Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 46: Aristotle's Four Kinds of Causes

Transcript
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Now, what I attach to that is Aristotle's arguments for saying that end is a cause in the natural world, but we'll read into that when we get it. Don't forget to get into that yet. That first reading is enough, right? Reading 5. And very useful for understanding many things. Actual hearing. And in this reading, Aristotle is going to distinguish the kinds of causes, which is also a distinction of four basic senses of the word cause. Now, we could give a kind of common notion of cause. The Greek word for cause, idea, has a sense of being responsible. If we hold you responsible for something, that means that you are considered the cause of that, right? So, we could speak of a cause as what is responsible for the being or becoming of another. What is responsible for the being or becoming of another, not of itself. And, of course, the other here can be called the effect. And so, the effect, you could say, depends upon for its being or for its, what, becoming, right? Or if you want to, you could say, the cause is what is responsible for the existence, right? Or the coming into existence of another. Now, we say both of those words because something could be responsible for the coming to be, for the coming into existence of something. But once that thing is in existence, it can exist without the thing that brought into existence. So, the wooden share over there came into existence because of the carpenter. But it can be now without the carpenter. So, there's a little distinction there, right, between depending upon something for becoming or being. Now, it's possible, too, for something to depend upon something both for its being and its becoming. So, the wooden share over there wouldn't come to be without having some wood to begin with that. But it also depends for its being now upon the wood that is inside of it, right? Now, the first kind of cause that Aristotle talks about there, after that first paragraph, he talks about, you know, this importance for natural philosophy, but it's of more universal importance. The first kind of cause we could name matter. And this kind of cause is defined by two things. It's that from which something comes to be. But then he adds a second part, existing within it. That from which something comes to be, existing within it. Now, why is that second part there necessary in the definition? Well, as we saw in our study of matter and the contrary and lack of form and so on, one speaks of something as coming to be from its opposite tooth. So, the hard comes to be from the soft, right? And the wet from the dry. But the soft is not in the hard, right? So, the second part here separates matter from the, what? The lack or from the contrary, right? So, you need that second part. We also, to a less extent, we might say the chair came from the carpenter. But the carpenter, to the best of my knowledge, is not inside the chair. And so, that existing within it separates it from the, what? Mover or maker as well. And sometimes we even say that something comes to be from the hole, which it is a part. So, I might get a, well, to the used car lot there and get a part of the car I need. So, this part came from that car over there, right? And there, the part is said to come to be from the, what? Hole in a certain way, right? If I ripped a page out of the book, well, it came from the book, right? That's where the page came from. But the hole is not, of course, in the part, right? So, that second part of the definition, then, is necessary, right? To separate matter, especially from the contrary or the lack of form. But it also separates it from the mover or maker, or even from the hole. Now, the examples that Aristotle uses in describing this first kind of cause are taken from artificial things rather than from natural things, huh? The bronze of the statue, right? And silver of the cup, right? Or glass of the glass, right? Okay? Or wood of the chair, like in my example, right? Now, Aristotle's choice of examples is always significant, huh? As De Kahnik used to say, you know, if a modern atonist gave examples, I wouldn't look for any reason for the significance and examples, but Aristotle, you do. Why does he take examples from artificial things here rather than from natural things, huh? Since we make them, we see the matter. Yeah, so they're more known, in a sense, to us, on the artificial things, huh? And the natural things. Okay. So that's the first kind of cause. So you should know the name of that cause and know the definition of that cause and then, you know, to give examples, right? So the chemists are right. Hydrogen and oxygen, right? Are the matter of water. That's less known to us, obviously, than the examples that he gives there from artificial things, huh? The chemists and the gainer of these? Well, like metal, let's say, instead of bronze, right? Oh, sure, okay. Okay. Or if I say this is an oak desk, you know, and I say, well, a wooden desk, right? We're still talking about the same kind of cause. Yeah, that's true. Suppose if you said that, suppose you had that water came from hydrogen and oxygen, but it was a substantial change, so that hydrogen and oxygen weren't really in the water. Yeah. Then we composed of them as a matter, is it? So that would distinguish it, too. It's from them, but not in them. Yeah, yeah. Just like when you said a sphere comes to be from a cube, you know, a sphere of clay from a cube of clay, well, the cube shape is no longer there when the sphere is there. Now, the second kind of cause we can call the form, huh? Okay? And the Greek word there, which I translated this text here, account, is logos, right? So you could say it's the account or the, what, definition, really, of what was to be, huh? The account or the definition, if you want to use it. The definition