Dr S Connell. History of Philosophy Level 5.

Lecture 5: Aristotle on Nature and Change

From last time: Value of knowledge, especially when it serves no practical purpose.

The best knowledge, theoretical knowledge, is not instrumental to some other end than its
own acquisition: seeking (and acquiring) this is natural to us as intelligent animals.
We must seek to know about the structure and dynamic processes by which the world works
what it is made of and how it operates.
To do so must locate (1) the principles or elements and (2) the causes.

Thirteen Century University curriculum: Aristotles Organon, then: de Caelo (On the Heavens),
Physics (On Nature), Generation and Corruption (On Change), Meteorologica (The elements,
weather, comets etc.) i.e. Aristotles cosmology.

Todays lecture: giving you a backdrop to help situate more intricate details of Aristotles philosophy
and our place in the world, in particular our psychology.

A caveat: I will present some of the positions Aristotle settles on; I will not present the
process by which he comes to these the problem solving, the questioning, the empirical
observations and all the opposing positions he argues against along the way to these
tentative conclusions. (he is open to changing his mind and hasnt solved all the difficulties)

The cosmos meaning: order in Greece (where term cosmetics comes from). Cosmos is beauty.

The order god, heavens, stars, planets, moon, earth (and all sublunary phenomena).

Today I will talk about (starting from what is more familiar to us):

(1) Change: four types of change (GC, Ph.)

(2) Nature: the four causes (Ph.)
(3) The elements: transformation and locomotion (Meteor., Cael.)
(4) The fifth element and the heavenly bodies (Cael.)
(5) God (Metaph. XII)

Aristotles Physics: he joins the tradition of works On Nature. This was the title of many Pre-Socratic
treatises (e.g. Empedocles poem).

Nature = Phusis literally something that grows, sprouts; phusis is self-growth and self-motion.

The nature of a bed is wood: Antiphon points out that if you planted a bed and the rotting wood
acquired the power of sending up a shoot, it would not be a bed that would come up, but wood (Ph.
II.1, 193a12-13).

(1) Change: four types of change (GC, Ph.)

The problem of explaining change in ancient philosophy

Parmenides denied that we could KNOW about anything that was changing or changeable.

Can only know what is; what is is eternal and unchanging.

The world of the body and senses: ever changing, unknowable; opposites (light and night)

All thinkers after Parmenides have to explain how things do not come to be out of nothing:
that change is a rearrangement of what is already there (e.g. Empedocles: all the really exists
is earth, air, fire and water people, plants, stars etc. are temporary mixtures of these

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 elements; Democritus: all that really exists are atoms and void; everything else is made up of
these and temporary)

Aristotles Physics Book I: begins with survey of past views on the subject of nature and change:

Well, then, there must be either one principle of nature or more than one. And if only one,
it must be either unchanging, as Parmenides and Melissus say, or modifiable, as those who
study nature (hoi phusikoi) say, some declaring air to be the first principle, others water. If,
on the other hand, there are more principles than one, they must be either limited or
unlimited in number. And if limited, though more than one, they must be two or three or
four, or some other definite number (Physics I.2 184b15-20)

Aristotles rivals:
o What they got right: wishing to explain change while keeping something
fundamentally unchanged.
o Aristotle rejects the Eleatic idea that nature is rigidly unchanging it does not make
sense of the term which is about process and growth.
Change is patently obvious (185a14); it is clear from the senses by induction
(epagog).
o What they got wrong: having the wrong principles and causes in mind
E.g. Empedocles. Two sets of principles: material principles = 4 things: earth, air, fire and
water (Ph. 1.4); principles of change (or motion) = 2 things: Love and Strife [what brings
together, mixes and what tears apart, separates out] (Ph. 1.5).

Aristotles principles in Physics Book I: Three principles (Ph. 189b16) not elements and forces but a
conceptual scheme to make best sense of change -- various entities and properties can be slotted
into this scheme.

1. The substrate (which remains unchanged throughout the process); 2 and 3. The opposites
between which the change occurs. (E.g. Ph. V.1, 224b29-31). E.g. 1. Water in the kettle; 2.
Cold; 3. Hot.
Four ways in which a thing can change: quality, quantity, place and substance (Ph. 225a34,
226a24-5; 225a13-15)

Examples: (i) qualitative change: my cat, Whisper, warms up from being cold (Whisper is the
underlying substrate that remains what she is while cold exchanges for warm)

(ii) quantitative change: my other cat, Effy, becomes fat having been thin (Effy underlies; bigger
exchanges for smaller bodily bulk).

