Toward a First Cause

Book Kappa (XI) of Aristotle’s Metaphysics briefly reviews material from books Beta (III), Gamma (IV), and Epsilon (VI) about the aims of the ultimate inquiry into first things that is still to be pursued. It also incorporates a brief review of his discussions in Physics books II, III, and V about what motion and change are. Both parts of the presentation here add more explicit hints that we will be looking for something that is both separate and unmoved. These hints are the book’s main interest.

Perhaps surprisingly given its review of content from the Physics, Metaphysics Kappa makes no reference to the detailed argument in Physics book VIII that there is a first unmoved mover of all things, or to the related background about unmoved things in Physics book VII. The beginning of Physics book VIII refers back to “our course on physics”, which is ambiguous, but could imply that it was written later, and possibly after Metaphysics Kappa, which would explain why book VIII’s argument about the first mover is not mentioned here.

“But neither ought one to set down the kind of knowledge being sought as concerning the causes spoken of in the writings about nature, since it is not about that for the sake of which (for this sort of cause is the good, and this belongs among actions and things that are in motion, and it moves things first — for that is the sort of thing an end is — but a thing that first moves them is not present among immovable things). And in general, there is an impasse whether the knowledge now being sought is about perceptible independent things at all, or not, but about other things. For if it is about others, it would be about either the forms or the mathematical things, but it is apparent that there are no forms…. But neither is the knowledge being sought about mathematical things, nor is it a knowledge of perceptible independent things, since they are destructible” (ch. 1, Sachs tr., pp. 205-206).

This passage is interesting in a couple of ways. The knowledge being sought in the inquiry to be conducted is now more definitely said to be not about perceptible independent things, not about mathematical things, and not about Platonic forms.

He also points out that what he calls physics is concerned primarily with what he calls sources of motion and change. It does not address questions about the good or that-for-the-sake-of which, except in an incidental way. But in Parts of Animals book I, he clearly says that in the overall scheme of things, the good and that-for-the-sake-of-which are more primary than sources of motion. The implication here in Metaphysics Kappa is that the inquiry being prepared for will address them in their own right.

“Also, ought one to set down anything besides the particular thing or not, and is the knowledge being sought about particulars?” (ch. 2, p. 207).

For Aristotle, no universal is an independent thing. The knowledge being sought does seem to be about particulars.

“And there is besides an impasse, that all knowledge is of universals and of the suchness of things, but thinghood does not belong to universal” (p. 208).

Knowledge, however, is concerned with universals. This was the major impasse remaining at the end of book Zeta (VII).

“Now since the knowledge that belongs to the philosopher concerns being as being universally and not in relation to a part, … if it is meant in accordance with something common, it would be subject to one knowledge. It seems to be meant in the way that has been spoken of, in just the way that medical and healthy are meant” (ch. 3, p. 209).

He refers back to the discussion of how the saying of being in the other categories points back to the saying of substance-essence-thinghood.

“Since all being is meant in accordance with something that is one and common, even though it is meant in a number of ways, … such things are capable of being subject to one knowledge” (p. 211).

This enables us to say that there is after all one knowledge that can be said to be of being as such. It will address the proper saying of substance-essence-thinghood directly, and the proper saying of being in the other categories in a derivative way.

“And since the mathematician uses common notions in a particular way, it would also belong to the primary sort of philosophy to study the things that govern these” (ch. 4, p. 211).

He seems to assert in passing that first philosophy includes what we would call the foundations of mathematics. Elsewhere he mentions that the first principles of mathematics are similarly supposed to be applicable to all things. But mathematics does not address what things in general are in their own right.

“And it is the same way also with the knowledge about nature as with mathematics, for physics studies the attributes and sources of beings insofar as they are in motion and not insofar as they are, (but we have said that the primary sort of knowledge is about these things to the extent that the things underlying them are beings, but not insofar as they are anything else). For this reason one must set down both this sort of knowledge and the mathematical sort as parts of wisdom” (pp. 211-212).

Neither mathematics nor what Aristotle calls physics addresses substance-essence-thinghood, or what things are in their own right. It is left to first philosophy to do this, as well as to inquire into the ultimate principles that underlie mathematics and physics.