of what was to be. Well, notice the contrast there, looking back to matter, which says of what was to be, huh? What was to be from the wood was, let's say, a chair, right? Now, if you define a chair, you do so more by its form than by its matter, right? Well, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say, let's say So we might define this thing as, what is this? Let's say it's a chair, and that thing over there, what is it? It's a chair, even though this is made out of metal and this is made out of wood, right? And this desk or table, we call this a table rather than a chair, even though it may have the same matter, generically at least, as that desk, as that chair over there, right? So it's the idea that the form, in a way, completes the definition of what the thing was. And that's also something like that, why Aristotle, when he talks about nature as being both matter and form, well, by matter you have a natural thing, only an ability. By form you have a natural thing, actual, so nature is more form than matter. Now, notice the example that he gives there, right? What's significant about that example? Two towards one of the octave, the diapason in Greek. Where did that example come from? On Pythagoras. Yeah, it was Pythagoras who discovered that there were simple numerical ratios underlying harmonious sounds. You saw that thing by Ratti there, it had some of the other ratios in there? Was it the fifth was, what, three to two, I guess? Yeah. And so on. So, it's a, what, compliment, you might say, to what? Pythagoras, right? Who introduced the second kind of cause. He kind of stands out as odd compared to Thales and Anaximenes and the poets who spoke of Mother Earth or water or air. He says, talk about two to one, right? Now, going back, though, to the beginning of this, he says, another way, the form and the model. We just call it form period, but notice it says the form and the model. Well, what is the distinction here between form and model? The form is intrinsic to the thing in which it is a form, right? The model is like an extrinsic form that you imitate, right? Or copy, right? So, in my father's factory, they made farm wagons, huh? And you get an order from the office, the number 500 wagons, whatever the wagon was called. And the men who were experienced down there, they have these patterns on the wall, right? You take these patterns off and you copy something. According to that, right, make it in the shape of that pattern. So, it's an extrinsic, right? Okay? Thing that you are, what? In a way, imitating, huh? Making something like that, huh? If I copy that ink in or something, right? You know, okay. ...model with clothing a lot, right? But the woman who models the dress, right? So I like that, the buyer says, you know, but you're probably not going to get the dress that she's wearing. You're going to get a dress that is, what? Like the one that she's drawing, right? But that's kind of the pattern we're going to imitate in making other dresses. So that's considered to be a cause in the second sense, right? But there's a distinction there between the intrinsic form and the exterior one that you're imitating or copying in a sense, huh? Okay? See that? So man learns by imitation, right, huh? So we tend to imitate our teachers or imitate our parents and so on, right? Grandchildren imitate their parents, huh? Children imitate, you know, and you see something like what the parents say, you know exactly like what they say, something like it, right? Okay? So in a sense, the form of their speech is the form of the parent's speech and the way is a cause of the, what, form of the child's speech because they're imitating the way of speaking and the accent and so on. So this is the second kind of cause he talks about, right? And it's the significance of the example there. In some ways it's not as easy an example to understand as the ones under the first one, but it's kind of a tribute there to what? Pythagoras, right? And when Aristotle talks about the four kinds of causes in the first book of wisdom, it's primarily Pythagoras and Plato who talk about form. So, of course, in mathematics, this is the only kind of cause you really have is a formal cause in a strict sense. Now, the third kind of cause is called the mover or maker. I usually just say the mover. And notice the definition he gives now. Whence the first beginning of change or rest. He adds that, right? Whence first there is a beginning of change or rest. Whence first there is a beginning or rest. And that's why he says those words there, he might say. Whence first there is a beginning of motion or rest. Whence first there is a beginning of motion or rest, right? Well, you could say that in the wood becoming a chair, it begins with wood, doesn't it? But the wood is just going to sit there without the carpenter, isn't it? So, once first the wood starts to get molded into a chair, it's due to the carpenter, right? So, that word first, perhaps, is not simply, what? Repeating what the word beginning means, huh? But it's bringing out, right? What's necessary to separate, in a sense, the motion from the matter, huh? Because change begins with something, with some matter that can be, what? Formed or molded in some way or pushed around or something, right? But it's the mover, the maker, who initiates, huh? The change in the matter, or the matter is becoming something, huh? You know, it's like in the definition of nature. Nature is defined as a beginning and cause of motion and of rest, right? In that which it is, first as such and not by happening. So, it's due to the nature of the tree and the nature of man and the nature of the cat and so on. Not only that they grow, for example, but that they stop growing at a certain age, right? It's natural for his grandchildren to grow, right, huh? Okay? The more they grow, the more they eat, the more they eat, the more they grow, is what I always say. But