p.falk wrote:
I like that theme. It helps me keep clear that there's little dispute about there being some first cause or prime mover.... it's what we're saying about the nature of the first cause/prime mover.
I'm glad it helps. I've read some criticisms of Aquinas (that, of course, I think ultimately fail) charging that he hasn't demonstrated, at least in the first way, that there is only one prime mover, that there could be a large number of uninteresting unmoved movers. The important thing about the criticism isn't that it's wrong, though it is. It's that it recognizes what we've said here: the question isn't whether or not there
is a prime mover. There must be one for any essentially ordered causal chain whatsoever. Feser gives a great illustration of this to Ben Shapiro in
this video. That also helps us remember that there being a first cause isn't the conclusion we reach but rather a premise from which we reason.
Quote:
I was only taking the distinction from Feser's book 'The Last Superstition'.
Since reading your post I reread what Feser wrote just to make sure I wasn't messing up what he was saying.
With his Unmoved Mover section he's focusing on Essentially Caused sequences and their bringing Act out of Potency and how this logically has to terminate in an Unmoved Mover, or Pure Act.
The First Cause section he's focusing more on Essence and Existence.... and how this terminates in Being Itself.
Just to pick on your language a bit . . . I'd have to reread Feser, but I doubt he's equating essentially ordered causal sequences with the argument from motion
against, say, the argument for a first cause. The reason is that first cause arguments also are based on essentially ordered causal sequences. The first way certainly is rooted in the act/potency distinction and how that relates to motion, and thus we conclude something about the first mover (namely, that it is pure act/has no potency). The second and third ways are not based on act/potency but rather the order of efficient causality and necessity/contingency, respectively. As such, the second tells us something about the nature of the first cause -- that it is uncaused (and thus, that it is Being Itself) and that it is in no way whatsoever contingent upon anything else, that is, that it is absolutely necessary (and, again, thus easily discoverable as Being Itself).
I'd just hate for you to connect essentially ordered causal chains with the argument from motion and think or imply to others that the arguments from efficient causality and contingency/necessity are not built on essentially ordered causal chains. To that end, you may find
this paper written by my first philosophy paper (and the guy who turned me on to Thomism) helpful and interesting. He really helps drive home the difference between essentially and accidentally ordered causal chains and how Aquinas' arguments are related to the former and not the latter.