Just as in book Gamma (IV), Aristotle’s claim that there is after all a knowledge that applies to all being as such, and that the philosopher is the one who has it, is immediately followed by a somewhat lengthy expression of outrage against those who claim a right to contradict themselves, or deny that there is any such thing as contradiction. Just as in book Gamma, the concerns he expresses are about dialogue, the understanding of meaning, and the possibility of sound reasoning.

This makes perfect sense when we recall that Aristotle has consistently treated being in a transitive way, as always being this or being that; and as intimately involved with saying, especially the saying of what things properly are in their own right. He has at the same time treated saying as meaningful saying, intimately involved with reasoning. So we should not be surprised when it turns out that the knowledge that applies to all being as such has to do with fundamental principles and presuppositions of reasoning and the understanding of meaning.

“Now those who are going to participate in a discussion with each other must in some way understand what they say…. It is necessary then for each of the words to be intelligible and to mean something, and not many things but only one, but if it does mean more than one thing, it is necessary to make clear to which of these one is applying the word. So the one who says ‘this is and is not’ denies that which he says, and so he denies that the word means what it means, which is impossible” (ch. 5, p. 212).

Then he again expresses outrage at what he takes to be Protagoras’ claim that truth is entirely subjective. If this were the case, there would be no being as Aristotle understands it. Being “in its own right” is discursively communicable intelligibility.

“Something closely resembling these things being discussed is what was said by Protagoras, for he said that a human being is the measure of all things, meaning nothing else than that what seems so to each person is solidly so” (ch. 6, p. 213).

“And since it is necessary for each sort of knowledge to know in some way what something is, … one must not let it go unnoticed in what way the one who studies nature needs to define it and how he needs to get hold of the articulation of the thinghood of things” (ch. 7, p. 217).

The inquiry to be pursued here is implicitly presupposed by physical inquiries. To the extent that one of these two, taken in itself, governs the other, taken in itself, the inquiry to be pursued here is more primary than physics (or mathematics).

“Now the study of nature is about things having a source of motion within themselves, while mathematics is contemplative and concerns something that remains the same, but is not separate. Therefore, about the sort of being that is separate and motionless, there is another sort of knowledge that is different from both of these, if there is any such independent thing — I mean something separate and motionless — which is just what we shall try to show. And if there is any such nature among beings, that would be where the divine also is, and this would be the primary and most governing source of things. It is clear, then, that there are three classes of contemplative knowledge: physics, mathematics, and theology” (ibid).

What he calls nature is a source of motion within something “as itself” (all other sources of motion he calls potentialities).

Now he explicitly mentions that he intends to show that there is a kind of being that is both separate and motionless, as he understands these two terms. He says that if there is such a thing, it will be “where the divine is”, and it will be “the primary and most governing source of things”. First philosophy will therefore be alternately characterized as theology.

He returns to the impasse about knowledge in first philosophy. “One might be at an impasse whether the knowledge of being as being ought to be set down as universal or not” (p. 218). Knowledge is supposed to be concerned with universals, but we are seeking an independent thing, and no logical universal is an independent thing.

In the earlier suggestion of a solution to this impasse, he re-interpreted the many ways in which being is said for the different categories, re-describing them as multiple derivative meanings pointing to one primary meaning. This seemed to eliminate the need to refer to a universal that abstracts over the ways being is said for the different categories.

Now he complements this by introducing a new way of speaking universally, which does not depend on abstraction. Instead, universality can be achieved by referring to a concrete thing or things that is or are concretely the cause or causes of all things, and that therefore is or are prior to all the rest.

“So if natural independent things are primary among beings, then also physics would be the primary sort of knowledge; but if there is another nature and independent thing that is separate and motionless, it is necessary that the knowledge of it be other than and prior to physics, and universal by being prior” (ibid).

Everything that Aristotle calls independent, he also calls separate. Also equivalent to these is calling something a this. As noted earlier, the challenge is to find something that is independent and separate and a this, but that is also unmoved in his sense. The impasse about universality will be conclusively resolved by finding something that is universal not in the sense of being abstract, but rather, as he says, universal in the sense of being “prior” to all other things, because it is a cause for all of them.

“And that, of what is so incidentally, there are not causes and sources of the same sort as there are of what is so in its own right, is clear, for then everything would be by necessity” (ch. 8, p. 219).

