Friends,
** Reminder: We are meeting next week to make up for the missed session last week due to my illness. We are meeting at the same time, on Monday, in the same room. Reach out with Qs if any. **
Thanks for sticking with me through the post-Covid haze. Onward to Aristotle's Metaphysics!
Everything is subject to change and motion, yet nothing changes or is put into motion without a cause. If we commit to this proposition, we are led into an infinite regress; what is the primary cause that inspired other causes? Aristotle notes that there must be an ultimate cause– one that supersedes and atemporally precedes all others. In our final session we will consider Aristotle’s cosmology and theology via the infamous argument for the “unmoved mover,” which proved foundational to medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophers alike.
Required:
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book XI; Book XII, 1-7.
Optional:
Aristotle, De Caelo, Book 1 Chapter 9. (Web) https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.html
Menn, Stephen. “Aristotle’s Theology” in The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle. (PDF)
Aquinas, Thomas. “The Five Ways” in Summa Theologica. (PDF)
-S