The Christian Vanguard

The following is an essay I turned in for my Aristotle class.  Explain Aristotle’s argument in Physics Book VIII, Chapter 4. Your explanation should make clear not just what problem Aristotle addresses but why it is a pressing problem for him. The problem that Aristotle wants to address is the origin of causes (256a). To flesh this out, he makes a few distinctions. The first distinction is between accidental and essential motion (254b10). Accidental motion would be things like a woman healing a patient. The woman heals a patient not because she is a woman, but because she has healing medical knowledge. That she is a woman is only an accident of the cause. Essential motion on the other hand is motion with appropriate links to causes, such as being healed by a doctor. It is essentially the doctor who heals me as a doctor, not for any other feature in addition to their doctor status. A second distinction he makes is between things which are moved by either something within itself or f...

The following is an essay I turned in for class.  In On The Heavens Book II, Chapter 13 Aristotle states, “In general our quarrel with those who speak of the movements in this way cannot be confined to the parts, it concerns the whole universe.” (294b31 – 32) Explain what he means and how his criticism of his predecessors as well as his development of his own view illustrate what he means. (You will have to be selective in what you discuss here.) The context in which Aristotle says this in his discussion about the underlying cause for the rest of the earth, that is to say, why the earth itself is not moving. This begins with his discussion of his predecessor's arguments that the earth is still because of its shape. Anaxagoras and Democritus reasoned that the earth is still because it is flat (294b15). The flat side which presents to the air is so wide that it doesn’t allow air to move around it, like a lid (294b15). And since movement through air is possible because one cuts throug...

The following is an essay I turned in for my Aristotle class.  Teleology for Aristotle is an all permeating cause of prior causes. It is an end, termination, or consummation of previous acts. It is “that for the sake of which” a thing is done (194b30). So, suppose I want to be healthy, I will perform certain acts for the purpose of achieving health. I wake up early so that I may exercise so that I may be healthy. I put on my socks, so I can put on my shoes, so I can go on my run, so that I can be healthy. In this series of actions, the end goal of health sustains and motivates these actions, and these actions are complete and done well when health is achieved.  Teleology being an end should not be confused with the temporally last thing in a series, however. Even though my running causes my health may be the last in a series in a temporal sense, that’s only an accidental feature of the example. More fundamentally, Aristotle means that which is best for it (195a20). Fo...

The following is an essay I had to write for my Aristotle class. Aristotle’s discussion about the distinction between energeia and kinesis is an organic development of his previous discussion about the distinction between potencies (1048a25). He thinks that clearing up distinctions about actualility will also help us understand in a clearer way what we mean by our distinctions within potencies (1048a25). If there is a distinction like natural potencies and rational potencies (1047b-1047b30), then it stands to reason that there will be a correlating distinction within actualities. Aristotle also claims that actuality, or energeia, is an extension of the same movement, or kinesis (1047a30), which could be problematic since if they are essentially identical, then it shouldn’t be possible to have those correlating distinctions, as there can be no distinctions among identical things. So, energeia and kinesis would have to be distinct. This is what is motivating Aristotle. So what i...

The following is an essay I had to write for class. Footnotes could not be copied over. Basing yourself on Metaphysics Book VIII, Chapter 2 and Meteorology Book IV, Chapter 12 write a concise account of what sorts of things you believe count as Aristotelian substances. Again, I encourage you to draw from other things we have read by Aristotle (for example the material from Physics Book II and On The Soul Book II), if you find it useful to do so. I think the sorts of things that count as Aristotelian substances include anything composed with matter. As Aristotle states, matter is a kind of differentiae, and anything with differentiae is, for if it were not, it wouldn’t be differentiating anything to begin with. So, humans, cats, grass, gold, these types of things are Aristotlean substances. I don’t think artefacts, though they have matter in a certain sense, would count as Aristotlean substances because they don’t have an essence, or form. As Aristotle says, what a thing is is determine...