As he said in book Zeta (VII), the contingency of incidental being must have contingent, incidental causes. Now he relates this more specifically to a consideration of that-for-the-sake-of-which.

“That which is for the sake of something is present in things that happen by nature or as a result of thinking, but it is fortune when any of these happen incidentally, for just as being is in one way in its own right and in another way incidental, so also with cause. And fortune is an incidental cause in the things that are by choice, among those that happen for the sake of something, for which reason fortune and thinking concern the same things, since there is no choice apart from thinking…. And since nothing incidental takes precedence over things in their own right, neither then do incidental causes, so if fortune or chance is a cause of the heavens, intelligence and nature have a prior responsibility” (pp. 219-220).

There is such a thing as fortune or things happening by chance, but “intelligence and nature have a prior responsibility”, just as what things are in their own right takes precedence over things that are the case incidentally.

“Something is in one way only as at-work, in another way as in potency, and in another way both in potency and at-work, and again in one way as a being, in another as a so-much, in other ways in the rest of the categories; and there is no motion apart from things, since something changes always according to the categories of being, and there is nothing common to these which is not within a single category” (ch. 9, p. 220).

Every change is understood by Aristotle as a change with respect to one of the categories. What is common to these is not an abstraction, but the single concrete sense for one category (substance-essence-thinghood), from which the senses for the other categories are derived.

Here he mentions being in the sense of potentiality and actuality, before he mentions being in the senses of the categories. Next, he summarizes the Physics‘ account of motion. “Motion” is the (incomplete) actualization of a potentiality, where actuality or being-at-work or fulfillment would be its complete actualization.

“So the being-at-work-staying-itself [entelechy, identified by Aristotle with actuality or being-at-work or fulfillment] of what is in potency, whenever it is at-work as a being-at-work-staying-itself, not as itself but as movable, is motion” (p. 221).

“And the reason for motion’s seeming to be indefinite is that it is not possible to place it as a potency or as a being-at-work of beings, for neither is what is capable of being so-much necessarily in motion, nor what is actively so-much; and motion seems to be a certain sort of being-at-work, but incomplete, and the reason is that the potency of which it is the [complete] being-at-work is itself incomplete. And for this reason it is hard to grasp what it is, for it is necessary to place it either as a deprivation or as a potency or as an unqualified being-at-work, but none of these seems admissible; so what remains is what has been said, both that it is a being-at-work and that it is the sort of being-at-work that has been described, which is difficult to bring into focus but capable of being” (p. 222).

Motion is an incomplete actuality or being-at-work or fulfillment. This is a rather subtle thought, the grasping of which requires that we first understand that-for-the-sake-of-which, actuality, and potentiality. (Motion in the modern sense, on the other hand, has no teleological significance. It is entirely reducible to measurable quantities. It it not that one of these is “right” and the other “wrong” — they are two different concepts, grounded in different kinds of explanation.)

“And it is clear that motion is in the movable thing, for it is the being-at-work-staying-itself of this by the action of the thing capable of causing motion. And the being-at-work of the thing capable of causing motion is not different, since it is necessary that it be the being-at-work-staying-itself of both; for a thing is capable of causing motion by its potency and is in motion by being-at-work, but it is capable of being-at-work upon the thing moved, so that the being-at-work of both alike is one, just as the interval from one to two and from two to one is the same, and the uphill and downhill road, though the being of them is not one, and similarly also in the case of the thing causing motion and the thing moved” (ibid).

Motion for Aristotle is always said to be in the thing moved, not in the mover. The potentialities of mover and moved with respect to any motion are said to be one.

“Now it is not possible for the infinite to be something separate…. Also, how could the infinite admit of being something in its own right, if number and magnitude, of which the infinite is an attribute, do not?…. And it is clear that it is not possible for there to be an infinite actively…. [T]hat there is no infinite among perceptible things is clear…. [N]or could there be a number that is separate and infinite, since a number or that which has a number is countable…. In general it is impossible for there to be an infinite body and a place for bodies” (ch. 10, pp. 222-224).

As he argues in greater detail in the Physics, there is no “separate” or “actual” infinite.

