature had no beginning (time is inside the universe, not vice versa), then no "first cause" or "prime mover" is required. Moreover, we have been given no reason to think that things in the natural world could not provide the efficient causes to actualize the potentialities of other things. My friend also points out that we could add Newtonian inertia to the Aristotle's picture and proceed from there.
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