Abstract
For two and a half millennia readers of Aristotle have been struggling to understand just what sort of causation is being attributed to the Prime Unmoved Mover or PM, whether final or efficient, assuming that this supreme being could not be a material cause or even a formal cause of the entire cosmos. Fred Miller entered into this still ongoing debate with a fresh proposal, drawing on an almost incidental remark in GC 1.6.323a25-33 that was later picked up by Philoponus in his commentary on Aristotle’s text. The fundamental question is whether the PM’s causal role is to be restricted to a case of final causation or is there evidence for efficient causation as well? Just how ancient this question of interpretation is can be clearly shown by the following remarks made by Simplicius in the first half of the sixth century in his Neo-Platonist commentary on Phys VIII.6.267b17-26:Simplicius goes on to argue in some detail for this dual picture, primarily because of his harmonizing approach to Plato and Aristotle, but also by referencing some very specific passages in other works—notably Cael, GC, DM—but also Met, albeit only from its first book (1361.11-1363.24). He starts out here by claiming that “[n]o one disputes that Aristotle calls god or the primary mover a final cause” but realizes that showing that the PM is an efficient cause as well needs some textual support, which he dutifully attempts to provide. We will be going over some of the same ground cited here in trying to articulate Aristotle’s conception of divine causation and in particular to decide if Fred Miller’s thoughts about the “untouched toucher” will help us in the overall endeavor to explore Λ.6-10. Since he points out (at p. 278) that the PM could hardly be a material cause or even a formal cause, his framing the issue as to whether the mode of causation here is exclusively efficient or exclusively final, or, on the other hand, both at once, seems very close to how Simplicius set up the problem. Indeed, he cites the same section of Simplicius’s commentary quoted above and finds this ancient perplexity a good jum** off point for his own attempt to shed light on a fundamental issue of interpretation, noting that if we balk at the Neo-Platonic suggestion that Aristotle’s PM “is on a par with Plato’s demiurge,” the question becomes: “in what way is the prime mover supposed to be an efficient cause?” (p. 279). Miller’s novel suggestion is that one way of dealing with this question is the thought that the PM is an “untouched toucher.” It is crucial to his picture that this suggestion is strongly tied to the prospect of finding “a way in which the unmoved mover of the cosmos could be a genuine efficient cause” (p. 287) and not I believe, as W.D. Ross may have held, an efficient cause only by being a final cause. This will become important when we explore what untouched touching would be quite generally, given the emphasis on the psychological dynamics of this sort of affective action as suggested by the everyday examples provided by both Aristotle and Philoponus.
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Notes
- 1.
Miller (2013). Page references to this article will be provided parenthetically in the text.
- 2.
Simplicius (2001), p. 151.
- 3.
It may well be that Simplicius was very familiar with the work as a whole, given that he had very likely written a commentary on the Metaphysics, which was lost according to Ilsetraut Hadot. See Hadot (1990), p. 291.
- 4.
At 1363.13 Simplicius alludes to “someone [who] inquires why in the world Aristotle does not say that god is an efficient as evidently as <he said that he is> a final cause”; this shows how consciously aware he was of resistance to the efficient cause side of the argument about the PM’s causal role. Miller’s proposal is a modern attempt to strengthen this side of the argument.
- 5.
David Keyt rightly asks what Miller and I mean by a genuine efficient cause. The safest thing to say is that we mean that type of cause the canonical account in Phys II.3.194b29-32 describes: “Furthermore, that from which the primary origin of change and rest (hothen hē archē tēs metabolēs hē prōtē ē tēs ēremēseōs), e. g. the responsible deliberator (ho bouleusas aitios), or the father of the child, and in general the agent (to poioun) of the thing produced (tou poioumenou) and the changer of the thing changed (to metaballon tou metaballoumenou)” (tr. Hankinson). For the phrase “the agent of the thing produced” we could also use the more literal “the maker of what is made.” Paradigm cases in addition to those mentioned just above are artisans, seeds, and even the art which an artist or architect might possess (as Rachana Kamtekar reminds me). All of these familiar examples involve changes produced by an efficient cause the activity of which preceded its effect. It would seem that the PM’s causal role will not be an example on a par with these paradigmatic cases since its only activity is pure actualization of its thought of itself, as Λ.9 has it, as we shall see, and not of productive changes in other things. If we accept a distinction made in a paper by Lindsay Judson, it might be a case of a ‘nonenergetic’ efficient cause as opposed to the more familiar ‘energetic’ causes that come to mind when initially thinking of Aristotle’s theory of four causes (cf. Miller (2013), p. 205, n. 19).
