The Christian Vanguard

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...

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...

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...