The following is an essay I had to write for class. Footnotes have been omitted, not by choice. Explain the account of matter that emerges from Metaphysics Book IX, Chapter 7. Though your focus should be on that text (and I do want you to tease out the line of argument there), I encourage you to draw from other things we have read by Aristotle, if you find it useful to do so. Matter, for Aristotle, is potentiality. To explain this, we must first consider what potentiality is. There is a limited range of potentialities, that is to say, X may be potential for Y but not for Z. To illustrate the range of potentials, Aristotle considers health. Not everything can be healed, like perhaps rocks or water, and so they cannot be said to have the potentiality for health, but only certain things have the potentiality for health, like humans or foxes. There is a categorical difference here. But within the appropriate categories, we have a question of how we discover it is potentially healthy (or po...

The follow was an essay I wrote for my class. Footnotes were not able to be copied. Explain the argument of Physics Book 1, Chapter 7. Your explanation should address the following: What question(s) is Aristotle attempting to answer? What role do linguistic considerations (considerations concerning “what we say”) play in the argument The question Aristotle is attempting to answer is how to account for change, or coming to be. This includes coming to be in an accidental way and in an unqualified way. A thing is said to come to be from another thing. This is done in a few always by bringing our attention to how we understand a man becoming musical and the distinctions that arise from those considerations. So when we say, “man becomes musical” or “the not-musical man becomes musical” we say this in regards to its simplicity, or it being non-composed. However, these simple things do not survive change. But we also understand that something survives or persists through that change, so now w...

I have been reflecting on my many regrets lately. The biggest of which is my consumption of carbs. I should have had my sandwich lettuce wrapped instead of on buns. I should have let my girlfriend have my chicken nuggets, instead of consuming them all by myself them like a fatty. So, I go home, and I have remorse. "Why am I like this? Why wasn't I able to control myself?" Plato considers it, and so does Aristotle to some extent. Of course, I was able to control myself. It wasn't like I was sitting down, watching myself on a TV screen, and seeing someone else control my body as if I were being possessed. No one possessed me. If I go to a dinner, and I let myself go, I say I lost control. In a literal sense, I did not lose control, but something did come over me, and that was my appetites (both in Aristotlean sense and in the common sense). My emotions came over me, and I decided to follow that. What we mean by losing control is that we let our reason lose control....

Here is the last assignment on Aristotle I turned in for my class. Footnotes have been omitted. I'm done with this class. Booyah.  Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics is primarily concerned with what the good, or best, life is. Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics is primarily concerned with what the virtuous life is, which is what the best life is to have been as discovered in Book I. Aristotle develops this by first noting that all acts have some end to which they aim. But even these aims may have a greater aim for which they strive for, so there must be some final end where all the striving is terminated. Aristotle found that it is happiness which all other things strive for. In order to find out what makes us happy, Aristotle wants to know what the end of man is since a good man is he who functions well. That function, which is a rational activity of his human soul, is to be virtuous. Having laid down the more broad inquiry of what kind of life we should be striving for, he then...

The following was submitted for a class assignment. Footnotes have been omitted.  Aristotle says that one becomes virtuous by habit. Just as men become builders by building or men become brave by doing brave acts, so one becomes virtuous by doing and practicing virtuous acts. However, doing one virtuous act every now and again while most other times we behave viciously isn’t sufficient to be a virtuous person. What is needed are like cases where we habitually do a virtuous act so that the state of being a virtuous character arises. It is also not sufficient that we merely do virtuous acts. We must also take pleasure in them and not be annoyed by them. The younger we begin to form these habits, the better. If they are taught to us early in our youth, they become more deeply ingrained into our lives and are more difficult to corrupt. These virtues need to be taught because they are not part of our human nature. If they were part of our human nature, then it would not be possible...