it's also natural for them to stop growing at a certain, what, time, certain height, huh? Okay? And it's natural for different, you know, kinds of animals and plants to stop at different heights, huh? So when you get a pet, tiger, right, they grow too big before they stop growing, right? Apart from the eating problem and to feed the darn thing. But the kitchen wouldn't naturally get that tall. He stopped before he gets as big as a tiger, right? A little safer in the house, that way. It's hard enough with Tabitha, you know. Tabitha, try to put her downstairs, you know, safekeeping in the evening, and she, you know, she'd give you a rough time. They'd say, Marcus, you'll put her down. But Mop is much more docile. You know, the one that's there now, she's docile, the way downstairs. Now, what's significant about the examples here? He says, As the advisor is a cause and the father of the child, huh? Here's two examples, and one is drawn from nature, the father of the child, right? And the other is taken from reason. The advisor is a cause, right? Okay? And these are the two movers or makers that are, what, clear to us in our experience, huh? And God is, what, sort of hidden, right? Okay? Remember that division we had of the order, you know, in comparison to reason? And we talked about the order not made by reason, and the order that stood out that's not made by reason is the one made by nature. And then we had the orders made by, what, reason, in its own acts and in the acts of the will and the exterior matter. Remember that? But no, just touching upon, there's been two main, what, causes, huh? In our experience, huh? Reason and, what, nature. So that's very significant, huh? And notice, secondly, is it significant that he takes the father as an example here, rather than the mother, huh? Yeah, because the mother is associated with the cause called matter, right? So the oldest opinion, kind of, of the first matter was it's mother earth, right? And in Latin, if you look in the dictionary, under materia, the word for matter, they'll refer you back to mater, huh? The mother, right? Yeah. And you could say that most of the matter of the baby, right, when you have when the baby's born, those nine months, it comes from the mother, right, huh? Because when the father gets through with his role, there's not much to show for it. And even after the child is born, the mother, by nature, has milk, right? Again, to feed the baby, right? So the mother is more a cause in the sense of matter, right? And notice, this looks back to Heraclitus, huh? Heraclitus is the man who emphasized motion and change in the world around us. And that's perhaps the reason why he guessed fire is the beginning of things, huh? Because he was thinking of the cause of motion. But he also spoke of war is the, what, father of all things, right? He didn't say mother of all things, the father of all things. And that use of the word father there is a sign that he's thinking of another, what, kind of cause, huh? Than matter, right? And this is the reason also why we call God a father rather than a mother, right? Because God is a cause in the sense of the mover or the maker. But he's not a cause in the sense of matter, right? So, notice all the significance, then, in these two what? Examples, right? One is taken from reason and the other from nature, the two main movers or makers, right? When I look around this room, most of what I see is artificial, made by art and therefore by human reason, right? It's just your faces and hands, more or less, that are natural, right? If I went for a walk in the woods, most of what I see would be natural, except for somebody's beer can or something, right? Okay? But that's what you see around you for the most part, right? Either natural or artificial things, huh? And that ties the things made by nature and the things made by art or by reason, huh? And so he gives an example of each of those here, right? Okay? But then the particular significance of this giving in the second, the example of the, what, father rather than the mother, right? And he says, then, in general, the one making of the thing made, so we put the maker under this kind of cause, huh? A mover or a maker. And the one bringing about the change of the thing, what? Changed, huh? So it's the third kind of cause, huh? Is it significant at all that his examples are, like, persons? If I was your father and it says the one making of the one making? I suppose that's more known, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. Now finally comes the fourth kind of cause, which is called the end, huh? And the definition of end is that for the sake of which, huh? Now if you wanted to, you can add, but it's really not necessary, you can say that for the sake of which something is or is done, right? Okay? But that's just kind of breaking it down, right, huh? So the chair is for the sake of sitting, right? My walking is for the sake of my health or whatever it might be, okay? So the definition of end, then, is that for the sake of which. Okay? Now, it kind of shows here, more at length, that in fact, end is a cause. This is a more obscure cause, in a way, than the other causes, huh? So after he gives the example of his health of walking around, for an account of what does he walk around, huh? Why does he take exercise every day, right? In order that he may be, what? Healthy, we would say, right? And speaking thus, we, now this is not the editorial we, this is not we, the Greek natural philosophers, but we, meaning men in general, right? We think that we have rendered the cause, right? Okay? Now, he goes on to point out that one can consider not only the very last thing in end, but you can have many ends in a certain, what, order, right? And he gives an example here from medicine, huh? Being the son of a medical doctor, you know. And whatever things he says, another moving come to be in the middle for the end, as