ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Forty: The Purposefulness of the Cosmos Introduction The final cause, in the sense which has been explained, is specific to voluntary actions, but according to that which has been reported from Aristotle, it seems that he held that natural actions also have final causes, and those who followed the Peripatetics also accepted this, and they considered the denial of final causes for natural actions to be equal to regarding them as being accidental.

Contrary to the assertion that natural events are accidental, according to a view which has been attributed in various forms to Democritus, Empedocles, and Epicures, there is a final cause for all phenomena.

We shall first state the reported position of Aristotle and its criticism, then we will explain something about chance and accident, and finally we will state the correct meaning of the ‘purposefulness of the cosmos.’ Aristotle’s View regarding the Final Cause In the first book of the Metaphysics , after mentioning the views of the ancient philosophers regarding the cause of the appearance of phenomena, Aristotle asserts that none of them have precisely taken into consideration the final cause.

Then with the analysis of motion and change of material existents, he concludes that every moving or changing existent is traveling toward an end which is its perfection, and the motion itself, which is a prelude for reaching the above-mentioned end, is considered to be its first perfection.

Hence, motion is defined as “the first perfection of a potential existent qua potential.”1 He adds that every existent has its own specific perfection, and for this reason, every moving thing has a determinate end which it wants to reach. This perfection is sometimes the same form which it wants to take, such as the form of the oak tree for the acorn while it is in the process of germinating and growing.

Sometimes it is one of its accidents, such as a stone which is moving from the sky to the ground, in which case coming to rest on the ground is one of its accidents and perfections. In conclusion, every natural existent has a specific natural inclination toward a determinate end, which causes motion in the direction of that end and destination, and this is the same as the final cause for the occurrence of motion and the determination of its direction.