I turned this in for a class assignment. Footnotes have not been included.  Aristotle recognizes that generally, men say that happiness is the highest of goods to which men aim. However, since some men say that to have health or wealth when one is sick or poor is happiness, or that some ideal above those appetitive pleasures is what happiness is, the disagreement among men makes it unclear as to what the answer is. So, Aristotle points out that there is an end to which all ends strive. A man practices medicine to obtain health, but what is the end of health? The end of strategy is victory, but what is the end of victory? All these ends have a final end, or good, to which they strive. It is final in the sense that the line of questioning or justification terminates there. That end for which other ends strive has nothing else which it strives for. This is what happiness is. It does not make sense to ask what it is that happiness strives for. It is an end unto itself. Since happi...

Another assignment for my class. Footnotes have been omitted.  Aristotle thinks it is important to ascertain the function of a man because human happiness is an end of an action. So in order to know what is good and bad for human happiness, we must know what mans function is. To determine what it's function is, we have to determine what kind of soul it has. If the function of a flute player is to play the flute, then playing the flute well is what makes the flute player a good flute player. Likewise with man, whatever our function is, doing that function well is what makes us a good man. The powers and function of man is not to be found in the body alone, but in the soul since material bodies are just potentiality and souls is what actualizes the matter into the kind of bodies that they are. So, as body-soul composites are those which exist by nature, that is they have an internal principle of change, they also have an end, or function. Further, for anything that has a form it ...

The following is a short assignment I turned in for my class. Footnotes are omitted.  Aristotle’s argument for teleology is a disjunctive syllogism. Things are either a result of a coincidence or an end. Things are not the result of coincidences. Therefore, they are a result of an end. Aristotle considers a problem of explaining why things happen. Rain happens but it does so not for the sake of the crops, which do benefit from the rainfall. If it can be said that it happens out of necessity, that is for material causes devoid of final causes, why should it not be said for all else that we think would have an end, like teeth? According to this view, the reason these things are observed is because those with those incidental features happened to survive. Aristotle’s argument against this is to say that it cannot explain why these things, if they are accidents, why they happen regularly. Coincidental causes, as they are causes without an end for the sake of which they strive, can...

The following was written for a class assignment. Footnotes are omitted.  Chance is a species of the genus spontaneity. Chance is a cause, but unlike other causes it doesn’t have a regular effect. This is because chance does not have an end or telos for the sake of which it strives. While our understanding of causes has a necessary connection to their effects, the connection a cause by chance had with the effect is accidental. So for example, someone may heal an injured person, and he does so because he is a trained doctor. So the doctor is the cause of healing. The doctor may also be a surfer, and it would also be true that the surfer healed the person, but his status as a surfer is not what caused the healing. The surfer status is an accident, that is, it has no necessary connection to the effect. In the same way, chance causes have no necessary connection to their effects. Chance happens for a purpose, but that purpose does not cause it since incidental cause never come...

I wrote the following for a class assignment. It deals with Book 2, Chapter 1 of the Physics. Footnotes are omitted.  Aristotle’s line of thought is that some things exist by nature and by nature he means that which has an internal principle of change. This principle is to be found within the thing itself and not in an accidental attribute. One account of nature says that the matter which constitutes the thing is what the nature should be identified as. Antiphon, a proponent of this view, points out the wood of a bed is the nature of a bed since if you were to plant the wood of the bed what would sprout is not another bed but wood. Since nature tends to produce more of itself, and wooden beds do not produce other wooden beds but only wood, the bed is only an accidental attribute of the wood. Those who wish to identify nature with the form point out that matter considered by itself is only a potential, and doesn’t exist until it receives some form to inform it to be the kind of...

I have a small debate on the existence of God coming up with one of the philosophy professors at LBCC for our Philosophy Club. It's short, and only an hour, so, my statement is about ten minutes. Nothing original, just what Edward Feser has been saying for a while. I figure it might be a good idea just to put up here for future reference. Prayers appreciated for my debate coming up Thursday!