Saturday, August 19, 2017

Unmoved Mover and Self-Moved Mover

In Aristotle's antiquated system, the Sun is the moving mover of Water, Earth, Air, and Fire, itself moved by an Unmoved Mover.  Now, he recognizes a plurality of Unmoved Movers, with the Prime Unmoved Mover being Thought-Thinking-Itself.  But, the characterization 'Unmoved' is misleading--the Prime Mover is the Active Intellect, and, hence, is in motion.  In other words, 'Self-Moved' is more accurate than 'Unmoved'.  That correction thus opens up to potential problems that have otherwise been ignored.  First, since, as the supreme being, its motion must be perfect, it can only be circular, according to Aristotle's exposition of Motion.  But, circular motion can be either clockwise or counterclockwise, and, hence, by his own formulation of Perfection = having no contrary, the motion of this supreme being is imperfect.  Now, in On the Heavens, he does address the problem of contrary rotation, but too briefly for an adequate defense of his claim that either circular direction is perfect.  Second, as has been previously discussed, he does not consider that a Circle presupposes a Center, which leaves open the possibility that any of his rotating Movers, including the Prime one, is indeed moved by something else, i. e. a Center.

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