Aristotle: the four causes and the Prime Mover

Overview

Recall questions on Aristotle's teleology, the four causes applied to a bronze statue, the argument for the Prime Mover and its characteristics, how an unchanging mover causes motion, its link to the final cause, and how it compares with the God of monotheism and Plato's Form of the Good.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Explain what Aristotle means by teleology.

   Model answer

   Aristotle holds that natural things have an end or goal built into what they are, and that no explanation is complete until that end is stated. An acorn is directed towards becoming an oak; an eye is for seeing. This is not a purpose imposed from outside by a designer but an internal tendency belonging to the thing's own nature, and Aristotle takes it that nature does nothing pointlessly.

2. 2

   What are Aristotle's four causes, and what question does each answer?

   Model answer

   The material cause answers what a thing is made from. The formal cause answers what shape, structure or defining pattern makes it that kind of thing. The efficient cause answers what agent or process brought it into being. The final cause answers what it is for. Aristotle thinks all four are needed for a full explanation, and that the final cause is the most important.

3. 3

   Apply Aristotle's four causes to a bronze statue.

   Model answer

   The material cause is the bronze. The formal cause is the shape and proportions that make it a statue of that particular figure rather than a lump of metal. The efficient cause is the sculptor and the act of casting. The final cause is the purpose it serves, such as commemorating a hero or adorning a temple.

4. 4

   Why does Aristotle argue that there must be a Prime Mover?

   Model answer

   He observes that change is everywhere, and analyses change as the actualising of a potential. Nothing can actualise its own potential, so whatever changes is changed by something already actual. A chain of movers each of which is itself being moved explains nothing about why there is any motion at all, so Aristotle concludes there must be something wholly actual which causes change without itself changing.

5. 5

   Describe the characteristics of Aristotle's Prime Mover.

   Model answer

   It is pure actuality with no unrealised potential, and therefore cannot change, decay or be acted upon. It is immaterial, since matter carries potentiality, and it is eternal and necessary rather than contingent. Having no potential, it does nothing but think, and the only object worthy of its thought is itself, so Aristotle describes it as thought thinking itself.

6. 6

   If the Prime Mover never changes, how can it cause motion?

   Model answer

   It causes motion as a final cause rather than an efficient one: it attracts rather than pushes. Aristotle says it moves things as an object of love or desire moves the one who desires it. Everything in the cosmos strives towards the perfection the Prime Mover embodies, and that striving is the motion we observe, while the Prime Mover itself remains entirely unaffected.

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