Introduction:
There are many things that man has already become so familiar with wherein he
tends not to search deeper onto these as it will seem peculiar. One could ask
“how come my coffee is hot?” The simple experience coming from the hotness of
coffee is something that we are all too familiar, and yet by further
investigation, Chemistry has that wicked way of confusing our heads on tackling
the word “heat”. Simple things have a complex structure but the fluidity and
the harmony of the complex makes it look like its simple. A typical instance
would be just like watching a football game wherein an ordinary spectator can
enjoy the simplicity of the game while the players are already battling it all
out themselves on the field.
Questioning the familiar is part of
the task of the philosopher and one in particular was Aristotle. He proposed
the primacy of experience in order to recognize things as they were and the use
science (abstraction) to know why these things were also to see essences.
Another concept that we are too familiar about and which is also the most
common machination of the human mind - causality. We talk about
it every day in a reflective sense and even language functions accordingly
through it. For instance, questions like “why were you absent?” and “why did
you fail?” We ask for causes, so that the advantages of knowing the why’s makes
us manipulate the causal chain. Aristotle, like a chemist, will give a rigorous
unraveling on this everyday idea called cause and effect.
Though in the level of familiarity, it is something we ought to understand
clearly minus us speaking and coming up into language what it is, but in the
level of further investigation it might bewilder us on how familiar a thing
such as causality could be so complex as far it can get.
Aristotle’s treatise on causality is found in two of books namely Physics and
Metaphysics.
Metaphysics: On Causality
“All men by nature desire to know”. [1] Aristotle made clear that it is innate
that man thirsts for knowledge with a clear emphasis that such is a desire. The
search of knowledge is in guided by ends and one of them is to achieve a degree
of pleasure. He pointed out some justifications why man is directed to knowing
thus he gave an example of man being capable of seeing even if he is just
hanging around and without reflection, things are merely in sight. Some objects
of sight also are pleasurable like nature or a beautiful lady. Anything as long
as it pleases the eyes, but sensory perception is just the first step. Not only
sight, but the rest of the four senses like touch, taste, hearing and smelling,
all participate in man’s quest for knowledge. The senses are important since
they “make us know and bring to light many differences between things”. [2]
These senses make us in no way a lot distant from the animals since they also
have senses in which they too come into sense knowledge at their own level.
Man, being able to know through his faculty of sense (even in the most passive
sense) undeniably is a creature who knows for his own ends (which sometimes the
purpose is known later) but Aristotle made a distinction between two kinds of
men that know, and these are the “man of experience” and the “man of art”. Men
of experience are these people who knows things in the “what” while that of the
men of art knows things also with the “why’s” but before anything else, they
all begin from experience since “there is nothing the mind without passing
through the senses”. [3] The creation of an idea pegged down to the very
quotation just mentioned is what Aristotle would call ideogenesis in which the
formation of any knowledge must start from the sensible before passing to the
abstract level. Aristotle gives a borderline and the division plus the
hierarchy between these two men that in which the man of art is superior to the
man of experience because men of art are viewed “as being wiser not in virtue
of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the
causes”.[4] But even though art is somewhat greater than experience, it cannot
escape the fact “science made art come to men through experience”.[5] Moreover,
from experience “art arises when from many notions gained by experience one
universal judgment about a class of objects produced.” [6] Art for Aristotle is
to be held in greater respect rather than experience because it is from art we
know the “whys” or the causes of things. Knowing causes will inevitably lead to
knowing also of its effects in which it plays an important role on everyday man
and his movement. Furthermore, knowing causes makes one teach. For that “the
wise man (knower of the causes and the teacher) must not be ordered but must
order” [7] since, this wise man “knows to what end [also] each thing must be
done” [8] and therefore art or the sciences of causes is the “most
authoritative of the sciences”. [9] Authoritative, because it also is
instructive for “in a higher degree, for the people who instruct us are those
who tell the causes of each thing”. [10] Not then is it only in level of humans
does art and science to be taken in greater degree but also because to think
ultimately of the first cause is to point the finger to divine beings and
lastly to a single Being in order to stop the infinite regress. The first cause
must be attributed to God, and this is already talking about divinity in which
the causes within the level of humans are deemed particular and that God is
universal and is the ultimate cause to everything. Aristotle crowns this
science as “divine science” since it tackles God plus, it is named therefore as
metaphysics because God is way beyond the physical world.
