tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post4850870153167242883..comments2024-03-28T13:39:03.094-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Final causality and Aristotle’s Unmoved MoverEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24667634485939124292010-02-02T18:23:14.291-08:002010-02-02T18:23:14.291-08:00Thanks for your comment, Prof. Johnson. And thank...Thanks for your comment, Prof. Johnson. And thank you for writing your fine book <i>Aristotle on Teleology</i>. We are (no surprise) in disagreement about whether Aristotle's position can or should be taken in the direction Aquinas takes it, but we agree that the transition is not obvious or automatic in the way many seem to assume it is.Edward Feserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47364259362592020762010-02-02T17:57:56.454-08:002010-02-02T17:57:56.454-08:00I thought the article made some important and inte...I thought the article made some important and interesting distinctions that too often are elided or ignored in the campaign to unite Aristotle's philosophy with largely incompatible theological views, such as those of Platonism, Creationism, and Catholicism. Monte Johnson ucsd.academia.edu/MonteJohnsonMonte Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05864589932926759166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39407125891544767312009-11-19T20:30:48.687-08:002009-11-19T20:30:48.687-08:00Dr. Feser:
I'm not carping for more attentio...Dr. Feser: <br /><br />I'm not carping for more attention, since you do enough for us simply by posting what you do. I will look up the reference in Descartes I mean and that will help me understand better in light of your reply. <br /><br />Anon ("Groan."):<br /><br />Enitities do not need to fulfill their ends "perfectly," "without remainder," since final causality is not efficient causality. If indeterminacy of ends were an argument against teleology, then indeterminacy in science would be an argument against natural laws. Laws are real but not perfectly manifested in empirical observation. We grasp them by a metaphysical "leap" of the intellect; much the same holds for finality.<br /><br />Best,Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-60583895016008723032009-11-19T09:15:12.354-08:002009-11-19T09:15:12.354-08:00Groan.
You can dismiss the Problem of Evil, whe...Groan. <br /><br />You can dismiss the Problem of Evil, whether logical or evidential in its entirety (as you have repeatedly)--so, like black plagues, spanish influenza, great white sharks, etc--all part of Deus. So really for Feser's "A-T" tradition, the supposed Deus's supposed Justice is a non-issue (He's not, assuming He's there)<br /><br />But a problem remains with claiming causes are regular, ordered, showing a certain form, etc. An acorn may become an oak, and you might call that a final cause, following some type of natural template (now known as DNA). It might not become an oak, if a squirrel interferes. <br /><br />There may be order, even "intrinsic" of a sort, but you can't use Aristotle's primitive causality in any predictive or precise sense, as even the first empiricists well knew. A rose will be a rose, usually. An egg will usually result in a chicken, unless it's deformed (due to genetic or enviromental factor quite more complex than the Aristotle's causes). <br /><br />But on a macro scale (ie a Hurricane) there's no template. All the high-powered servers of the worlds cannot generally accurately predict the strength of a hurricane. They can estimate it, using stats, probabilities of various sorts--probability being a concept mostly foreign to the greeks. <br /><br />There are no forms, or final causes for many other phenomena. Say the stock market. With some perfect Aristotelian order (whether in terms of nature, or human existence), you should be able to predict the future. You can't.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76009574495700262562009-11-18T23:39:40.481-08:002009-11-18T23:39:40.481-08:00Thomas,
I like the Waterfield translation recentl...Thomas,<br /><br />I like the Waterfield translation recently reissued by Oxford, though it's always good to have some alternative around to compare.<br /><br />George,<br /><br />Well, the passage isn't saying that the divine is wisdom giving orders but that it is that for the sake of which wisdom gives orders. But like you, I'm happy to leave this where it is. No time!<br /><br />Anon 1,<br /><br />Groan. See the several posts on final causality I've written in recent weeks, if you're really interested in understanding why you are misunderstanding what it means to describe something as a final cause.<br /><br />Anon 2,<br /><br />Yes, the horror, the horror!<br /><br />Cogitator,<br /><br />Sorry, just mega-busy. Anyway, Descartes didn't deny that God put final causes into things, just that we could know them.Edward Feserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57653078943723417612009-11-18T07:09:23.938-08:002009-11-18T07:09:23.938-08:00Hooray! I iced yet another combox thread! It's...Hooray! I iced yet another combox thread! It's a knack I seem to have. ;)Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90350886153986539692009-11-16T17:58:59.257-08:002009-11-16T17:58:59.257-08:00Interesting as well is the repugnance both Aristot...Interesting as well is the repugnance both Aristotle and Hobbes had for a vacuum. A world suffused with "purposive" behavior ("Nature does nothing without a purpose," Aristotle) and one totally devoid of it (a la Hobesian mechanism), without God's intelligence, once again make for interesting parallels.Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-31876118316837272442009-11-15T20:20:25.100-08:002009-11-15T20:20:25.100-08:00In the penultimate paragraph you Dr. Feser notes t...In the penultimate paragraph you Dr. Feser notes the absence of "intentional" ends in the Unmoved Mover vis-a-vis the world. I find it interesting that Descartes espoused a similar view, namely, that God devises no explicit ends in the world. It seems that without a robust doctrine of finality as a natural reality <i>and</i> God as the benevolent perfection of that finality, there is only a hair's breadth between Aristotelian animism and Cartesian mechanism. <br /><br />Thoughts?Codgitator (Cadgertator)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00872093788960965392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39306573403153759062009-11-15T09:16:34.402-08:002009-11-15T09:16:34.402-08:00Oh Lord! Not sharks! Anything but sharks!Oh Lord! Not sharks! Anything but sharks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-995802656129859042009-11-15T09:04:00.588-08:002009-11-15T09:04:00.588-08:00And the intrinsic, Final Cause of a Hurricane, or ...And the intrinsic, Final Cause of a Hurricane, or black plague, a few million years of sharks, insects, dinosaurs? Why, that shows the Divine Intelligence is not under any obligation to like you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-66794668642218569162009-11-14T11:49:08.199-08:002009-11-14T11:49:08.199-08:00There can, in any event, be no doubt that he did t...<i>There can, in any event, be no doubt that he did think otherwise. As he says in the Eudemian Ethics: “The divine is not an ordering ruler, since he needs nothing, but rather is that for the sake of which wisdom gives orders”</i> <br /><br />Ed, this is what I’ve been trying to say all along, i.e., that “wisdom” is prior to things in nature as their ordering principle. I’m quite content to admit that Aristotle’s conception of the divinity does not exactly square with the Baltimore Catechism. I’ll leave it at that.George R.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-39114419086598292412009-11-14T02:57:56.682-08:002009-11-14T02:57:56.682-08:00Hi Edward,
just a quick question: which translati...Hi Edward,<br /><br />just a quick question: which translation of Aristotle's Physics would you recommend?<br /><br />ThomasThomashttp://www.degezelligstemanvan.nlnoreply@blogger.com