Reflection #14 EDF1005 Aristotle on Being

Samantha Clarke
Reflection #14 EDF1005 Aristotle on Being

Aristotle was concerned about the nature of living where he further organized organism in their respective types from life to lifeless. However he concluded that the human is significant among all the other beings due to the fact that they are able to reason. This organization of life to lifeless is what he calls the chain of being. He arrange these from the smallest to the largest starting with the worm and ends with the human. He concluded that the universe was perfect as well as his gain if being. In my opinion he was stamping out evolution in a sense when he says that the chain had no empty link and so it is impossible for a specie to be represented more than once. This way of thinking was spread thought out the western region until people moved away from this thinking to of evolution. However many still believes in Aristotle theory of being, which gave rise to the concept of creation. As I mention creation the thought of God came to me that Aristotle description of God seem to be the Supreme Being the Christian recognize. This God he says does not change, and that this God is all knowing. Aristotle’s theory did cause controversies and lead to few misunderstanding. However his work is still being used in some part of biology, schools and Christianity.

Aristotle also explored the realm of cause and hence developed four causes. When he speaks of cause he is not speaking of that which we refer to as cause and effect but to the purpose of a thing or the cause of a substance. So Aristotle’s four cause starts with the material cause this is the substance of what a thing is made of. Then there is the formal cause which is what the thing is suppose to be. Then there is the efficient cause what it is made to do and the fourth cause is the final cause which is the reason it was made for. He basically aim to explain the cause of thing and why they were formed and out of what they were formed.