Existence and Knowledge

Existence and Knowledge

PRIME MOVER (PRIMUM MOBILE) AS VIEWED BY ARISTOTLE

Document Type : Research Article

Author
Seyyed Mohammad Hakkak
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Imam Khomeini International University
Abstract
This article seeks to cast light on the concept of "prime mover", the original and cause of motion (change) in the universe, an idea that was developed by Aristotle. In his work entitled Metaphysics, "wisdom" (Sophia) or "first philosophy" is defined as I) a “theoretical science of the first causes of reality" and 2) a "science of being qua being". Metaphysics itself consist of fourteen books. In Book Alfa, he recounts the first causes as efficient cause, formal cause, material cause and final (ultimate) cause.
In book lambda, Aristotle deals with prime mover. In it he intends to give some explanations of the existence of motion in the material world or the universe and comes to the discussion about God from the very point of view. All things, said Aristotle, are involved in process of change. In other words, all of reality is moving from the state of potentiality to a state of actuality.
He considered the prime mover as a Being or God, the actuality in Himself. Such a Being or "God" lies at the top of the pyramid of existence and all material things are drawn or attracted towards Him through the power of attraction, by being desired and loved, not by force. In fact, Aristotle considered the Prime mover as the ultimate cause of motion in the universe and not as its efficient cause. Aristotle thought of the unmoved mover as God and applied such divine attributes as existence and knowledge to Him, and in doing so he reconciled the first philosophical principle of the universe with the fundamental religious principle after they had been taken apart.
The act of Aristotle’s God is thinking and the object of this thinking is Himself. Therefore, He does not know anything and pays no attention to the universe. He is not even the object of worship as much as He is not the creator, for Aristotle considered matter and motion as something eternal.
Aristotle’s world of reality is purposeful, but not in the sense that all creation moves to its end consciously and that God has created the world as such. God’s influence on the universe is like the influence someone has on someone else unconsciously, or like the effect of a statue on an observer

منابع

1- طباطبایى، محمد حسین، اصول فلسفه و روش رئالیسم، مقدمه و پاورقى به قلم مرتضى مطهرى، قم، دارالعلم، چ اول، 1350، ج 5.
2- کاپلستون، فردریک، تاریخ فلسفه، سید جلال الدین مجتبوى، تهران، انتشارات علمى و فرهنگى و انتشارات سروش، چاپ دوم، 1368، جلد 1.
3- Aristotle, Metaphysics, translated by W.D.Ross, U.S.A, the university of chicago, Nineteenth Printing, 1971.
4- Gilson, Etienne, God And philosophy, London, Yale university Press, 1969.
5- Russell, Bertrand, History of western philosophy, London, Routledge, 1993.
6- Ross, W.D.Aristotle, Methuen, 2nd edition, 1930.
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Existence and Knowledge
Volume 0, Issue 2 - Serial Number 30
Summer 2002
Pages 115-124