- StardustyPsyche
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@Jeremy Taylor
"Ficino,
I don't know why you keep saying you know little physics, as if SP did. If you have a high school understanding of physics then you know as much as is evident in SP's posts."
--Indeed, a mere high school understanding of physics is sufficient to show that the First Way fails as an argument for the necessity of a hierarchical first mover acting in the present moment to account for uniform linear motion.
Further, a mere high school understanding of physics is sufficient to show that the Second Way fails as an argument for the necessity of a hierarchical first mover acting in the present moment to account for existential inertia.
But by all means, please do show, on the merits, using specific logical argumentation, where my refutations of #7 and #8 are mistaken.
- bmiller
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino,
Whatever sustains the form/matter combination is the ultimate cause of the substance. I'd say that an argument from motion needs to start with the first principle of the motion. An argument from sustaining cause is fine but begins with different premises.
Aquinas starts with the observation that something is moving and works backward to the source. It is either moved directly due to the Unmoved Mover (natural motion) or indirectly via instruments (violent motion). In the case of natural movement, it ends up being due to the form of the material object. How would you propose to improve the argument?
Aristotle says "either by what engendered and made it light or heavy, or by what set loose the things that held it or prevented it." So he doesn't seem to envision a per se series there. The participial phrase can help Aq argue that all natural bodies are moved by another, but it doesn't supply support for an argument from a per se series
Right. Since those things are moved due to their form, they are moved directly and not by instruments. A stick being moved by a hand is not moving naturally but is part of a per se instrumental series.
Keep in mind that for a Thomist, it is irrelevant what people reading Aristotle today think Aristotle really meant. It is relevant what Aquinas has to say about it whether a further development or not.
I don't follow you; I didn't think I talked about the Third Way.
You mentioned "necessity vs. contingency" in relation to Feser's comments. He covered this distinction in Aquinas while discussing the Third Way if I remember correctly. Now he could have had footnotes referring to the DEE also, but I didn't notice if he did. Sorry for causing confusion.
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
I'm also puzzled what exactly Ficino thinks a (sometimes controversial or questionable) exegesis of the exact meaning of various passages in Aristotle's works adds to the discussion.
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Thread Starter- StardustyPsyche
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino
"As to the use Aquinas makes of Aristotle - I don't see reason to go along with his [or an earlier translator's] conversion of Aristotle's aorist verbals into present tense,"
--Yes, I agree, that isn't going to get you anywhere.
I think Jeremy was on the right track, go back to high school physics. Consider your average geeky high school science guy, you know, the kid who enters and wins science fairs, the kid who went to space camp, the kid who wants to work at NASA some day. That kind of high school kid today knows vastly more about how the universe works, about how physics works, than Aristotle or Aquinas ever even dreamed of. I'm with Jeremy on this, go with high school physics.
In high school physics you will learn things like F=ma, E=mcc, and the conservation of mass/energy. Every geeky high school kid knows that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and that the ancient idea that an object would naturally come to rest was just an old misunderstanding.. That kid will tell you, obviously, matter and energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed.
These guys here are right, poking around at the exact interpretations of the ancient Greek of Aristotle is not going to get you to any useful modern understandings. Apply basic high school physics to #7 and #8 on this thread. Once you do that you will realize A-T is nonsense and you will be able to see things much more clearly.
- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
Aristotle was dragged (by me? I'm forgetting now) into the discussion to show that even A-T metaphysics makes locomotion the primary motion. I quoted Istvan Bodnar and various passages that indicate that alteration and growth/decay occur only if something moves its location, either something internal to the substance or in its environment. I don't know of scholar who contest the primacy of locomotion among motions in Aristotle. Ditto Aquinas?
Anyway I agree that neither of those guys presents physics that we should use. Since some modern Thomists say that ancient physics are irrelevant, because they are only using A-T metaphysics, I think it's instructive to dig more deeply into the A-T background. But I don't think our approaches today stand or fall on what intersections there might be between A-T physics and A-T metaphysics.
- StardustyPsyche
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficoni
"Anyway I agree that neither of those guys presents physics that we should use. Since some modern Thomists say that ancient physics are irrelevant, because they are only using A-T metaphysics"
--I don't know an A-T guy who says that. Feser makes some very badly reasoned attempts to justify the observation of inertia by speculating that it is caused by god. A-T guys are continually bringing up physics in their arguments. Grod even made the laughable claim he is a mathematical physicist.
Aquinas begins the First Way by grounding his arguments in what is manifest and evident to the senses, which is the foundation of science, including physics.
Sure, one can make up any imaginary invisible speculative stuff one wishes, call it metaphysics, claim it somehow proves the point, and then label any counter arguments as catagory errors. In a sense they are, since my arguments in #7 and #8 are in the catagory of reality that is manifest and evident to our senses, and A-T arguments are in the catagory of fantasy somebody dreamed up in an armchair with eyes closed.
- ficino
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
Jeremy Taylor wrote:
I'm also puzzled what exactly Ficino thinks a (sometimes controversial or questionable) exegesis of the exact meaning of various passages in Aristotle's works adds to the discussion.
Jeremy, if you think that I have put forth controversial or questionable exegeses of Aristotle, I would appreciate your identifying the passages in question. If the matters are signficant, we could discuss them, perhaps on another thread so as not to derail this one.
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
My main point was why you were putting forth exegeses at all.
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Thread Starter- bmiller
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino,
I agree with Jeremy.
"As to the use Aquinas makes of Aristotle - I don't see reason to go along with his [or an earlier translator's] conversion of Aristotle's aorist verbals into present tense, because we don't know that a generator continually makes (present tense) light things light and heavy things heavy. He's not entitled to beg that premise; it needs to be established independently."
I think you are missing the point that Jeremy and I are making. It doesn't matter if Aristotle did not spell things out precisely in the way that Aquinas did. Aquinas was not trying to interpret Aristotle, but to describe the logical conclusion. Existing material objects do not move themselves. Therefore the Prime Mover must ultimately be responsible for the movement whether the movement is violent or natural, whether there are intermediate instrumental causes or the immediate cause of the Prime Mover sustaining the object's nature.
From the Summa Theologica 1.8.1
" I answer that, God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined to that wherein it acts immediately and touch it by its power; hence it is proved in Phys. vii that the thing moved and the mover must be joined together. Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect; as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. Now God causes this effect in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being; as light is caused in the air by the sun as long as the air remains illuminated. Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things since it is formal in respect of everything found in a thing, as was shown above (Question [7], Article [1]). Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly."
- bmiller
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Re: Stardusty Psyche's thread
@ficino,
Regarding intentio.
This may interest you.