Abstract

The topic of this dissertation is Aristotle's philosophic treatment of inanimate natural things. My thesis is that "prote entelecheia ," or "first actuality" is a helpful concept in understanding nature as a "principle of being moved which belongs essentially to a thing." I will argue that the understanding of nature as first entelecheia eliminates some of the perplexities of Aristotle's thought on inanimate nature, not least of which is the question, how can non-living things, which are not self-movers, be said to have within themselves a principle of motion? The answer to this, as I will show, is that nature is principally a passive formal cause which belongs to a substance. As such, it defines the way in which the substance can be acted upon and moved by the immediate environment around it. ;I argue that it is erroneous to think of the principle of nature primarily as an efficient cause of motion. In order to defend this claim, I will provide a detailed analysis of the four causes in the motions of inanimate bodies. One very important result of this analysis will be a way of thinking about final cause in inanimate natural things which, though I believe it to be Aristotelian, is not wedded to Aristotle's bad science. First entelecheia is a formal order existing in the substance which defines the substance's potency; the formal order specifies what work the substance is capable of doing, but in order for that potency to be set into work, a further completion is necessary, and this further completion is provided by the action of the surrounding environment on the substance. Nature as a first entelecheia does not determine what particular work the substance in fact performs at any given time, but it does define the limits of the substance's complete being-in-work. Nature, then, is an "order toward completion."