(iii) change in place: Whisper runs in through the catflap (Whisper underlies; location of garden
exchanges for location of kitchen; not as easy to see as opposites? Up and down; back and forth)

(iv) change in substance: Whisper came to be where there was no cat before. What underlies is
materials ready to become her body, supplied by the female animal (privation of form exchanges for
form; Ph. V.1, 225a12-19).

There is also agency or the source of the change (active and passive potentials must be present):

(i) external active cause our central heating system; flesh must be able to be warmed
(ii) Effys nutritive soul is active agent; food is passive (once it is dead)
(iii) Whispers locomotive soul is active agent; the ground is passive under her paws
(iv) The generative souls of both parents (which have active and passive potentials)

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 (2) The four causes (or explanations) and nature as a cause

Aristotles four causes emerge from a dissatisfaction with Pre-Socratic accounts

E.g. Empedocles: Why does an animal have a backbone?

Empedocles misspoke when he said that many things are present in animals because of how
things happened during generation for example, that the backbone is such as it is because it
happened to get broken through being twisted (Parts of Animals I.1, 640a19-21).

all writers ascribe things to this cause [i.e. necessity], arguing that since the hot and the cold
and the like are of such and such a kind, therefore certain things necessarily are and come to be
and if they mention any other cause (one Love and Strife, another mind), it is only touched on,
and then good-bye to it (Ph. II.8, 198b111-16)

Other writers on nature talk most in terms of material causes and necessity (and
sometimes moving causes).
Nobody else has the formal and final causes [with the possible exception of Plato]

In reading the ancients one might well suppose that those interested in nature (hoi
phusiologoi) only concern was with the material; for Empedocles and Democritus have
remarkably little to say about form and essence (Ph. II.2, 194a19-22).

Aristotle maintains that e.g. the formation of the backbone, the development of teeth, the
generation of a new animal cannot be explained in terms of matter and moving causes alone.

for teeth and all other natural things either invariably or for the most part come about in a
given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is that is trueTherefore
action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature (Ph. II.8, 198b33-
199a6).

The Four causes, artificial cases illustrate; those things that are substances most of all = natural
objects, particularly animals and plants (Metaph. VII.7, 1032a19-20)

1. Material cause (i) artificial wool; (ii) natural an animals body

2. Efficient cause (i) artificial knitter, moving the tool of knitting needles (ii) natural an
animals soul digests food (using the stomach as a tool).
3. Formal cause (i) artificial the craft of knitting; the plan; (ii) natural -- the form catness
4. Final cause (i) artificial to make a sweater; to keep warm in it; (ii) natural to
maintain the life of a cat.

The four causes together give us a vision of why the world is structured in the way it is;
material and efficient causes for Aristotle cannot stand on their own his world is not
mechanistic it is peopled by souls and forms which direct the processes taking place.
The key difference between a natural object and an artificial object natural objects have a
source of change and rest (the dynamic or efficient cause) in themselves rather than being
external. A ball of wool cannot make itself into a woolly jumper but an animal makes itself
grow as soon as its heart has been articulated (GA II.5, 741b16-17) and once it is grown up, it
is the source of change (through its soul) in numerous ways - metabolism, locomotion etc.
These ideas are shaped by Aristotles interest in living being (and a normative hierarchy
living is better than not living, (GA II.1, 731b30-31)).

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 (3) The elements

Aristotles worldview is alien to ours.

Background: After 17/18th centuries, mind, god etc. is separated from matter: physics becomes the
study of lifeless, purposeless forces; matter in motion.

The scientific revolution in two areas: terrestrial and cosmological dynamics.

Terrestrial dynamics: Galileo analysing the motion of falling bodies and projectiles here on
earth in terms of gravity.

Cosmology: Copernicus heliocentric analysis of celestial dynamics. Netwon: both types of

motion were analysed by the same formulae forces of gravity from earth and sun result
in different orbital paths of celestial bodies

Most radical break from Aristotle = matter and motion are the same everywhere

Aristotle separated the cosmos into two realms that were very different from each other:

(A) Sub-lunary realm (below the moon): matter is the four elements (stoicheia) earth, air, fire
and water; motion is rectilinear. The four elements change into each other; there is constant
transformation. Everything is destructible (Cael. III.6); constantly in process -- living, dying.
(B) Heavenly realm (the moon and above): matter is the fifth element which naturally moves in
circles. It is indestructible and does not transform into any of the other elements. It is
separate (Cael. 1.3).

Change in the (A) Sub-lunary realm

dynamics and cosmology

The four elements (stoicheia) are principles (material principles). Everything below the moon
is made out of these in some combination.
They are not eternal, but destructible they can be destroyed i.e. transforming into each
other, e.g. air becomes fire.
This is caused by the motion of the heavenly bodies (Meteor., Cael.)

