Motion and Its Principles

Regina Cœli Academy
Natural Philosophy – Physics
Lecturer: Mr. Alan Aversa

01/24/14

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O Creator ineffable, who of the riches of Thy wisdom didst
appoint three hierarchies of Angels and didst set them in
wondrous order over the highest heavens, and who didst
apportion the elements of the world most wisely: do Thou,
who art in truth the fountain of light and wisdom, deign to
shed upon the darkness of my understanding the rays of
Thine infinite brightness, and remove far from me the twofold
darkness in which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance. Do
Thou, who givest speech to the tongues of little children,
instruct my tongue and pour into my lips the grace of Thy
benediction. Give me keenness of apprehension, capacity for
remembering, method and ease in learning, insight in
interpretation, and copious eloquence in speech. Instruct my
beginning, direct my progress, and set Thy seal upon the
finished work, Thou, who art true God and true Man, who
livest and reignest world without end. Amen.
(St. Thomas Aquinas Oratio ante studium)
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Summary of Last Lecture
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“Potency and Act so divide being that
whatsoever exists either is a Pure Act, or is
necessarily composed of Potency and Act, as
to its primordial and intrinsic principles.”
– 1st of the 24 Thomistic Theses

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Potency is real, else the actual (act) could not
come from it.

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Potency = matter

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Act = form

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Motion is a Mixture of Act and
Potency
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Aristotle’s definition of motion: “The fulfillment of
what exists potentially, insofar as it exists
potentially.”
Aristotle: “The actuality of the build-able as
build-able is the process of building.”
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He can’t just say that motion is the
–
–

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“actuality of the build-able” (e.g., “a house”)
“the act of a potency”

∴ motion ≠ act or potency.

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Without act and potency, motion is
absurd.
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Solution to the Heraclitean-Eleatic controversy:
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Parmenides: only saw actual, neglected potential
–

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He saw a completely determined universe.

Heraclitus: neglected the actual, only saw potential
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He saw a completely undetermined universe.

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Potency + more potency ≠ act

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“Act is on a higher level” than potency.

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Without act and potency, motion is
absurd.
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Quantity ≠ motion.

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Hume: causality is only a succession of states
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But motion is not a succession.

Can the metrical (that which can be measured)
be equated with motion?
E.g., relativity theory says a car can move
relative to a stationary road or the road moves
relative to the stationary car.
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Does this prove Parmenides? Motion is illusion?
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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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What is nature?
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Is it everything contained in the whole universe?

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Is it applied to individual things?

Greek τὰ ϕυσικά = lit. ‘natural things’
Empirical sciences used to be called “natural
philosophy.”
Opposite of nature: art
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How does or doesn’t art imitate nature?
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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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Velasquez’s King
Philip of Spain
Philip was a man
with a soul.
The canvas and
paint are dead.
Philip and horse
aren’t determined
by outside forces.

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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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John Dewey: “[W]ith the perceiver, as with the
artist, there must be an ordering of the
elements of the whole that is in form, although
not in details, the same as the process of
organization the creator of the work consciously
experienced.”
V. E. Smith: “Art, for both the creator and the
beholder, has its principle outside itself. Philip
and the horse had such a principle from within.”
St. Thomas Aquinas said art imitates nature.

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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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Art is never pure art; it is an imitation (artificial).
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Art in the broad sense:
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Fine arts: music, painting, sculpting, literature, etc.

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Liberal arts organize thought, like logic.

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Human artists work with a limited medium for his art
(natural things).

Mechanical arts: carpentry, shoe-making,
homemaking, sewing, etc.

Man imposes something on nature

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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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But what is nature? How is it defined?
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Related to the word “nativity” = birth, being born

Aristotle’s more exact definition: “a source and
cause of motion and of rest in that to which it
belongs primarily in virtue of itself and not in
virtue of a concomitant attribute”
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Natural things have intrinsic tendencies.
–
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The nature is not an accident (accidere = “to add onto”).
Teleology (telos = end)
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Art and Nature are Opposites.
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“Law of Inertia” in empiriological physics
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“a thing is entirely determined from the outside”

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confirms a realist interpretation of art

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This shows that empiriological physics is an art.

Empiriological physics neglects nature’s
inherent principles.
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It says: “Art is what nature becomes.”
It views nature as art, whereas philosophical
physics views nature as nature.
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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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Philosophical physics deals with motions of
nature; it is the study of ens mobile.
Philosophy discovers principles.
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Principium = “beginning” (e.g., St. John 1:1: “In
principio erat Verbum...”)
Principles may be a cause.
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Principles may not be a cause.
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E.g., my legs moving is the principle (cause) of my
walking.
E.g., as a point is the principle of a line
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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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Philosophers since Kant view “principle” as
merely a “regulative idea” (regula = “rule”) with no
ontological status.
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Empiriological physicists often equate “law” and
“principle”:
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“Principle of Inertia”, “Principle of Gravitation”, “Principle of
Relativity”, etc.

Equations express these laws.

V. E. Smith: “A principle of motion corresponds to
the facts or factors responsible for its origin and
especially for its end result.”

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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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Three “ultimates” in the thing moved:
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Novelty
–

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Subject
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With a subject, there cannot be motion of said subject! It
must exist to be moved!

Original lack (privation) of novelty, perfection
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E.g., oxygen + hydrogen = water, something new, neither
oxygen nor hydrogen

E.g., oxygen cannot combine with hydrogen to form
water if it already has so combined.
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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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Principle has to do with origins;
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∴ novelty, a subject, and privation are the principles
from which motion originates.

Aristotle’s terminology:
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Subject → matter (ὕλη)
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Perfection → form (μορφή or εἶδος)
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–
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Not just something massive
Not just the shape (morphology) of something
Term of motion
“something novel in the matter’s being”
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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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“This use of form (Aristotle's μορφή or εἶδος) and matter
(ὕλη) is a metaphorical extension of their popular use. In
ordinary speech, a portion of matter, stuff, or material,
becomes a 'thing' by virtue of having a particular 'form' or
shape; by altering the form, the matter remaining
unchanged, we make a new 'thing'. This language,
primarily applied only to objects of sense, was in
philosophical use extended to objects of thought: every
'thing' or entity was viewed as consisting of two
elements, its form by virtue of which it was different from,
and its matter which it had in common with, others.”
–Oxford English Dictionary

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Natural Motion Involves Matter,
Form, and Privation
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Privation as a principle of motion
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Negative (not a positive reality)
–

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“[T]he negative cannot be part of the essence of
anything.”

Motion involves privation accidentally.
Privation “is a denial or lack, within a determinate
subject, hence not simply a negation.”

Form can be called nature.
Form determines matter to a specific thing and
thus of a specific nature.

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References
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V. E. Smith’s Philosophical Physics
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Please continue reading ch. 2 (Motion and Its
Principles).
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01/24/14

We will send out a scanned PDF of this required reading.

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