Wednesday, October 15, 2008
From 10/15: Thought Thinking Itself
On Wednesday, we considered a wide variety of topics: from the order of nature to the importance of philosophical wonder to the alleged necessity of the unmoved mover. For Aristotle, of course, all of these topics center around the question of Being, the most fundamental of all questions. Since all of us are instilled with a desire to know, let's keep the questioning going.
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I think it's interesting that Aristotle, despite being so different from Plato in many respects, didn't exactly abandon Plato's theory of Forms. He transforms the concept of form into something much more tangible by saying the form of something exists within the thing itself, not separately. In this sense, Aristotle puts a materialistic spin on the idealistic tendencies of Plato. Then again, Aristotle's ideas on motion and the unmoved mover would have one believe that perhaps he did not disagree all that much with the basic principles of Plato's approach. It makes sense that everything is in a constant state of change and movement, but ultimately, isn't the ultimate goal of everything rest or permanence? Our way of achieving this permanence is by subscribing to these higher forms, that exist beyond any rational sense, and are eternal. I think that Aristotle's god (the unmoved mover) is sort of applicable in modern times because, being that it is unmoved, it would have to be unaffected by our natural world. Thus, it would seem that acts of nature are not really acts of god, but random acts that are simply following a natural course.
I like the thought that philosophy is the highest thing for Aristotle. It seems like such a simple statement to defend being a philosopher, yet Aristotle was a science man too. He never really defends being a scientist, although he justifies studying it for the understanding of nature. I think it is awesome that Aristotle flat out shows that philosophy is the highest because I think it shows how philosophy has a role in everything. I also liked the idea of the unmoved mover, especially the idea of thought thinking itself has really left me intrigued. It is such a circular idea, yet it made sense when we talked about it in class yesterday. The essence of things performing an action of itself is mind-boggling. It makes me wonder what first sparked the thought too. Moreover, what made it starting thinking? For something to be a thought, doesn’t it have to come from somewhere?
The idea of potentiality and actuality is both confusing and makes perfect sense (how’s that for Aristotelian logic). On the one hand, it seems obvious that there is a state of potentiality and actuality in every earthly thing because there is always the distinction between what it is (or was) and what it is to become when it is fully realized in its most natural or perfect form. What is confusing is what that most perfect and “actual” form actually is. For example, all people are some what in a state of potentiality because they are always aging and progressing forward in some sense. Does that mean that our most actual form is death? Or do we arrive at our most actual from at some point in the prime of our life and then spend the rest of our life attempting to hold onto it? Or is our most actual form whatever we were “meant to do” on this earth (ie doctor, lawyer, etc) and until we reach that goal we are still potential? Or is the most fully actualized man the philosopher and those men who never reach the level of philosophy are bound to remain potential for the rest of their lives? It seems this might be Aristotle’s answer with the unmoved-mover and his assertion that philosophy is man functioning at his highest.
Aristotle, although confusing at times, opens a new door in philosophy. While talking about the Metaphysics during class I was really interested in the idea of the unmoved mover. For Aristotle to have written something like this centuries ago was extremely radical. I doubt many of the average people could understand this concept or even would have wanted to understand it, the unmoved mover could easily have been seen as blasphemous. But here we are today with this concept still teaching us. In the Physics Aristotle makes it a point to mention that he believes there is no coincidence. Nothing in this world happens without reason, there is always some underlying cause to every act in nature. For example, a seed falls out of a tree so it can hit the ground and sprout a new tree. Although the seed is going to land in a random spot, the reason it fell was so it could sprout a new tree. And the idea of the unmoved mover just reinforces this concept. This guardian of the universe is the one responsible for everything, Aristotle says. Much like the monotheistic faiths of today the unmoved mover was seen as divine and necessary for the universe. The unmoved mover must exist for time and motion are eternal, and you need something to keep things in motion. While at the same time you have to be watching over all nature, so you can't be moving anywhere yourself. Thus we get the concept of the unmoved mover. And in my opinion, the identity of the unmoved mover is earth itself. Although it's always in orbit with the sun it never leaves this orbit, and as it spins on its axis it creates all the conditions we see today. I don't believe that nature is on the end of someone's puppet strings, I think that it just goes with the flow, continually moving around the same place. And at the same time, it is continually changing itself on its own as the unmoved mover.
I think one of the most interesting things we talked about in our last class was the idea of potentiality and actuality. We discussed how being can be described in four ways, and the potentiality and actuality description I though was a great observation. It is true that some things have the potential, and I think we determined this to be matter, to be affected. Since everything is in constant motion (thanks to the Unmoved Mover), things have actuality, which is when something is in the actual process of affecting something, or being affected itself. There are not many examples for when this is not possible, because everything has potential to be affected, there is no doubt about that, and there always has to be something to do the affecting or be the affected, and I think that this was a very keen observation by Aristotle. I hope I was not the only one who felt this, but amidst all of Aristotle’s tough language, I really grasped this idea, and the clarification in class really allowed me to grab on to it and take how not only how “being” is actuality and potentiality, because that is what our lives actually are, just daily potential to affect others, and actuality to be affected by, but it is also form & matter, true & false, and substance as well. Combined altogether, it seems that Aristotle accurately described what it is at the basic level to “be”.
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