Transformation of elements: Matter that underlies the elements is the qualitative powers or
potentials (hot, cold, wet and dry). E.g. Air (hot, wet) becomes fire (hot, dry) by exchanging wet
for dry.

Fire: hot and dry; Water: wet and cold; Air: hot and wet; Earth cold and dry.

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The elements have natures.

Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes. By nature the animals
and their parts exist, and the plants and the simple bodies (earth, first, air, water) for we
say that these and the like exist by nature. All the things mentioned plainly differ from
things which are not constituted by nature. For each of them has within itself a principle of
change and remaining unchanged (in respect of place, or of growth and decreases, or by way
of alteration) (Ph. II.1, 192b9-15).

Nature = source of change and remaining unchanged in itself.

A ball of wool cannot make itself into a woolly jumper but an animal makes itself grow as
soon as its heart has been articulated (GA II.5, 741b16-17) and once it is grown up, it is the
source of change (through its soul) for a number of things - metabolism, local motion etc.
Elements are simpler they only have a source of change of location/place

Elemental natures (Cael. IV 3-4): Absolutely heavy - Earth: falls to centre of the world

Absolutely light: Fire: rises to the periphery of the sublunar realm

The intermediates: Water: rise above earth, sinks below air.

Air: sinks below fire, rises above water.

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But Aristotle wonders if this is really correct: Physics VIII.4 (255a1-21): [A]nd it is here that we come
to grips with the real difficulty, viz. the question what is the agent of natural movements of bodies
heavy and light. For such bodies can be forced to move in directions opposite to those natural to
them; but whereas it is obvious that light things go up and heavy ones down by nature, we have
not yet arrived at any clear conception as to what is the agent of this natural movement, as we
have done in the case of the enforced and unnatural movements. For we cannot say that such
bodies, when moving naturally, move themselves, for this is proper to animals that have life, and if
light and heavy bodies moved themselves up and down they would be able to stop themselves also
I mean if an animal can make itself march it can also make itself stop marching- so that if fire makes
itself move upwards it should be able to make itself move downwards also.

How do the elements move away from their natural places? Why do they transform?

Other Aristotelian principles in this context:

a. A large amount of earth is heavier than a small amount and will fall faster (Cael. II 13:
294a15-16) [what Newton showed was not the case]
b. Whatever moves must be moved by something and the mover must be in contact at all
times with the object moved (Ph. VII.1, VIII.7).
The elements are moved by something else external which is in contact with them (Ph.
VIII.4, 255a1-21, 255b34-256a4).

Problems with (b): if contact with the cause or agent of motion must occur at all time, what about
projectile motion? E.g. when I throw a ball, and it carries on moving forward after it has left my
hand.

Aristotles account of projectile motion (requiring contact and pushing forward) (Ph. VIII.10,
266b27-267a16).
o There is no void or empty space
o A projectile pushes air in front which then rushes to the back of the projectile and
pushes it forward.
o This cannot explain the curved path of projectile motion.

Change in (B) heavenly realm (above the moon)

The only change = change in place (locomotion)

The only matter is the fifth element: the first of the elements (Cael. 298b6).
Aristotle argues that what moves in a circle (and does so naturally) cannot be made of any of
the other elements since their natural motion is rectilinear (Cael. I.2).

What can we know about them?

Knowledge is harder to access due to their distance (Parts of Animals I.5, 644b22-645a3):

Even if our contact with eternal beings is slight, none the less beause of its surpassing value
this knowledge is a greater pleasure than our knowledge of everything around us, even as a
chance, brief glimpse of the ones we love is a greater pleasure than seeing accurately many
other and great things (644b33-645a1)

Our senses are weak (Cael. 290a18-22; PA 644b22-30).

But because the heavens are eternal, they are more natural objects of knowledge (Ph.I.1)
We can investigate using reason: e.g. like mathematical astronomy as in Plato Timaeus.

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Example of theory and practice in Aristotles science:

The argument for the uniqueness of the earth. It depends on accepting the principle that the natural
motion of the earth is towards the centre this is something established by being close to examples
of this in our everyday life i.e. by dropping things (de Caelo I.8).

