Flashcards
Key Terms: Ancient Greek Philosophy 1: Aristotle
Cards in this deck (14)
- 1Material causeThat out of which a thing is made. The material cause of a statue is its marble or bronze.
- 2Formal causeThe blueprint which guides the thing towards its full realisation
- 3Efficient causeThe process which brings the thing to thing to completion (eg, the growth of the acorn).
- 4Final causeThat for the sake of which (as, for instance, in the case of the oak tree, to produce more acorns, to produce timber, to please the eye, etc.) a thing comes to be.
- 5Brute factsThings that are just there, without any explanation.
- 6PotentialityImperfection, partiality, finalisability
- 7ActualityPerfection, completeness, totality.
- 8Actus PurusPure actuality.
- 9The Prime MoverAristotle’s term for God. God moves without being moved in return.
- 10NecessarySomething self-explanatory: it has to exist, and cannot be conceived not to.
- 11ContingentSomething whose explanation lies outside itself. It therefore might have existed differently, or not at all.
- 12AseityFrom the Latin a se esse, being from oneself, usually translated as “self existence”. Has at least four aspects.
- 13Don Cupitt (1934-)An English philosopher of religion and scholar of Christian theology. He is an Anglican priest and an emeritus professor of the University of Cambridge
- 14SempiternalThe quality of being inside time but lasting for ever. Not the same thing as eternal, which involves being outside time.