- 6.
As it will turn out in what follows, it now seems clear to me that Ross put forth in 1936 an early version of my conclusion.
- 7.
A fuller translation provided by Miller of the key passage at I.6.323a25-33 is supplied below when the discussion turns to Philoponus’s obviously keen interest in the untouched-toucher.
- 8.
Furley (1994).
- 9.
Annas (1976), p. 160. It is worth noting that Gail Fine, who defends Platonic paradigmatism, sees Aristotle here as presenting a dilemma to Plato: “if forms are literally paradigms, someone must use them in their work [she reports Alexander of Aphrodisias as offering painters looking to their subjects as an example]; but no one does. The only alternative is that paradigmatism is a useless metaphor” (my emphasis). See nn. 42, 43, and 45 of Fine (1993) on p. 343 for more details about Aristotle’s critique of Platonic metaphors. Fine thinks Plato would reject both horns of the dilemma, but the charge itself made by Aristotle is a clear call for either an implausible literal interpretation or a hopeless, merely poetical metaphor. If Aristotle’s attitude toward the use of metaphors in philosophy or science, whether theoretical or practical, was consistently hostile, it seems he would not want the PM’s touching the cosmos to be merely metaphorical. I am not sure if he actually held such a low opinion of metaphor throughout his work, but some remarks suggest this. At Top VI.2.139b34-5, having urged the dialectician to check to see whether his opponent has “spoken metaphorically” (e.g. in saying that knowledge is unshakable or the earth a nurse), he says: “For what is said metaphorically is always obscure.” The suggestion seems to be that the use of metaphor in philosophical argumentation is usually suspect. Such a suggestion, of course, needs more investigation than I have thus far given it. For a survey of the main sources for the topic of metaphor in Aristotle, see Levin (1982). The use of metaphor in literary and rhetorical contexts is another matter entirely, where poetic touches are appreciated.
- 10.
Natali (2004), pp. 195–217. The account he gives of hubristic injury in the books common to both NE and EE can be found at pp. 215–216.
- 11.
Natali notes that here we have shifted from the more general talk of ‘moving’ to ‘touching’.
- 12.
Natali (2004), p. 216.
- 13.
We quite frequently note the absence of such uptake when watching a film or TV show.
- 14.
Miller does not go this far in directly commenting on the GC text. See the quotation from p. 287 in the next paragraph.
- 15.
Natali (2004), p. 215.
- 16.
Williams (1982), p. 118, ad loc..
- 17.
It is worth noting that Miller in this section mentions a remark at Phys VIII.5.258a20-22 that might be thought to remind us of the untouched toucher passage in GC and that it is “tempting” to treat “the unmoved-mover component … in the same way as a soul to its body” (p. 290). He resists the temptation in spite of the occurrence of ‘touching’ (haptomena) (a 20) and ‘will touch’ (hapsetai) (a22) in light of his overall resistance to the cosmic soul interpretation of the PM, which I find very convincing.
- 18.
Bodnar (2002), p. 182, fn. 13.
- 19.