“[T]here is something that is moved primarily on account of itself, and this is what is moved in its own right. And this is the same way also with the thing that causes motion, for it does so either incidentally, or on account of a part, or in its own right” (ch. 11, p. 225).

There is something that is a mover in its own right.

“But the forms and the attributes…, such as knowledge and heat, are motionless; it is not heat that is a motion but the process of heating. Change that is not incidental is not present in all things but in contraries and what is between the and in contradictories, and belief in this comes from considering examples” (ibid).

For Aristotle, it is only composite things (i.e., those he understands as formed from material) that are subject to motion and change. In his sense, for instance, a composite thing may undergo a process of becoming warmer, and that would be a kind of motion of the thing. But heat itself is not a composite thing. (That heat itself does not move would be true even under the modern interpretation of it as the amount of molecular motion within a material.)

“A thing that changes does so either from one underlying thing to another, or from what is not a subject to what is not another subject, or from what is not a subject to that subject (and by ‘subject’ I mean what is declared affirmatively), so that there must be three kinds of change, since that from what is not one subject to what is not another subject is not a change, for they are neither contraries nor is there a contradiction, because there is no opposition between them” (ibid).

“And since every motion is a change, and the kinds of change mentioned are three, but those that result from coming-into-being or destruction are not motions, and these are the changes between contradictories, it is necessary that change from one subject to another be the only sort of change that is motion” (p. 226).

A “subject” here is just some thing that underlies something else that has the character of an attribute. I would infer that the change from one subject to another that is spoken of here is a reference to the way that something that is potentially X becomes actually X by the action of something else that is already actually X, as the parent of a child and the Platonic “model” of an artifact were said to be.

“So if the ways of attributing being are divided into thinghood, quality, place, acting or being acted upon, relation, and quantity, there are necessarily three kinds of motion, with respect to the of-what-sort, the how-much, and the place. There is no motion with respect to thinghood, because nothing is contrary to an independent thing, nor of relation …, nor is there a motion of acting and being acted upon, nor of moving and being moved, because there is not a motion of a motion or a coming into being of coming into being, or generally a change of a change…. For every motion is a change from one thing to another, and this is also with coming into being and destruction, except that these are changes into one sort of opposites, while motion is a change into another sort” (ch. 12, pp. 226-227).

The modern concept of acceleration is not a “change of a change”, but a change in a rate of change. Surprisingly, he does not seem to mention change with respect to place, or locomotion, here.

“Also, it would go to infinity if there were to be a change of a change and a coming into being of coming into being…. And since of infinite things there is no first one, there would not be a first becoming, and therefore no next one either, and then nothing would either come into being or be moved or change” (pp. 227-228).

Here as elsewhere, Aristotle is anxious to avoid any form of infinite regress. Showing that there is a separate, unmoved, everlasting thing that moves others is what will enable him to do that. That will be the main task of book Lambda (XII).

Next in this series: Pure Entelechy

Causes and Sources

Aristotle distinguishes arché (principle or source) from aitia (cause or reason why). He frequently uses the metonymic shorthand of saying “being” for the sources and causes of being that are the proper concern of first philosophy.

Both “source” and “cause” get chapters in the compendium of things meant in many ways in Metaphysics book Delta (V). Sources and causes are also discussed in the short book Epsilon (VI). I have not written about “sources” before. The main effect of book Epsilon though, as we will see, is to significantly narrow the scope of first philosophy.

I very frequently point out issues related to things said in many ways, usually providing a link to my old short post Univocity. This is an extremely important topic. It goes beyond the use of language to the real diversity of the things spoken of. However, book Delta has 30 chapters, each devoted to a different specific term or terms, so I won’t try to summarize them all. I already covered the chapter on being and “is”. Here I’ll just cherry-pick basic information about sources and a remark on “that for the sake of which” from book Delta, then go on to a brief discussion of book Epsilon.

All causes are sources (book Delta (V), ch. 1, Sachs tr., p. 77), but not all sources are causes.

“And what is common to all sources is to be the first thing from which something is or comes to be or is known; of these, some are present within while others are outside. For this reason nature is a source, as are elements, thinking, choice, thinghood, and that for the sake of which; for the good and the beautiful are sources of both the knowledge and the motion of many things” (ibid).

Aristotle’s concept of nature applies especially to living organisms, whose “nature” is an internal source of motion.