thinning or purgation or drugs or tools. Suppose I had a tool for making, what, a drug or a medicine, right? Then you can say that the drug or the medicine is the end of the, what, tool. But I take the drug or the medicine for the sake of, what, the purgation of my body, right? Okay? So eliminate certain things, right? And therefore purgation could be said to be the end of the, what, drugs or medicine. And the purgation is for the sake of thinning me down to the size I should be. Okay? For all of these are for the sake of the end, but they differ, in my example, from each other, as some being deeds, right, and others being tools and so on, right? Okay? So suppose I have a headache, right? And so I want to take some aspirin to get rid of my headache. I don't have any aspirin. Well, then I want to go to the drugstore so I can buy headache, right? I mean, buy aspirin, right? So what's the end here? Is it getting rid of my headache? Or is it taking aspirin? Or is it getting aspirin? Or is it walking to the drugstore? What is it? See? Well, you could say my walking to the drugstore is for the sake of buying aspirin, right? My buying aspirin is for the sake of what? Taking it. My taking is for the sake of getting rid of my headache. Maybe that's for the sake of something further, too, right? So you could have a series of end, right? Now, though the last of them would be most of all the end, you could still speak of the other ones as being what? Ends, right? Okay? So Thomas Aquinas says, I studied the body so I can, what, understand the soul. I studied the soul so I can study the angels. And I studied the angels so I can study God. That's it. So what's the end, huh? Well, the ultimate in there is to know God, right? But he's studying the body, nevertheless, for the sake of knowing the soul. And he's studying the soul for the sake of understanding the angels. And he's studying the angels for the sake of understanding God, huh? So there's more than one in there. So it's not only the last thing that could be said to be an end, huh? Okay? Now, notice that same thing could be said in your guide to other causes, huh? You see? What's moving the page there, right? Is it the folder or is it my hand? See? Well, you could say in a way both, right? You see? It's maybe more my hand than the folder, but the folder is, in some sense, the mover of the paper is pushing across the table. You see that? In the same way with matter, you might say that the paragraph is made out of what? Sentences, right? And the sentences out of words, and the words out of syllables, and the syllables out of letters, right? So again, you, they're all matter, but in a certain, what, order, right? Okay, Aristotle goes on, you know, we don't have here to talk more explicitly about that, right? But you can see the same thing in the other causes as here, huh? Okay? The distinction between end and object? Well, object is not as clearly naming a kind of cause as end is, right? Okay. I was just reading something with St. Thomas, and that thing with commentary on Hebrews and the definition of faith, and then he speaks about theological virtue, and he speaks about the, he uses both words, end and object, as being God. I was wondering why he made the distinction and used both terms, if he was, if that was significant. Yeah, there is a distinction there, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the basic way to distinguish, is what, object is just more obscure? Is that more? Well, it doesn't, is, well, I would think it doesn't name a kind of cause explicitly, right? Okay. Um, if you, if you look in the, in the fifth book of wisdom, you'll see the different meanings of the word end or limit, right? Oh. And the object, in a way, is a limit, too, huh? Okay. Yeah. Usually what we talk about objects in, in Aristotle is when you talk about the powers or abilities of the soul, right? And we distinguish the powers of the soul by their acts, and the acts by their, what, objects, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So because color and sound are not the same thing, then seeing color is not the same thing as, I mean, sensing color is not the same thing as sensing sound, right? Yeah. And therefore the ability to sense color is not the same as the ability to sense sound, right? Mm-hmm. So the object there. Would you say, you know, that color is the inner purpose of the eye? Mm-hmm. So the object there. Would you say, you know, that color is not the same thing as the Well, I feel a little more natural saying to see is the inner purpose of the eye, right? Yeah, that's what they actually say. But to specify what seeing is, I'd have to say it's sensing color, right? Right, right, right. So object and end don't, you know, might run together in some way, right? Like in the theological virtues, right? The object of theological virtues is God, and he's also our end, right? Right. But the fact that the object is the end doesn't mean that the word object didn't mean the same thing. Right, right. They don't necessarily mean the same thing. So it seemed to be more natural to say that seeing is the inner purpose of the eye than to say color is the inner purpose of the eye. Right. See? But you have to specify, you know, what seeing is using color, right? Yeah. It sounds like the end is more like the, having to do with a verb or something like that. You have to add an object, sort of thing or something. Well, in the fifth book of wisdom, right, the first meaning of end or limit is in quantity, right? You speak of this is the end of the table, right? Okay. And then you speak of what? The end of emotion, right? And then you speak of the end of intention, and that's really the sense of end we have in mind here, huh? That for the sake of which, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? But you've got to be careful with that word end, and, you know, as I say to the students, what, happiness is the end