Technological Institute of the Philippines

Manila

Introduction to Philosophy

Alen B. Ybaez
2016

Demonstrative Science
Finally, in the Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics, Aristotle offered a detailed
account of the demonstrative reasoning required to substantiate theoretical
knowledge. Using mathematics as a model, Aristotle presumed that all such
knowledge must be derived from what is already known. Thus, the process of
reasoning by syllogism employs a formal definition of validity that permits the
deduction of new truths from established principles. The goal is to provide an
account of why things happen the way they do, based solely upon what we already
know. In order to achieve genuine necessity, this demonstrative science must be
focussed on the essences rather than the accidents of things, on what is "true of any
case as such," rather than on what happens to be "true of each case in fact." It's not
enough to know that it rained today; we must be able to figure out the general
meteorological conditions under which rain is inevitable. When we reason from
necessary universal and affirmative propositions about the essential features of
things while assuming as little as possible, the resulting body of knowledge will truly
deserve the name of science.

The Four Causes

Material Cause
Formal Cause
Efficient Cause
Final Cause

Material Cause
The material cause is what something is made out of. The human body of made up of
cells. Wooden boxes are made up of wood. Computers are made out of transistors and other
electronic components. The material cause also explains the general sort of properties of
something. Wooden boxes burn because they are made out of wood. The human body needs
oxygen because its cells need oxygen. Finally, the material cause can be divided into two:
prime matter and proximate matter. Proximate matter is matter that has some properties, such
as wood, cells and electronic components.

Formal Cause
The formal cause is what makes a thing one thing rather than many things. The human
body is human, wooden boxes are boxes, and computers are computers. The difference
between a mere collection of cells and a human body is that a human body has properties and
functions that come from a particular arrangement of the right kind of cells doing the right kind
of things. A mere collection of cells is not the formal cause. A human body is the formal cause.
The formal cause can also be divided into two: formal cause and exemplary cause. An
exemplary cause is the plan in someones mind that gave rise to a computer.

Efficient Cause
The Efficient cause is the agent or force immediately responsible for bringing this matter
and that form together in the production of the thing. If a ball broke a window, then the ball is
the efficient cause of the window breaking. This is the thing or agent which actually brings
something about. It's not what it's made of or the plan for how to make it. It's the actual force
that brings something into being. Every change is caused by an efficient cause. If your eye
sees, then it sees because light from the object strikes your eyes and causes you to see what
is there. Efficient causes answer the what did that question, but do not answer how it was
done.

Final Cause
The final cause is why efficient causes do what they do and why formal causes do what
they do. Why do balls break windows? The final cause says that because balls are hard and
windows are brittle, they break. Why do rocks fall? Aristotle said that rocks fall because they are
heavy. Air is light, therefore air rises. These are all pointing out the final cause of efficient
causes. To ask for the final cause of formal causes is to ask why these things exist at all. Why
do human beings exist? Aristotle says that they exist to make more human beings, because
they are alive. They also exist to be happy because they are rational.

Fundamental Truth
It is reasonable to begin, therefore, with the simplest rules of logic, which embody the
most fundamental principles applying to absolutely everything that is:
The Law of Non-Contradiction in logic merely notes that no assertion is both true and
false, but applied to reality this simple rule entails that nothing can both be and not be at the
same time, although we will of course want to find room to allow for things to change. Thus,
neither strict Protagorean relativism nor Parmenidean immutability offer a correct account of the
nature of reality.
The Law of Excluded Middle in logic states the necessity that either an assertion or its
negation must be true, and this entails that there is no profound indeterminacy in the realm of
reality. Although our knowledge of an assertion may sometimes fall short of what we need in
order to decide whether it is true or false, we can be sure that either it or its negation is true.
In order to achieve its required abstract necessity, all of metaphysics must be constructed
from similar principles. Aristotle believed this to be the case because metaphysics is concerned
with a genuinely unique subject matter.

Nature of Soul
According to Aristotle, every animate being is a living thing which can move
itself only because it has a soul. Animals and plants, along with human beings, are
more like each other than any of them are like any inanimate object, since each of
them has a soul. Thus, his great treatise on psychology, On The Soul, offers
interconnected explanations for the functions and operations of all living organisms.
The soul (psyche) is the structure of the body - its function and organization. For
Aristotle the psyche controlled reproduction, movement and perception. Aristotle
thought that the soul is the Form of the body. The soul is simply the sum total of the
operations of a human being. Aristotle believed that there exists a hierarchy of living
things plants only have a vegetative soul, animals are above plants because they
have appetites, humans are above animals because it has the power of reason.
Aristotle tries to explain his understanding of the distinction between the body and
the soul using the analogy of an axe. If an axe were a living thing then its body would
be made of wood and metal. However, its soul would be the thing which made it an
axe i.e. its capacity to chop.

Human Knowledge
Throughout his life, Aristotle was driven by one overwhelming desire for knowledge. His
whole career testifies to the fact that he was concerned before all else to promote the discovery
of truth and to increase the sum of human knowledge. Aristotles theory of scientific knowledge
is the first elaborated theory in the Western philosophical and scientific traditions of the nature
and structure of science. Knowledge is theoretical when its goal is neither productive nor action
but simply truth. Theoretical knowledge includes all that one now thinks of as science, and in
Aristotles view it contained by far the greatest part of the sum of human knowledge.

Thought
It is the more active process of engaging in the manipulation of forms without any contact
with external objects at all. Thus, thinking is potentially independent of the objects of thought,
from which it abstracts the form alone. Even the imagination, according to Aristotle, involves the
operation of the common sense without stimulation by the sensory organs of the body. Hence,
although all knowledge must begin with information acquired through the senses, its results are
achieved by rational means. Transcending the sensory preoccupation with particulars, the soul
employs the formal methods of logic to cognize the relationships among abstract forms.

Sensation
Sensation is the passive capacity for the soul to be changed through the contact of the
associated body with external objects. In each variety of sensation, the normal operations of
the appropriate organ of sense result in the soul's becoming potentially what the object is in
actuality. Thus, without any necessary exchange of matter, the soul takes on the form of the
object: when I feel the point of a pin, its shape makes an impression on my finger, conveying
this form to my sensitive soul. It plays a key role in how we come to have knowledge and how
we hit upon the right thing to do.

Desire
Desire is the origin of movement toward some goal. Every animate being, to some
degree, is capable of responding to its own internal states and those of its external environment
in such a way as to alleviate the felt absence or lack of some pleasure or the felt presence of
some pain. Even actions taken as a result of intellectual deliberation, Aristotle supposed,
produce motion only through the collateral evocation of a concrete desire. A concept of desire,
broad enough to cover all types of motivation, is required, Aristotle recognizes, in order to
explain self-movement.