Elements are primitive constituents of bodies.

Thinking and choice are additional sources available to rational animals.

The what-it-is of a thing is a source. With sincerest respect for the outstanding translator, I disagree with the choice of “thinghood” for the ousia that Aristotle identifies with the what-it-is of a thing. (But then, I still guardedly use the English terms substance, potentiality, and actuality that I learned originally, to all of which Sachs raises quite legitimate objections. In my opinion, for instance, any of the translations formally proposed for ousia (substance, essence, thinghood, etc.) needs to be used in a guarded way, so I have stuck with the one I learned. The only way I see to get around this is to instead rely on Aristotle’s identification of ousia with the what-it-is, which translates very straightforwardly, and I am now starting to do this some of the time.)

Interestingly, in the above enumeration of sources only one of the four causes is mentioned explicitly: that for the sake of which. Not only that, but in the text the good and the beautiful seems to refer back to what was just mentioned as that for the sake of which.

Mentioning that-for-the-sake-of-which again in the chapter on cause, he explicitly identifies the end with the good.

“But the semen and the doctor and the legislator, and generally the maker, are all causes as that from which the source of change or rest is, but other things as the end or the good of the remaining ones. For that-for-the-sake-of which means to be the best thing and the end of the other things, and let it make no difference to say the good itself or the apparent good” (ch. 2, p. 79).

The whole reason the end or that-for-the-sake-of-which predominates over all the other causes in Aristotle is its association with the good.

Moving on to book Epsilon, “[E]very kind of knowledge that is discursive, or takes part in any way in thinking things through, is concerned with causes and sources, of either a precise or a simpler kind” (ch. 1, p. 109).

“[I]t is clear by… a review of examples that there is no demonstration of the thinghood or the what-it-is of things, but some other means of pointing to it” (ibid).

The what-it-is of things is an object of dialectical inquiry rather than demonstration.

“[T]he study of nature concerns things that are indeed separate, but are not motionless, while some mathematics concerns things that are indeed motionless, but presumably not separate, but in truth in material; but the first contemplative study concerns things that are both separate and motionless.”

What Aristotle calls “independent” things he also calls “separate”. This just means that they count as bona fide things having some reality of their own, and are not just any phenomena. First philosophy for Aristotle is concerned especially — though certainly not exclusively, if the text of the Metaphysics serves as a witness — with things that are both separate and unmoved.

“And while it is necessary that all causes be everlasting, these are so most of all, since they are responsible for what appears to us of the divine” (p. 110).

This is why the subject of the Metaphysics is sometimes seen as a kind of theology. Aristotle’s language here carefully delineates his concern in this regard as what appears to us of the divine. The theology here will be purely “natural”. It will not address or assume any specific tradition or revelation, but only what is openly accessible to the inquiry and experience of all rational animals.

It seems quite significant that he says “all causes” are everlasting. A billiard ball clunking into another billiard ball is just an event, not a cause at all for Aristotle. Circumstances affecting the outcomes of events will not be causes either. Form, matter, ends, and sources of motion themselves, he is saying, are not subject to coming-to-be and perishing as composite things are. But circumstances are subject to coming-to-be and perishing, which is why they don’t qualify as causes.

Modern science, on the other hand, depends on a notion of cause that has mostly to do with circumstances being the case or not. Neither notion of cause invalidates the other, but we have to be very careful to avoid confusion when we move back and forth from one to the other.

“Now if there were no other independent thing besides the composite natural ones, the study of nature would be the primary kind of knowledge; but if there is some motionless independent thing, the knowledge of this precedes it and is first philosophy, and it is universal in just that way, because it is first” (p. 111).

This is very important. Normally, universality is associated with classes and abstractions. Here he implies there is an alternate path to speaking about “all things”, by way of the dependency of all concrete things on causes, and thereby on the concrete first cause that he will argue for.

Next he recalls the incidental senses in which we say things about things.

“For some things are results of capacities to produce other things, while others result from no definite art or capacity; for of what is or happens incidentally, the cause too is incidental. Therefore, since not all things are or happen necessarily and always, but most things are and happen for the most part, it is necessary that there be incidental being…. [I]t is clear that there is no knowledge of what is incidental, since all knowledge is of what is so always or for the most part — for how else will anyone learn or teach? For it is necessary to make something definite by means of what it is always or for the most part” (p. 113).

