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.

Motion, Its Origins, and Its Ends

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

(St. Thomas Aquinas Oratio ante studium)
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“Whatever is Moved is Moved by
Another”
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Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur.

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We know what motion is, but what causes it?
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fulfillment of potency insofar as it’s in potency.
eduction of form out of matter.

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Final cause (teleology)
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Action at a distance (actio in distans)
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Or archer’s initial impulse to an arrow is all that’s
needed for its movement

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Galilean-Newtonian physics: Once there’s motion,
it’s useless to seek a cause of the motion, a mover.

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Hume: cause extrinsic to effect, latter not precontained in former

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Movement requires a mover (motor cause) as
long as the motion endures.

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Potency cannot actualize itself without an extrinsic
agent.

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Newton’s deist metaphor: universe a wound-up
clock.

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∴ extrinsic agent responsible for matter-form composites.

Motor and the Moving Thing are in
Contact

True self-movement violates principle of noncontradiction.

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Neither matter (potency) nor form (act) can
individually account for itself.
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“Whatever is Moved is Moved by
Another”
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Absolute necessity of outside mover:

Efficient cause

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Intrinsic causes are matter (potency) and form (act).

Either a thing moves itself (is alive) or another
moves it.
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Why was it actualized?
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Efficient and final causes are extrinsic.
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What actualized the new form?
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“Whatever is Moved is Moved by
Another”

Motion is the
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Empiriological physicists who support actio in
distans: Faraday, Maxwell
Philosophers who support it: Bolzano, Kant, Leibniz
Quantum theory (e.g., the EPR paradox) and
statistical physics appear to support it.
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Bohr atom: Electrons jump in atoms (viz., discontinuity).
Radioactive decay: Matter moves suddenly.
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Motor and the Moving Thing are in
Contact
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Motor and the Moving Thing are in
Contact

From Descartes onwards, there is “a tendency
to make a cause interior to the effect.”
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Meyerson: “inquiring mind tends to identify cause
and effect”

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Empiriological physicists identify (equate) cause
and effect with equations.
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e.g., F=m×a says that a force of magnitude F causes
acceleration of magnitude a of an object with mass m, or
vice versa.
e.g., distance = rate × time
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Third alternative: motor cause neither
overlapping (interior) nor separated by distance
(actio in distans), but contact
Actio in distans presumes a vacuum, but true
vacuums cannot exist.
Also, forms of mobile things are finite, so they
cannot “reach out” of themselves.
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Matter is limited.

Do distance, rate, and time mutually cause each other?

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Empiriology Tends to Favor
Evolution
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Is matter eternal?

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Evolution more problematic in philosophical than
empiriological physics.
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Greco-Arabic Aristotelians: “No!”
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Empiriology Tends to Favor
Evolution

Is motion eternal? Would that eternity explain
motion?
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Western Latin Platonists: “Yes!”

Theories of cosmology: Laplacian Nebular
Theory, Planetesimal Hypothesis, Tidal Theory

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If empilriological physics is evolutionary, we must
seek certainty elsewhere.
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It’s either evolutionist or equalitarian.

Two principles:
Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur.

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There cannot be an infinite regression of movers.

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∴ ∃ an Unmoved Mover (Prime Mover or First Cause).

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Creation is a dependence of moved things on
the Prime Mover.
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Empiriological physics cannot account for novelty.

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If evolutionism is true, the “data measured in empiriological
physics can be organized into a system.”
But “the data can be organized into such a system.”
∴ “evolutionism is true.”

There is a Prime Mover

Cosmogony: the study “of the creation or generation
of the universe.” (Oxford Eng. Dict.)

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If A is a man, then A is mortal.
But A is mortal.
∴ A is a man.

Another example:
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There is a Prime Mover
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In philosophical physics, evolution involves affirming the
consequent.
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St. Thomas says that God could create eternal matter
and that we cannot prove scientifically whether matter is
eternal. It must be held on faith. Cf. De Æternitate Mundi.

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Known only by Revelation that the Prime Mover did
not create any ens mobile from all eternity.

Creation is “ex nihilo sui et subjecti,” viz., the
production of something out of nothing.
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This is not motion or mutation.

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Even prime matter is created.

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“Every Agent Acts for an End”
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Final or telic causes
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“Every Agent Acts for an End”
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Remember, telos is Greek for “end.”

Final causes determine purpose or aim.
Philosophical physics alone studies all four
causes:

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Formal: answers “What?”

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Material: answers “Out of what?”

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Efficient: answers “Whereby?”

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Final: answers “Why?” or “Wherefore?”
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“Nature does nothing in vain.”

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“Nature acts for the best.” etc.

“Every mover tends into a goal.”
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Variants on “Every agent acts for an end:”

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There is no pure dynamism in the world.
Ex.: If a free-falling rock doesn’t have a
tendency to approach the center of the earth,
then why does it?

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“Every Agent Acts for an End”
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We observe a mostly ordered, not chaotic universe.

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a cosmos, not a chaos

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We know a nature by its tendencies, motions.

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What is a “law of nature”?
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Mechanism denies teleology.

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Nature still purposeful even if we don’t know the
reason.

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Finality Explains the Order of Nature
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Hume: causality ⇔ ordered sequence
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Something “obeying its law” is fulfilling its nature.
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Measurement is only about quantity.

How do the four causes relate to “the issue of
determinism or uniformity”?

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The “natural law” applies to man.

Pierre Duhem defined a “physical law” as “des
relations symboliques” (“of symbolic relations”).

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It “is a generalization of a measured fact.”

V. E. Smith defines it as “A nature’s penchant
toward a fixed end under a given set of conditions.”

Measurement alone cannot predict the future; it
merely states a fact.
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A physical law is similar to natural law

Is it something imposed onto or found within natural
things?

Finality Explains the Order of Nature

∴ disorders in nature ⇒ violation of principle of
causality.

Some empiriological physicists say the goal of
physics is to predict the future.

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Empiriological physicists call generalizations of
measured facts laws.

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In general, “nature” and “law” are equivalent.
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Finality Implies Laws of Nature

If changeable things didn’t have a tendency to
one specific end, they “would blow up.”

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Intention

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Form and matter must be determinate in inorganic
things.
Aristotle: “Matter is finalized by form.”
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Change is Extrinsic to Nature
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But there are violations of natural laws! Viz., the
natural end isn’t always attained.
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It can account for either determinism or disorder,
not both.

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References
V. E. Smith’s Philosophical Physics
Please read ch. 3 (Motion, Its Origins, and Its
Ends).
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We will send out a scanned PDF of this required reading.

Further reading:
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“Fortune is a subdivision of chance.”

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What is chance?
V. E. Smith’s definition: “A chance occurrence … [is]
an event which happens beyond the intentions of
whatever produced it.”

Chance events by definition lack a final cause.

No dualism in nature

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e.g., volcanoes erupt, rocks can fly upwards, trees
can grow sideways, cacti can be mutated, etc.

Empiriological physics says:
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Change is Extrinsic to Nature

Mechan, Francis X. Efficient Causality in Aristotle
and St. Thomas (Washington, 1940), passim.
Simon, Yves R., Prévoir et savoir (Prediction &
Knowledge) (Montreal, 1944), ch. 1.
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We will study chance more in detail when we
get to chapter 8 of V. E. Smith’s book.

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