of life, the end of life is death. Therefore, happiness is death, right? See? Whereas Taup points out that, you know, in the Nicomachean Ethics, you have two different meanings here of end. And then I mentioned how, when we take up the question later on, does nature act for an end? One student was arguing against us, saying that if nature acted for an end, all things would come to an end. But things keep on going. Nature acted for an end. Well, he's really kind of, you know, misunderstanding what sense of end we have in mind when we say nature acts for an end. And then I was mentioning how kind of an interesting thing there where the student was talking about the importance of the question, you know? Why is it important to consider whether nature acts for an end? And, you know, if nature acted for an end, you know, life would be rather pessimistic, right? And we're all here for a die. They're kind of mixing up the two sentences together, right? And he says, the causes, then, are perhaps said in so many ways. And Thomas comments in that line, well, within each one of these kinds of causes, you can make certain distinctions, right? That's what he's kind of hinting at there, right? Like we were saying, for example, within the end, or even within the mover, or within the matter, you can have before and after there, right? Okay? And then there are other distinctions he'll make, you know, between per se and prejudice and so on. We'll talk maybe about those later on in a little bit. Okay. Now, having distinguished the four kinds of causes, we might ask ourselves, is there a reason for the order in which Aristotle has distinguished these? Yeah. That's kind of a hint of that, in the fact that when he gets to the end, he stops to manifest that it really is a cause, as if we were less manifested as a cause. Now, I think you could say two things about this order. One is that, to a large extent, this is the historic order, right? In which these causes come to light. Now, if you go back to the history that we saw of the fragments, the poets spoke of Mother Earth, and then mainly spoke of waters at the beginning of things and maximinas and air and so on. And they were looking for what kind of cause as the beginning of things. Yeah. Material cause, matter, right? And then comes in Pythagoras, right? And he introduces the kind of cause he's accustomed to in mathematics, namely the what form, right? And then with Heraclitus, you get a hint at the mover, when he says war is the father of all things, right? Maybe his choice of fire as the matter was he's kind of thinking of fire as being the mover, too. So he's kind of doing that. But then when you get to Empedocles and Anaxagoras, you have the mover more separated, right, from the matter. And so for Empedocles, the matter is earth, air, fire, and water, mainly, and love and hate are the, what, movers, huh? Although sometimes he has love and hate getting mixed up with it. I don't like to hear it. But Anaxagoras is even more distinct because the mover, him, is the greater mind, and that's in no way a mixture of matter. Okay? And you can see in Empedocles, and we talked about numerical ratio in bone and flesh and blood, right? That he has three kinds of causes, right? He has a cause in the sense of matter, earth, air, fire, and water, which in a way comes from his predecessors. And then he adds to that what Agra saw, the numerical ratio, the second kind of cause, and then he has the third kind of cause, the mover, or make, right? Now Anaxagoras, huh? He's still dealing with those three kinds of causes, but Socrates, huh? You read Socrates in the Phaedo, for example, he got very enthusiastic when he first read Anaxagoras, right? But he thought that Anaxagoras would go on and talk about end or purpose once he had talked about a greater mind. Because the mind does what it does with something in mind, maybe some end or goal. But Anaxagoras didn't develop that, right? So then Socrates, right? And later on, Plato started to talk about the end of the good and so on. So Socrates and Plato and Aristotle introduced this fourth kind of cause, the end, huh? So to some extent, one could say this is the historic order, right? In which the four kinds of causes come into prominence and are spoken of, right? Okay? But perhaps more important is this other order of the more known to the less known. But also you can say it's perhaps the order in which reason can best be forced by truth itself, right? to say there are these four kinds of causes, huh? And I'm going to show this in a moment, huh? So this will exemplify something that's good about Greek philosophy. And that is that to some extent in Greek philosophy, and to a large extent, the historical order is also the order in which you can best learn these things. This is not true of the history of modern philosophy. I think the reason why it's true for the Greeks apart from the excellence of the Greeks is that they are the first philosophers. And so one naturally starts with what is more known to us and goes on to what is less known to us, huh? But after men, after philosophy has been around for centuries, right, a guy could begin just anywhere because he usually starts because he picks up a book on philosophy and whatever that philosopher or that author is talking about is where he begins. It could be anywhere. Or he takes Professor X's course, right, whatever Professor X is talking about is where he begins. And that, by no means, would necessarily be where he would actually begin. So, you can see that in my philosophy tend to begin where the guy before them began, right, or left off or something, right? So, to some extent, the historic order for the Greeks in which they thought corresponds more closely to the order in which we should actually learn these things. I'm going to try to show this here by forcing your mind. Now I just take a simple example of the word cat, right? I'm going to try