In additional note, Aristotle mentions of the four different kinds and being
true to what he said: “knowledge is the object of our inquiry and men do not
think they know a thing till they have grasped the ‘why’ of it (which is to
grasp its primary cause),” [11] he elaborated further on the four.
For Aristotle, there are four causes:
(i)
“That out of which a thing comes to be and which persists, is called a
cause.”[12]
The first type of “cause” Aristotle refers to is what is
known as “material cause”. He is pointing out like that to his predecessors
e.g. Miletian Philosophers, who thought of the ultimate stuff wherein
everything was caused by some form of matter e.g. Thales - water, Heraclitus –
fire and etc. He was aware that his predecessors were right concerning that
there is such as a “material cause” from “out of which a thing comes to be”,
e.g. table is to wood or to steel. In the given example like wood, it persists
by being in the tree first, then later on transformed into a table. Still, by
being, it retains its matter which is wood even if we dismantle it and make it
into a chair. It still has wood; it still is wood.
(ii)
“The form or archetype, i.e. the statement of the essence and its genera, are
called causes.”[13]
The second type of cause is called “form” or can be loosely
translated as shape. It is a type of “cause” which is concerned by “formation”
of something, e.g. the form of the table is also the cause for the table, not
only the wood, but wood and the “shape” of table. Any material must be infused
with the form of the table in order to become a table. A clear example can go
by reduction of the form itself to realize itself. Try giving a thought
experiment like think of a table and remove the shape of it being table, and
now, what you have is only the material left.
The first two mentioned causes are
also categorized as “intrinsic causes”, since these causes are found or is in
the object itself. Both matter and form are what the objects are made of and
therefore both are what the object is. Moreover, the two are considered
intrinsic since they are in the object and not outside of it.
(iii)
“The primary source of change or coming to rest; e.g. The man who gave advice
is a cause.”[14]
The third is also known as the efficient cause which is
about a being outside the object causes motion or any change to it. It is the
direct and known actor of that change, or can be thought of as any agent
responsible for any change. For example, a sculptor to a statue and Zeus for
lightning.
(iv)
“in the sense of end, or ‘that for the sake of which’ a thing is done”[15]
The purpose or the end which anything has is also accounted
for as a cause. Since the end also puts to reality or justifies the necessity
of the thing by being the effect and this is also known as “final cause” in
which something at the end or the end itself is ‘pulling’ everything towards it
to actualize itself. [16] E.g. fulfillment of goals causes man’s movement to its
achievement or happiness causes man’s quest to acquire it. The end, such as
happiness, serves as a vacuum pulling man to do things until he will finally
reach it.
The last two causes are known as “extrinsic causes” since they are outside the object
like in the case of efficient cause wherein it is plainly seen as agents like
the sculptor causes change to a marble to become a statue and the finality of a
sculpture is to bring happiness to the beholders thus, the final cause of
bringing happiness envisioned by the sculptor prompts him to the act of
sculpting.
As presented these are the four causes in which our world is governed and it
can be noticed that these causes are only intermediary since each of the before
mentioned causes still have prior causes. For instance, wood has still a prior
cause which is a tree. A sculptor to his father and so on and so forth.
Aristotle was wise enough to mention these causes exhaustively in the book
called Physics since these are causal laws which only govern the physical
world. The incomprehensive number of intermediary is an enormous network of
causal chains since the causes inevitably overlap each other. Such scenario
creates a problem wherein everything is caused by everything and that I can say
my ballpen is the cause of the cellphone, which is not the case and is
revolting to the common sense. Therefore, Aristotle devised the solution to
terminate infinite regress and also the complexity of the network and it is to
superimpose first causes that are primary causes and not intermediary but in
themselves are the ultimate beginning which is not caused and therefore in
the long line of causal chains and which is the first point to where
everything follows. There are only two ‘first’ causes (derived from the four):
(1) from material cause which is prime matter which is the original matter in
which everything pervasively has or that first matter where every other known
matter follows which is also the principle of “pure potency.” Pure potency is
potential anything. Another is (2) God in which causes (ii), (iii) and (iv) are
linked at. Since God is that ultimate form, ultimate creator and to which also
everything ends.
