Evaluating Aristotle's Ideas

Evaluating Aristotle's Ideas

1. Is there a Final Cause or purpose to the universe? It could be simply that everything that exists can be explained by the laws of science or simply by chance. Or, as Existentialists say, there is no purpose and we have to make our own. Perhaps we can't cope with the knowledge that there is 'nothing out there' and that all we have is this life, here and now.

2. Maybe human beings have evolved to look for purpose in the world around us to help with our survival. This has led us to believe that there is one objective purpose to life and the universe.

3. It isn't clear that everything has a purpose. If someone puts up a fence, it is clear the person erecting the fence had a purpose (to keep out animals, to mark a boundary etc.) but to say the fence itself has a purpose is not quite true (except to be a good fence and do the job it was erected for) as the purpose is external to the fence itself

4. The Prime Mover itself may simply be a reaction to the fact that it is impossible to imagine something that has no beginning

5. The relationship between the Prime Mover and the universe is not exactly clear- it means no interaction, no prayer, no religious experience etc. How does something that is immaterial act on something material? Where did matter come from?

6. Argument based on cause and effect- this is obvious as things do cause other things to happen as science shows

7. Aristotle's work was lost to the West for 100s of years but eventually his writing influenced the ideas of Boethius and Aquinas