Revision:Aristotle

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Contrast between Plato

Plato believed that empirical knowledge is merely opinion and that it is unreliable since the world is in a contast state of flux. He also believed that the soul was separate to the body and could accesss the forms to gain true knowledge.

However Aristotle rejected this view as he did not believe that there were 2 different realms and refused to accept that true knowledge does not belong in the empirical world. Aristotle believed that ‘form’ was not an ideal, but found within the item itself. The form is its structure and characteristics and can be perceived using the senses.

Rather he proposed the following:

The Four Causes

Unlike Plato Aristotle embraced the visible world of change and motion and sought all his life to describe the principles which bring about change and motion. He therefore became the first major thinker to base his thought and science entirely on the idea that everything that moves or changes is caused to move or change by some other thing.

Material Cause

What the object is made of. The material cause of a statue would be gold or bronze, for a chair it would be wood. Material is not enough on its own to make the object what it is. We cannot understand a great painting just by knowing the colored paints and canvas used. It asks the question: What is it made of? (e.g Clay is the material cause of a bowl)

Efficient Cause

The means or agency by which a thing comes into existence (e.g a potter is the efficient cause of a bowl)

Formal Cause

The pattern, model or structure upon which a thing is made (e.g the formal cause of a bowl is a bowl shape)

Final Cause

The goal or telos of a thing (e.g holding food is the final cause of the bowl). This is the most important aspect of Aristotle’s thinking. This shows that his thought is consistently teleological as everything is always moving or changing and has a telos

The Soul

The soul, for Aristotle, is the ‘principle of living things’- but it is not separate substance as Plato considered it to be. Soul is the ‘form’ of matter which means that it is what moulds or crafts matter. It also gives the body it's form, its characteristics. Form and Matter are not two separate things which mixed together make a living organism. Soul and matter together are one

HOWEVER it is important to note that Aristotle also believed that there isn’t a definition of the soul. This is because Aristotle considers it absurd to give a general definition (unlike Plato). To talk about a soul is to investigate what the form of a thing is. This form is defined in terms of its purpose. Soul has more to do with the powers that a thing has than with any separate essence.

Hierarchy of the soul

Aristotle believed that there was a hierarchy of types of soul:

• Plants- Have a vegetative type of soul with powers of nutrition, growth e.t.c
• Animals- Have a soul with the capacity for appetite and so they have feelings and desires
• Humans- Have a soul with the power of reason. The soul gives people the ability to develop intellects and ethical characters

Aristotle considered that by investingating these powers and that to which they are aimed, we would have an insight into human nature

The Prime Mover

Aristotle considered that all powers, even basic ones like eating and reproduction, are signs of the divine. The discovery of order seemed so marvellous that it pointed to God- but God does not produce anything. The universe is not the work of a divine craftsman. Nevertheless, the universe is ordered and full of purpose- but this order does not come from a designer. God may, in some uncertain and unclear sense, be the cause of all things and all basic principles. In coming to know things in the created world, we come to understand God.

Aristotle's God (The Demiurge)

God, for Aristotle, is the PRIME MOVER. Needed above all to create movement in the heavenly spheres (these circled the earth which was at the centre of the universe). Aristotle’s God is not personal (hence a demiurge) and is beyond the world. God does not DO anything- Aristotle’s god neither creates nor sustains. However, God is a cause, acting as the great attractor God Attracts all things and thus has a causal influence- albeit without doing anything!

Strengths

• Aristotle’s theory can be defended because it is derived from reflection on his studies of the natural world. This could be seen as a strength of Aristotle’s Four Causes compared with Plato’s Forms, which are not observable in the physical world.
• The Four Causes can be readily applied to things that exist within the world as a way of explaining them.

Criticisms

• Aristotle criticises Plato for having no concrete evidence to back up his theories. Aristotle, however, has no concrete evidence that the material world is the source of knowledge. Some might claim that religion and faith are the source of truth.

• Perhaps things don’t exit for a reason, some things happen by chance.

• Camus and Sartre thought it was ridiculous to suppose that the universe had any meaning or purpose. (Sartre said the universe was ‘gratuitous’)Therefore there was no final cause for the universe.

• It is very difficult to see how reason could exist post mortem if the body and soul no longer exist.

• Aristotle states that humans are the only animal with the faculty of reason. Many have argued that other animals have the ability to reason. E.g. recently an ape was photographed using a stick to gauge the depth of water before it crossed a river.

• The causal relationship between the Prime Mover and the world is unclear.

• If the Prime Mover cannot interact with the world, then it is very different from the Judeao-Christian understanding of God

Comments

This is specifcally revision notes for the OCR Religious Studies philosophy part of the exam. However this can be used for other purposes as well.

This was created by Chrisateen