A Note on the Unmoved Mover

Scots Philosophical AssociationUniversity of St. Andrews

A Note on the Unmoved MoverAuthor(s): Gregory VlastosSource: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 52 (Jul., 1963), pp. 246-247Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and theUniversity of St. AndrewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2955491 .Accessed: 23/02/2015 14:12

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246

DISCUSSIONS

A NOTE ON THE UNMOVED MOVER

The well-known essay by Sir David Ross on " Aristotle's Theology " in the Introduction to his edition of the Metaphysics, contains the following lines :

There has been much controversy over the question whether God is for Aristotle only the final cause, or the efficient cause as well, of change. There can be no doubt about the answer. 'Efficient cause' is simply the translation of Aris- totle's adpXj T^S KtVo'q(6oS, and God is certainly this (p. cxxxiv).

There is a serious slip here which unfortunately has to be noticed, as it seems to be misleading earnest students of the subject. Thus the lines I have cited turn up in Professor Troy Organ's recent paper, " Randall's

Interpretation of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover ", in the October issue of this journal (at p. 302) as the (only) cited evidence for the claim that the Unmoved Mover " ' causes' motion by reason of its reality as efficient and final and formal cause ". May I then point out that while o0Ev a dp x rT^ KLV OcEOS is a standard Aristotelian term for " efficient cause" (see e.g. occurrences of this expression and of its variants, 'OEv 7 adpX7 TrS tLETap3oXS, O0ev ) Ktvjcr-s, in the passages cited by E. Zeller, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics [Engl. transl., London, 1897; Vol. I, p. 355, note 3, and p. 356, n. 1]; and cf. H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, 22b 34 if., 498b 40 ff.), apX/ rT^S

KI',TCEOs, without the o'0Ev, can apply to any of the four causes, except the

material (see e.g. Bonitz, ibid., 112b 51 ff. and, for typical usage, Phys. II. 1). So while adpx rTjS KLvOEaoS could be used to refer to the efficient cause in a given context, " efficient cause " would be as flagrant a mistranslation of dpXar Ts KtLVEWS as it would be, for example, of a'rtov.

To speak ad rem : That the Unmoved Mover does move as final cause is obvious enough. That it moves in any other way is not borne out by a

single scrap of direct evidence, and is flatly incompatible with the cardinal doctrine that the only activity of the Unmoved Mover is vo0-t3O vofEa-cE. The latter, too well-known to be in need of documentation here, suffices to break the only argument I can think of fox ascribing efficient causation to the Unmoved Mover with any measure of plausibility: the "frequent "

(7roAXaKLS) coalescence of efficient, formal, and final cause (Phys. 198a 24 ff.). Ignoring the weakness of the argument at the base, due to the limitation of the scope of its premise signalled by 7roXXaKts, one may reply as follows : When a form functions as both a final and efficient cause it is

never, strictly speaking, the form itself, but only its actualization in some individual that performs the latter function: " a man [not the form, Man]


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A NOTE ON THE UNMOVED MOVER 247

generates a man " (1. c.; cf. Met. Lambda, 5, 1071a 20-24). Now the only way in which the form, Unmoved Mover, could be actualized in an individual other than the Unmoved Mover, would be as a thought in some mind(s) other than its own (in the first instance, the mind of the " first heaven "). In that case it would be only the latter-the dynamic force of the thought of the Unmoved Mover in mind(s) other than its own-that would function as efficient cause. There is nothing particularly new about this remark. The gist of the matter is understood well enough in the literature, and is correctly stated by Organ a few lines later when he concludes that " the only way " (p. 303) in which the Unmoved Mover moves is "by being an end aimed at " (p. 302). He thus provides his own correction to his previous claim that the Unmoved Mover is an efficient cause.

GREGORY VLASTOS Princeton University.


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Article Contentsp. 246p. 247

Issue Table of ContentsThe Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 52 (Jul., 1963), pp. 193-288Front MatterThe Concept of Dreaming [pp. 193 - 213]Universalisability and Moral Judgment [pp. 214 - 228]Basic Political Concepts [pp. 229 - 237]Peirce on "The Ethics of Terminology" [pp. 238 - 245]DiscussionsA Note on the Unmoved Mover [pp. 246 - 247]Filmer, and the Knolles Translation of Bodin [pp. 248 - 252]

Critical Studyuntitled [pp. 253 - 262]

Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 263 - 265]untitled [pp. 265 - 266]untitled [p. 266]untitled [p. 267]untitled [pp. 267 - 269]untitled [pp. 269 - 270]untitled [pp. 270 - 271]untitled [pp. 271 - 272]untitled [pp. 272 - 273]untitled [pp. 273 - 274]untitled [pp. 274 - 275]untitled [pp. 275 - 276]untitled [pp. 276 - 277]untitled [p. 277]untitled [pp. 277 - 278]untitled [pp. 278 - 279]untitled [p. 280]untitled [p. 281]untitled [pp. 281 - 282]untitled [pp. 282 - 283]untitled [pp. 283 - 284]untitled [pp. 284 - 285]untitled [p. 285]untitled [p. 286]

Books Received [pp. 287 - 288]Announcement [p. 288]Back Matter

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A Note on the Unmoved Mover