Aristotle's Four Causes and Relation to the Prime Mover

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Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and was a student of Plato’s at the academy for twenty years. He left Athens only too return and create a new school called the lyceum. He left Athens again when he was charged with impiety only to die of natural causes the next year. He developed the theory of causes, which were his way of understanding an objects existence. The four causes are: The material cause, this is the material it’s made of. The efficient cause, this is agent that brings something about. The formal cause, this is the characteristics of an object that define what it is. The final cause, this is the objects goal or purpose. The prime mover is the thing that created everything and exists by necessity, therefore has to exist. It is perfect and cannot change, as the ability to change would mean that it is not perfect. This also means it is pure good as a lack of goodness means you can do better and doing better would require change. The prime mover cannot interact with the physical world and has no plan for us, going against the idea of God, the prime mover most people believe in. The prime mover is the unmoved mover, this is similar to the domino effect were someone (the prime mover) nocks over a domino causing the adjacent dominos to topple as well but the starter of the chain reaction is unmoved itself. The prime mover is eternal and not a substance. Everything is attracted to the prime mover as it is perfection; this makes the prime mover everything’s final cause. There is no evidence backing up Aristotle’s theory of the prime mover. The prime mover does not interact with the world making it essentially irrelevant. Also the link between the prime mover and the world is unclear. The Prime Mover’s status as “Pure Thought” seems to contradict Aristotle’s empirical view of the world. He also does not explain how his concept of the prime mover as “thinking

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