Heidegger

Jan, the question really does come down to what Aristotle specifically
means by the godly and divine. Here are two Aristotle texts that you
will find very interesting:

“As we stated, however, generation and destruction are always
continuous, and they will never fail because of what we said. And this
happens with good reason. For, since the nature of each thing always
desires, as we maintain, that which is better, and since to be is better
than not to be (we have discussed elsewhere the various senses of ‘to
be’), and since being cannot belong to everything since each of these is
far removed from the principle of existence, God perfected the universe
by using the remaining alternative, namely, a never-ending generation;
for in this way existence would be most highly connected, because a
never-ending coming-to-be or an eternal generation is closest to
substance.” (De Gen. II.10 - 336b25-35)

and this:

“The functions of this soul (the nutritive soul) is to reproduce and to
use food. For the most natural function of living things which are
perfect and neither defective nor generated by chance is to produce
another thing like itself; e.g., an animal produces an animal, and a
plant likewise a plant, in order that they may partake of the eternal
and divine as far as they can; for all desire [the eternal and the
divine], and it is for the sake of this that those which act according
to nature do so. The expression “that for the sake of which” of course
has two senses: (a) that which is done, and (b) that for which it is
done. Accordingly, since living things cannot share in the eternal and
the divine continuously because no destructible thing which is the same
and numerically one can last forever, they partake of the eternal and
the divine only as far as they can, some sharing in these more, others
doing so less; and what lasts forever is not that which is the same, but
something like it, i.e., something which is not [one] numerically but in
species.” (On the Soul, 415a27-b8)

Here Aristotle is quite clear that things try to partake of the divine
precisely by partaking of *eternality* as far as it can, some to a
greater and others to a lesser degree. This includes biological
reproduction - terrestrial organisms in this way partake in eternality
in the only way that a destructible being can - in species, not as an
individual. So it is specifically eternality that is the key to
understanding what Aristotle means by the divine, and how all beings
strive towards it. This is why he says that the heavenly bodies are more
divine than terrestrial beings - because he held that heavenly bodies
are physically indestructible.

Jan Straathof wrote:
> Hi Michael and Anthony,
>
> Thanks both for your interesting discussion (and Michael congrats
> with your new book). I am still concerned with the question whether
> Aristotle is a pantheist, rather as a deist, as i always understood him.
> I understand we can’t read Aristotle as a pantheist in the Spinozean
> sense, because the divine is definitely not some sort of (fundamental)
> material cause, but now i read:
>
>> Such a divine “nature in beings” as a whole (_katholou_) is the
>> _eidos_ (sight), the immovable mover as so-called ‘formal’ and
>> ‘final’ cause, with which the “first” or “theological philosophy”,
>> as the philosophy of beings qua beings, deals.
>
> and
>
>> It’s good to note that we agree that, with regard to the “immovable
>> mover” and “the god”, Aristotle has final cause in mind which, as
>> he claims at 1072a27-28, in this case is the same as a first formal
>> cause, i.e. the _eidos_ itself as mover.
>
> But if Aristotle sees the divine, the god qua immovable mover, as
> a formal-final cause of beings, then i still find him a pantheist, but
> now one a la Teilhard de Chardin. It is important to recall here that
> Aristotle strongly rejected concepts as infinity and emptiness on
> epistemic grounds alone, and therefore logically ‘needed’ the concept
> of the god qua “immovable mover” in his metaphysical system,
> because without it (cosmic) causality would fall back in an infinite
> regress. But Aristotle’s most striking pantheist element i find his idea
> of the divine as final cause, i.e. if the cosmos is in movement through
> an ubiquitous divine ‘desire’ to reach its final destiny in the fulfillment
> of the pure and final form of the godly, than this divine desire can not
> be momentary empty or absent but must be actually present and thus
> actively working all the way throught towards its final end. I find this
> pantheism a la Teilhard de Chardin, because for Teilhard the cosmos
> is saturated with a divine ‘consciousness’, evolutionary culminating
> in the final point: Omega, where mankind dissolves in the god in an
> absolute point of unity and singularity.
>
> I don’t know if this makes sense, but your exchange makes me think
> of Aristotle less as a deist but far more as a subtle and sophisticated
> pantheist.
>
> yours,
> Jan
>
>
>
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Posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 12:10 am
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