The argument: if there were another world, the elements would have the same nature as they do in
this world so the earth on that world would move to the centre but therefore there could only be
one centre. One earth. (276a23-b22)

Aristotles cosmology then begins with this earth which is unique and rests at the centre.
He next establishes that the earth is spherical and motionless (Cael. II.13-14).
Next come : The heavens, i.e. heavenly bodies or spheres of the heavens are all in motion,
as is evident to our senses (the fixed stars move around from night to night, season to
season)

(4) The heavens

The natural motion of the heavens is in a circle. This motion is continuous and perfect
(Cael. 1.2-3; Ph. VIII.7: 261a32-261b4)
None of the other sorts of motion or change can be continuous as they must go back and
forth between the opposites, extremes (e.g. up and down, light and dark, hot and cold).

It is clear from the following considerations that no change other than local movement can be
continuous and perpetual. Every other motion and change is from an opposite to an opposite:
thus for the processes of becoming and perishing the limits are what is and what is not, for
alteration the contrary affections, and for increase and decrease either greatness and smallness
or perfection and imperfection and imperfection of magnitude; and changes to contraries are
contrary changes. Now a thing that is undergoing any particular kind of change, but though
previously existent has not always undergone it, must previously have been at rest. It is clear,
then, that for the changing thing the contraries will be states of rest (Ph. VIII.7 261a32-261b4).

Circular motion or rather the rotation of a sphere is perfect, complete and continuous
this is in contrast to any local motion that has to turn back on itself, i.e. stop and start again
(Ph. VIII.7 261a32-261b4).
The idea that there are seven sorts of motion and the spherical rotation is the best is found
also in Platos Timaeus: rotation is so perfect he assigns it to the action of rationality your
perfect rational soul is rotating in your head (Tim. 34A-B).
Rotation is also associated with the divine eternal motion, perfection.

Explaining the phenomena.

The phenomena:
The sun moves around the earth each day higher and lower in sky in different seasons.
The stars travel around the night sky from year to year, season to season in a fixed pattern.
The planets are stars that wander (the meaning of the Greek planetes): similar to suns path
but they appear to turn back on themselves (retrograde motion). The moon has another path.

In order to explain this, you need a series of concentric spheres (heavenly bodies) on which
are fixed the sun, moon, fixed stars and each of the planets.

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Aristotle uses mathematical astronomy

Aristotle borrows from mathematical astronomy at the time

First the fixed stars are locked onto the outmost heavenly sphere then, using Eudoxus and
Callipus, he explains the movements of the sun, moon and planets in terms of the motion of
interlocking spheres each are a combination of a series of perfect circular motions.

So, for example, the sun is associated with two moving spheres one constant and one which causes
its ecliptical path across the sky throughout the year. This later movement brings about the seasons
(GC II.10-11; Metaph. XII.6; GC 336a32-336b18)

The movers are substances and one of them is first and another second and so on in the same order
as the spatial motions of the heavenly bodies. As regards the number of these motions, we have
now reached a question which must be investigated by the aid of that branch of mathematical
science which is most akin to Philosophy, i.e. astronomy; for this has as its object a substance which
is sensible but eternal whereas the other mathematical science do not deal with any substance.
That there are more spatial motions than there are bodies which move in space is obvious to those
who have even a moderate grasp of the subject, since each of the non-fixed stars has more than one
spatial motion. As to how many these spatial motions actually are we shall now, to give some idea of
the subject, quote what some of the mathematicians say, in order that there may be some definite
number for the mind to grasp; but for the rest we must partly investigate for ourselves and partly
learn from other investigators, and if those who apply themselves to these matters come to some
conclusion which clashes with what we have just stated, we must appreciate both views, but follow
the more accurate Metaphysics 1073b1-18:

55 movers are required to produce the phenomena we see in the night sky (1074a11).
It is not entirely clear what causes the motion of the heavenly spheres.
o Primarily: they are moved by their own natures these may also be souls or at least
they may be alive. However, they are quite unlike animals and plants do not
perish, do not reproduce.
o Auxiliary cause: the prime unmoved mover (i.e. god). (Ph. VII.2, Metaph. XII.7:
1072b2-4)
God acts as a object of aspiration by being more perfect, the heavenly bodies
strive to imitate Gods perfection.

(5) Aristotles God.

Our presuppositions are correct. God is: perfect, immortal. Perfect activity that is
continuous like circular motion of the heavens
but God is immaterial so cannot be spatial motion.

[T]he primary essence does not have matter; for it is actuality. For the unmovable first mover is
one both in form and in number; therefore also that which is moved always and continuously is
one alone; therefore there is one heaven alone. Our forerunners in the most remote ages have
handed down to us their posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these substances are
gods and that the divine encloses the whole of nature (Metaph. XII.8, 1074a35-74b4).

God is: immaterial, unchangeable, first mover, in continuous activity, pure actuality (no potentiality).