Devereux (1988), pp. 167–188. The speculative remarks quoted in the text can be found in nn. 66 (p. 188) and 5 (p. 185). Devereux wonders why if Theophrastus did have all of the books of the Metaphysics before him when he wrote: “why is there no mention of the rich and complex views developed in … Z and H?” (p. 168). He goes on to suggest that, inter alia, Theophrastus’s concentration on Lamda seemingly by itself is a “stumbling block” for the “traditional view that Lamda forms a doctrinal unity with the central books and expresses the mature, final stage of Aristotle’s metaphysical theorizing” (p. 169). It may well be said that Devereux’ paper is every bit as aporetic as most interpreters see Theophrastus’s original work itself. That does not detract from its potentially shedding light on the immediate cold reception to much of the PM doctrine in the Lyceum. He points out that Theophrastus’s association with Aristotle covered a span of 20 years and that there is no good reason to assume that whatever he wrote came after the death of his teacher. Lamda could well have emerged earlier than the central books as a stand-alone attempt to cover both sensible and nonsensible substance and we might surmise that Theophrastus’s own small treatise’s focus on Lamda understandably ignores such important devices as the doctrine of focal meaning and much else that the middle books provide. See Devereux (1988), pp. 182–184. Of course, the independence of Lamda from the larger whole, “not tied to its location…as we have it,” in Lindsay Judson’s words, is commonly recognized even if whether it came earlier or later than the rest is clearly controversial. See Judson (2019), pp. 7–10 for discussion on this point. For a provocative speculation that Lamda was hurriedly composed just before his death in 322 BCE—not early as Devereux suggests—see Burnyeat (2001), pp. 148–49. In light of such disparate opinions about the dating of Lamda, Judson reasonably claims that “it is in fact very hard to find a good argument for any particular date, early or late, for Λ’s composition” and that “there may not actually be determinate answers, even in principle, to questions put in these terms” (my emphasis). See Judson (2019), p. 6.
- 20.
Citing the almost unanimous agreement among scholars “that Theophrastus dispensed with Aristotle’s divine unmoved mover, and thought the movement of the heavens sufficiently explained by their being animate and having a soul,” Richard Sorabji sees this as constituting a shrewd move on his part, given that “Aristotle had opened himself to such an outcome.” He claims that this departure “is a major one” and significantly influential in setting up the Peripatetic tradition of dispensing with the PM, starting with Strato, Theophrastus’ immediate successor. This might explain, for example, “why the Stoics did not need to attack the unmoved mover: the Aristotelian school had abandoned him”. See Sorabji (1998), pp. 204–06.
- 21.
Devereux (1988), p. 188, n. 66.
- 22.
Jonathan Barnes memorably reports that “we often lose interest in a question after a few years or months or minutes of research. I used to worry about the comparative dating of Aristotle’s works, and I got nowhere, and neither did anyone else. I don’t worry about the matter anymore” (Barnes (2007), p. 328, with my emphasis).
- 23.
Burnyeat (2004), p. 17, n. 21.
- 24.
Rapp et al. (2020). The translation is that of Oliver Primaveis and Benjamin Morrison. All quotations to follow from the English translation facing the newly edited Greek text are those to be found on pp. 163–89 of this massive scholarly record of the 19th Symposium Aristotelicum convened in Munich in July of 2011.
- 25.
Indeed, in their app. crit. (ad 700b23-24, p. 174) Primavesi and Morison quote 1072a26 as a clear parallel.
- 26.
Following Judson’s correction of Jaeger’s text for 1072a24-25. See Judson (2019), p. 374 n. The translation in my text is taken over from this source.
- 27.
Here I depart slightly from Judson’s translation by using the singular ‘to orekton’ and ‘to noēton’ rather than his plural. This seems to me to bring it into alignment with the passage from the MA and I don’t see why we should translate as though we had ‘ta orekta’ and ‘ta noēta’, especially given that Judson goes on in his comment on this line to identify the PM as the clear referent, “confirmed by b3-4, ‘it causes motion as something beloved’” where the participle (hōs erōmenon) is singular. Miller translates this bit as “it [the PM] brings about movement by being loved” and cites seven passages that follow this one as characterizing “the prime mover as good and noble” (p. 281). This again is very close to the language quoted above from the MA.
- 28.
Hankinson (1998), p. 187.
- 29.
Sedley (2000), pp. 327–50. The quote in the text can be found on p. 334.
- 30.
