“From the first lines of Lambda 10, the question of the good and of its relations with the universe is explicitly posed: should the good and the best (to agathon kai to ariston) be conceived as something separate (kekhorismenon), existing in itself and by itself, or as the very order (taxin) of the whole?” (Aubry, Dieu san la puissance, 2nd ed., ch. 5, p. 200, my translation throughout).
“We know from now on that there exists a separate substance, that it is act and not form, that it is identical to the good, and that it acts as an end: from this, it is already apparent that the universe can be neither totalized via its reduction to a unique material principle, as the [Ionian] holists maintain, nor conceived [in the manner of the Platonists] in an episodic manner as a disjunctive series…. The universe indeed constitutes a totality, but this is not exclusive of an order that admits of degrees…. It remains to know whether the good is to be identified with this taxis or is separate from it” (pp. 200-201).
“But these options are not exclusive: the good can be conceived at once (amphoteros) as the very order of the universe and as separate from it, in the way that the good of an army resides in its order as well as in its strategy. It is nonetheless necessary to recognize between these two modes of the existence of the good a relation of anteriority, such that the order depends on the strategy, and not the strategy on the order” (p. 201).
“The problem is thus posed to know in what such an order consists, which is at the same time determined by the principle and serves as its manifestation. Already applied in Lambda 8 to the hierarchy of the spheres and their movers, the term taxis is from now on applied not only to the eternal sensible substances, but also to the perishable sensible substances (animals, plants)” (ibid).
“This order receives a triple characterization: first, it operates in a horizontal way between the different substances…; all these are then ordered in relation to something unique…; but finally, they are not so related in the same way…. We have indeed a relation at the same time univocal and diversified…. It tends nonetheless toward one same end, and proceeds from one same principle” (ibid).
“But we discover now that it is just insofar as [the unmoved substance] is separated that it is the principle of the order and of the distinctive movements of sensible substances…. And we can think the principle or the Good at once as separate and as constituting a taxis, an ordered and related totality” (pp. 202-203).
The universe is held together by the good or the ideal — a principle separate in both the Aristotelian and the Platonic sense, but acting only as a final cause or object of desire — and by the desires and aims of all beings — which in themselves indirectly also aim at the ideal. But nothing “enforces” the good or the ideal at a cosmic level. As a consequence, no evil in the world is cause for doubting the reality of ultimate good.
This concludes my direct treatment of Gwenaëlle Aubry’s detailed analysis of Aristotle in her second edition. When I first encountered her work, I was delighted to see someone vigorously arguing that the first cause is indeed just a final cause, and putting major emphasis on potentiality and act. In the course of working through this, I have improved my own understanding of numerous details. Her book has another 100 pages on what happens to all these issues in Plotinus, which I will pass over for now.
Beginning of this series: Aubry on Aristotle
The Postmodern Peripatetic 