Aristotle also made a quick and short introduction to what is also known as
counter-factual that in which according to him are “for that which by its
presence brings about one result is sometimes blamed for bringing the contrary
by its absence”. [17] In this quotation, it roughly says of counter-factual,
but as mentioned that the absence of the result which was expected from a
particular cause also implies that, that cause is also absent if the opposite
happens. E.g. if a Zeus devotee always make do with rituals, then there will be
calmness of the weather and if he fails, then there will be a thunderstorm.
From that example, it says that the cause which is the doing of rituals results
to a calm weather, but on the failure of it which is the absence of it, causes
the contrary which is a bad weather. We can apply this speculation for what
if’s in speculating also some absences of causes or it is evident in reality
that such creates such contraries by its non-existence.
Aristotle also introduced another set of ideas concerning causality theory and
they are “chance” and “spontaneity”. Chance or also known to Aristotle as
“incidental cause” which is also an “indirect cause”. E.g. a carpenter building
the house and that a carpenter can be a musician also, therefore his being a
musician serves as an indirect cause in the building of the house. Coming from
that example, it is not really the case that a musician can build a house and
that it was actually by chance or incidentally that the carpenter is also a
musician, then it is also a chance or incidentally that the house was made by a
musician. Another example would be a tax collector going to a place to visit
and incidentally collected money but it was not the purpose. Again, taking from
that example, it is like that “what happened was not really the case”, it was
by chance that the tax collector collected money in a non-intended collection
but because he is a tax collector and that the people recognized that, he then
received money in the case that he intended not to be a tax collector
momentarily but only as a mere citizen or a visitor. By chance or incidentally
he collected money along the way. Therefore, chance happens which is not really
expected (taking the second example).
Analyzing those examples, it comes to a point that chance is possible, when a
being of something also has another sort of being that can be also attributed
as the cause because there is man. The carpenter who is also a musician is both
attributed as a cause but the latter is incidental to the effect of the house
building, if taken in other terms. If the effect is the creation of a music
piece, then incidentally it was from the carpenter which all are under the
higher substance that carries both beings (carpenter and musician) as man; the
same also with the tax collector and just by being a mere visitor. An overlap
of beings results in chance creation.
Another is called “spontaneity”, which is understood as that something happened
"flowingly" or abruptly from one cause then at a very short time
creates another effect which is also another cause. In its relation to chance,
Aristotle said that “every result of chance is from what is spontaneous, but
not everything that is from spontaneous is from chance”. [18] As understood,
what is spontaneous is that which happens “flowingly”, but to justify the
saying that chance does not necessarily create spontaneity is that there are
really “purposely” done things that create other events. The word purposely is
highlighted because chance refers to incidentals which therefore are not the
cases which also can be understood as the not-purposed causes.
Conclusion:
Aristotle, the profound system builder, to which Hegel is only second, [19] has
created a long tedious discourse on one of the most apparently familiar concept
which causality wherein he derived such theory from the physical world to the
point of establishing metaphysical causes. In order to establish an overarching
system such as metaphysics, it has to be thoroughly grounded on what is real.
Endnotes:
[1] Metaphysics. P. 243.
[2] Ibid. p. 243.
[3] ?
[4] Metaphysics. p. 245.
[5] Ibid. p. 244.
[6] Ibid. p. 244.
[7] Ibid. p. 246.
[8] Ibid. p. 247.
[9] Ibid. p. 247.
[10] Ibid. p. 247.
[11] Physics. P. 240.
[12] Ibid. p. 240.
[13] Ibid. p. 240.
[14] Ibid. p. 241.
[15] Ibid. p. 241.
[16] To give more light into this one, or to clearly convey
the illustration, it is similar to Tielhard de Chardin’s Omega point wherein
everything converges. But taken in particular sense, Omega point is to some
object (also the end) pulls the long causal line towards it like a sort of a
magnet to where this thing must be at. It can be seen as the thing is moving
forward because the end is pulling it towards the forward it is heading.
[17] Physics. P. 241.
[18] Physics. P.246.
[19] Some trivia I picked up and I do not have sources
for this trivia.
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