Cf. Hankinson (1998), p. 187: “The highest cause must be that which exists in pure, unadulterated actuality (otherwise further explanation will be needed to explain how it moves from potentiality to actuality … even the heavenly bodies in a sense contain potentiality … as they involve matter [in moving from place to place]).” The matter mentioned here is so-called “topical matter” (hulē topikē). For a penetrating treatment of this notion in Λ see Charles (2000), especially pp. 89 ff. That these bodies must be animate would seem to require more than mere topical matter. That the heavenly bodies are ensouled was clearly asserted at Cael II.12.292a14 ff. and may well be still assumed in the (presumably later) Met. Ross certainly saw no reason to doubt this when, having referenced the passage just cited as describing “the stars as living beings aiming at an end, and the first heaven as attaining the theotatē archē directly by a single movement” he notes the absence of any unmoved mover. But the divine archē itself “may be thought of as an immanent end, a perfect state of itself which beckons the first heaven on to its attainment.” When in the Phys and Met we are introduced to the unmoved mover, Ross finds an ensouled cosmos still at work: “it may be presumed that he retained the notion that the heavens act under final causation, and now thought of them as having in the first mover a transcendent end, and of their eternal rotation without translation as due to the endeavour to attain, in such measure as a material thing can, something akin to the eternal unchanging activity of the first mover” (Ross (1936), p. 100). He even goes on to mention our target text concerning the action of a man who grieves another but quickly moves to the more positive conception of untouched touching that I have urged all along when he says that the PM acts “by inspiring a mental state, which must be that of desire.” While an appeal to scholarly authority—even that of Ross—is never conclusive, to have discovered Ross anticipating the picture I have developed is no small comfort.
- 31.
Marlein van Raalte offers reasons for thinking that Theophrastus approached “Aristotle’s theory of cosmic desire” as he saw it in Lamda in the very context where MA “took shape.” She notes that Theophrastus, “after pointing to [the] pitiful failure” of the “heavenly bodies” to imitate the “best state of being, namely in rest” enjoyed by the PM, goes on to say that “the most divine entities … have to be content with the second-best alternative, namely the best kind of motion, circular motion” [van Raalte (1988), p. 201]. This kyklophoria in Theoprastus’s view was not the best kind of kinēsis. She quotes Theophrastus’s Metaphysics 5b5-7: “If the first [cause] is the cause of the circular movement, then it cannot possibly be the cause of the best movement: for the movement of the soul is more powerful, and first and foremost that of the thinking faculty, in which indeed the desire originates.” Here again we have a prominent member of the Lyceum bringing up a significant problem for the doctrine of the prime mover being a final cause of the motion of the outermost sphere of Aristotle’s universe. Is it any wonder that we today are still struggling to understand Lamda 6–10 if his immediate successors seem to have had such difficulty in swallowing the PM doctrine?
- 32.
Judson (2019), p. 311, ad 1074b33-35.
- 33.
Judson (2019) devotes some 50 pages in his commentary on Λ to several, divergent interpretations of this (in)famous chapter and this is surely not the place to lay any cards of my own on the table. In Jost (2014) I have expressed considerable attachment to Jacque Brunschwig’s interpretation of the famous doctrine as a “though-experiment” that didn’t last long in contrast with Aryeh Kosman’s much more positive appreciation of the main idea. See Jost (2014), Brunschwig (2000) and Kosman (2000).
- 34.
Ross (1924), vol. I, p. cxxxiv.
- 35.
Ross (1924), vol. I, p. cxxiv.
- 36.
To have known Fred Miller for so many years, to have seen his steady hand behind so many celebrated professional accomplishments, and to have been able to directly learn so much from him in our long- standing participation in the Ohio Ancient Philosophy Reading Group as well as from his writings and correspondence, has been one of my greatest pleasures. That I have tried to test out his proposal and found it wanting in certain respects, is (I know and he knows) a deeply respectful engagement with his thoughts about Aristotle’s metaphysics. It is a great part of our collective mission to carry on such discussion and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity—along with so many others—to contribute to this Festschrift in his honor.
I am also grateful for comments on earlier drafts, both by Fred and most especially by David Keyt, as well as for helpful discussion at the conference itself.
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Jost, L.J. (2024). Is Aristotle’s Prime Mover an Efficient Cause by Touching Without Being Touched?. In: Keyt, D., Shields, C. (eds) Principles and Praxis in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 155. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51146-2_10
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