Activity of god = thought. Activity of thinking is immaterial and contains nothing degrading,
nothing potential (incomplete), nothing dishonourable.
What does god think about? The most perfect thing, i.e. himself.

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[I]t must be itself that thought (i.e. God) thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its
thinking is a thinking on thinking (Metaph. XII.9, 1074b33-35).

Chain of cosmic causation.

God Heavenly spheres continual circular motion the seasons generation of animals

It is not the primary motion that is the cause of coming to be and passing away, but the
motion along the inclined circle; for in this there is both continuity and also double
movement, for it is essential, if there is always to be continuous coming-to-be and passing-
away,* that there should be something always moving, in order that this series of changes
may not be broken, and double movement, in order that there may not be only one change
occurring. The movement of the whole is the cause of the continuity, and the inclination
causes the approach and withdrawal of the moving body; for since the distance is unequal,
the movement will be irregular. Therefore, if it generates by approaching and being near,
this same body causes destruction by withdrawing and becoming distanceThe evidence of
sense perception clearly agrees with our views; for we see that coming-to-be occurs when
the sun approaches, and passing-away when it withdraws, and the two processes take an
equal time (GC II.10, 336a32-336b18).

It is heat and cooling in their various manifestations which up to a certain due proportion
bring about the generation of things, and beyond that point their dissolution; and the limits
of these processes, both as regards their beginning and their end, are controlled by the
movements of the heavenly bodies (Generation of Animals IV.10, 777b28-31)

*animals and plants try to be eternal in the way that is open to them: i.e. reproduction.

Early modern and modern critiques of Aristotle:

1. Holding back scientific progress, e.g. Aristotle had a millennial stranglehold on physics and
astronomy (A. Koestler, The Sleepwalkers 1959 p.61)

Defence: change was gradual. Break from Aristotelian thinking is exaggerated by rhetoric of e.g.
Bacon, Galileo. See e.g. Pierre Duhem Le System du Monde Paris 1913 (10 vols) and E. Grant
(1994) Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1587.

2. Mystical forces: giving the elements and the stars spirits.

Aristotle had the door half-way open for spirits already; it was a universe in which unseen
hands had to be in constant operation, and sublime intelligences had to roll the planetary
spheres around. Alternatively, bodies had to be endowed with souls and aspirations, with a
disposition to certain kinds of motion, so that matter itself seemed to possess mystical
qualities (H. Butterfield The Origins of Modern Science 1949, p.7)

The small child, whose world is still closer to the primitive than to the modern mind, is an
unrepentant Aristotelian by investing dead objects with a will, a purpose, an animal spirit of
their own (A. Koestler p.110)

Defence: these are anachronistic portrayals of Aristotles cosmology.

If you look at texts of De Caelo, GC, Met full of arguments and very far from common
sense.

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 The elements are only metaphorically endowed with spirits they have a nature which
means merely that they have a natural place which they move toward. In no way are they
alive Aristotle is very scathing of panpsychism in several places, e.g. de Anima I.5, 411a8ff.
where he says the elements cannot be alive). He admits that the elements have no will
they cannot decide not to go toward their natural place (Ph. VIII.4, 255a15-20)
The way that the heavens could be alive is narrowly specified; not like an animal or plant
life would mean self motion without the other functions of living.

Aristotles worldview contrasted with that of the Enlightenment onwards.

Modern science: purposeless matter in motion.

Aimed at technological domination (rather than knowledge for its own sake how humans
fit, we are part of the natural world mind and mechanism as apart from that).
Nature to be dominated subsequent detachment, environmental disaster [industrial
revolutions]
Autonomy of separate sciences e.g. math, physics, chemistry, biology.

Aristotle: rejects purely mechanistic explanations of his predecessors, without causal explanation
based in essences of things, what they are and how we can understand them as complex entities.

All things in entire world are tied together. We are part of that world; that we can
understand the world is important and tells us about that world and our connections to it.
Biology, the working of the most complex life forms, is the starting point to understanding
the whole world.

Aristotle associates knowledge and the divine.

This is similar to Plato and the Pre-socratics in general.

For Aristotle Gods only being is the activity of thinking. And through this God is the ultimate
cause.

Next time more about how intellect works in humans being but as we are embodied and most of
our psychological activities involve the body, we will be considering the whole soul in de Anima. We
have heard about natural things, and what a nature is now living things whose nature is soul.

Next time: more about form and matter as potentiality and actuality; thinking as a process. What the
relationship is between thinking and the thing that is thought about and how the objects of our
understanding somehow exist as forms out there in the world.

And our souls are rational what is nature of this? How are we different from animals and more
akin to the stars/heavens and god particularly?

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