In a somewhat Kant-like way, he is saying we have to recognize that there is incidental being, but we cannot have knowledge of it in the proper sense because incidental being is inherently particular. Following the shorthand established before, incidental “being” concerns things insofar as things are said of them incidentally. It refers specifically to the incidental way in which we say that the one “is” the other. Something just happens to be some way.

“That there are sources and causes which come and go without being in a process of coming-to-be or passing-away is evident. For if this were not so, all things would be by necessity, if there must be some nonincidental cause of what is coming into being or passing away. For will this particular thing be the case or not? It will be if this other thing happened, but if not, not….. Therefore it is clear that the result goes back as far as some starting point, but this no longer goes back to anything else. This, then, will be the origin of what happens in whichever way it chances to, and nothing else will be responsible for its happening. But to what sort of source and what sort of cause such tracing back has gone, whether to material or to that for the sake of which or to a mover, one needs to examine with the greatest care” (p. 114).

Since knowledge is being sought here, incidental causes will not be considered further. Nonetheless, he emphasizes that as causes in his sense, incidental causes too would be outside the sphere of becoming. This means that no event or circumstance is an incidental cause; rather, it may have an incidental cause. The incidental cause may be material or final or a mover, but not a form, because there is no form of what is incidental.

This eliminates one of the ways in which something is said of something — the incidental “is” that was laid out before — from the scope of the inquiry.

This is related to the point that keeps coming up in recent posts, that Aristotelian actuality is not what-is-the-case. The inquiry will end up being concerned precisely with this actuality that is not what-is-the-case. (Hegel in the logic of essence makes a similar move to put off to the side considerations of what is the case, but then at the very end of the logic of the concept, he brings back what is the case, as that within which we live and act. Addressing the gap between what is the case and the actual becomes our task.)

Then more briefly, Aristotle eliminates what was previously called being in the sense of true and false. It is unclear whether he sees any causes specific to this, analogous to those he explicitly mentions for the incidental case. In any case, the true and false — he says here as he also does in On Interpretation — have to do with what he calls combining and separating.

“[B]eing as the true and nonbeing as the false concern combining and separating” (p. 115).

Affirming something of something is “combining” the two somethings, and denying something of something is “separating” them. His choice of grammatical forms in naming these implies that he thinks of combining and separating as activities.

“[T]he false and the true are not in things, …but in thinking” (ibid).

Aristotle says that such combination and separation pertain only to thought, not to independent things. (Kant would say, combination and separation are judgments, not data that could be given to us. The later Kant would add that these judgments have a reflective dimension. Hegel would raise additional questions about the apparent sharpness of Aristotle’s distinction between thought and independent things, just as he does with similar distinctions in Kant. Similarly, he would question the sharpness of the distinction between sayings about things in their own right and incidental sayings.)

It is very common to hear a correspondence theory of truth attributed to Aristotle — i.e., a statement is true because it accurately characterizes the applicable state of affairs. That is just not what he says about truth and falsity, as we just saw. It is not a question of good representation of — or accurate pointing to — something external, but rather of good combining and separating within what is said.

There are many things we might wish Aristotle said more about, like the tantalizing suggestion here about combining and separating. But it is has been estimated that as much as two-thirds of his writings were never circulated in manuscript in the ancient world, and therefore have not come down to us (see Fortunes of Aristotle.)

Of the ways of saying “is” enumerated in book Delta, this leaves the saying of the what-it-is of things with its metonymic satellites in the other categories, and the saying in relation to potentiality and actuality still on the table.

Next he will take an in-depth look at the what-it-is of things and our saying of it.

(One of the things I admire most about Aristotle is his way of speaking simultaneously and even-handedly both about real things that have independence from us, and about the ways and the activity of our saying of and about them. I think this means he might have been receptive to Hegel’s refinements mentioned above, because Hegel recognizably aims to extend the same kind of Aristotelian even-handedness to these cases as well. Aristotle could still say that these additional cases point to the focal case of the what-it-is of things, though I think the incidental and the true and false would be related to it as something like modal extensions, rather than metonymic substitutions like the other categories.)

Next in this series: The What-It-Is of Things