display all the ideas for this combination of texts
12 ideas
| 5085 | 'Nature' refers to two things - form and matter [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: 'Nature' refers to two things - that is, both to form and to matter. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 194a12) | |
| A reaction: The 'New Essentialism' (e.g. book by Brian Ellis) seems to imply that matter is basic, and that form is the result of the essence of matter. They seem to have parted company with Aristotle. Does he think matter is created on Thursday, and form on Friday? |
| 5113 | Nothing natural is disorderly, because nature is responsible for all order [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nothing natural - nothing due to nature - is disorderly, because in all things nature is responsible for order. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 252a11) | |
| A reaction: This sounds dangerously tautological. What is responsible for disorder? If a forest is smashed up by an earthquake, 'order' doesn't sound like a good description of the result. It is certainly no more orderly than if people smash the forest. |
| 5092 | Nature is a principle of change, so we must understand change first [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nature is the subject of our enquiry, and nature is a principle of change, so if we do not understand the process of change, we will not understand nature either. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 200b12) | |
| A reaction: This is a very distinctively Greek attitude which doesn't seem to concern us much, but perhaps it should. Movement is just as fundamental as forces, particles and the rest that physicist talk about. Why do particles respond to forces? |
| 5089 | Nature has purpose, and aims at what is better. Is it coincidence that crops grow when it rains? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What is wrong with the idea that nature does not act purposively, and does not do things because they are better? The proper analogy is the idea that it is sheer coincidence that the crops grow when it rains. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 198b16) | |
| A reaction: In this context, it simply never occurred to Aristotle to give a causal explanation instead of a purposive one. Or that he had got it the wrong way round - growth of crops is 'for the better' only because we eat them, but are we 'for the better'? |
| 5091 | Teeth and crops are predictable, so they cannot be mere chance, but must have a purpose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things such as teeth and crops turn out as they do either always or usually, whereas no chance or spontaneous event does. ..So, given that these things cannot be accidents or spontaneous events, they must have some purpose. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 199b33) | |
| A reaction: This is a good argument, and Darwin's theory does not destroy it. We have no idea why there is order, regularity and pattern in nature. Aristotle does not leap to a divine explanation. The 'purpose' of things might be non-conscious. |
| 5087 | A thing's purpose is ambiguous, and from one point of view we ourselves are ends [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: From one point of view we too are ends. What a thing is for is ambiguous. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 194a35) | |
| A reaction: A really interesting concession from the great teleologist. This opens up what I think of as the 'existentialist' possibility - that we can invent our own purposes. If there are two types of 'telos', which one matters for morality? |
| 5086 | The nature of a thing is its end and purpose [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The nature of a thing is its end and purpose. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 194a29) | |
| A reaction: Cf 5084. This is the teleologists' manifesto, but it is very hard to find out why Aristotle took this view. He seems to offer it as self-evident. What would he have made of the proposal that there is no ultimate purpose to anything? |
| 5108 | Is ceasing-to-be unnatural if it happens by force, and natural otherwise? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If what happens by force is unnatural, then forced ceasing-to-be is unnatural, and is opposed to natural ceasing to be. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 230a29) | |
| A reaction: This is an important matter for Aristotle, who needs a concept of 'unnatural' behaviour for his ethics. Our law enshrines the idea of 'death by natural causes'. But 'force' needs discussion. Why is a hitman unnatural, and lightning natural? |
| 5093 | Continuity depends on infinity, because the continuous is infinitely divisible [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In defining continuity one is almost bound to rely on the notion of infinity; it is because the continuous is what is infinitely divisible. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 200b18) | |
| A reaction: Parmenides and the Achilles Paradox lie behind this view, and the fact that Aristotle was opposed to the view that some things are indivisible ('atomism'). Nice point, though - that space and time immediately imply the infinite. |
| 5095 | The heavens seem to be infinite, because we cannot imagine their end [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The region beyond the heavens seems to be infinite because it does not give out in our thoughts. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 203b25) | |
| A reaction: An interesting case of inconceivability (of a limit) implying impossibility. But it is undeniable that the outer limit of the cosmos is unimaginable for us. Is there a 'Road Closed' sign? |
| 16762 | Matter desires form, as female desires male, and ugliness desires beauty [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What desires the form is matter, as the female the male, and the ugly the beautiful. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 192a22) | |
| A reaction: Wow! This is a very active view of matter. The drive in nature (the 'conatus' in Spinoza) can be discerned in all sorts of levels. It is Nietzsche's will to power. It seems to be the opposite of entropy. |
| 17464 | When Aristotle's elements compound they are stable, so why would they ever separate? [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not easy to understand what would induce a compound to dissociate into its elements on Aristotle's theory, which seems entirely geared to showing how a stable equilibrium results from mixing. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE]) by Weisberg/Needham/Hendry - Philosophy of Chemistry 1.1 |