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Ancient Philospophical Influences: Aristotle, uses of them, the formal…

- - - - helps understand what gives it shapes and characteristics
        
        eg a bird that clucks and peck may help us idfentifyb a chicken
    - - explains why everything has a purpose (telos). most important cause because it answers the questions about why the world ot its objects are as they are
    - - explains the processs of change from potentiality to actuality
        
        eg lump of metal has potential to turn piece of jewellery, silversmith needs to act on it to turn it into ring
    - - if an object fulfils its purpose, it is good. Goodness is not found in another world, like Plato's form of the Good, but is intrsnsic to the object itself
    - - material cause is obvious. In order to exist and be observed , all things must be made of physical matter
    - - the basis is applicable to life and scientific enquiry because we rely on sense, observation and experience
  - - - eg if I am burned by touching a hot pan, I can use reason to work out not to touch a hot lamp
    - - eg the knife is good if it fulfils its final cause to cut
    - - doesn't seem leaning seem much more difficult than simply remebering? empiricism gives a better understanding of reality because we learn from experiences and from our senses
- - - - for Aristotle, the word he used for the 'why' of something was aition, which has been translated as 'cause', although explanation could also be used
- - - - need to add another cause to get a full explanation of a thing
        
        eg a chair is more than some wood, it is an object with four legs and a space to sit
  - - - idea of purposive cause given because something's aim or goal is also an important part of an explanation of th thing
      - A gives eg of final cause of walking, medicine, purging, surgical instruments etc. as ask being for health
      - for A the aim of something can be seen as its greatest good
    - - key part of A's thought
      - change is the actualisation of somethings potential with respect to its potentiality -> something can only become what it has in it to be eg a piece of wood can become a bed but a human cannot become a bird
      - achieving telos
        
        potential of something may be latent until something else acts upon it
  - - - the sculptor acted upon the stone with his chisel to make the potential statue in the marble an actual statue
      - the agent that moves from potential to actual
  - - - you need actual water to affect the change if an acorn into an oak tree
- - - - PM: through the idea of everything being drawn to its own purpose
      - FoG: as the means by which everything that exists is known
  - - - empircistics would arguetyhat sense experience is the ultimate source of knowledge
      - ratiinalists argue that concepts are independent of sense ecxperience
- - - - how do we know which characteristics are essential to two an object to make it what is it - in a car, is it the engine, petrol, wheels, mirrors or a combination of factors?
    - - purpose does not have to be intrinsic - purpose is given to the object by its creator. purpose is a human construct
      - some things have many purposes or purposes change
      - some things don't have a purpose
    - - D Hume argues we may be able to observe these 2 processes but this does not mean that the effect was a result of the cause, simply that both are observed
    - - eg if a knife cuts my finger instead of the bread, it cuts well but is it a really good knife?
    - - there is not a material cause of a colour/ concept such as beauty
        
        Plato argues true knowledge comes from the non-physical World of the Form. we recognise the Form of Beauty in physical things
    - - Plato would argue this, this physical world is a poor limitation of World of the Forms. We should use reason to know what is real