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projectile motion, natural place and teleology

Thesis: Aristotle's notion that the upward motion of a projectile is against nature requires not only a teleological view of nature, but also a geocentric understanding of that teleology. A teleological view of nature, however, need not be geocentric: in which case, a teleological account of projectile motion need not be antiquated.

Background: For Aristotle, the earth's center is the target of all bodies made of earth (air and fire, which are not made of earth, have the heavens as their target). If we simply release earthly things, they head toward that target with a rectilinear movement. They cease this movement only when they have encountered an impediment (or when they have reached their target, which would require, I suppose, digging a hole to the center of the earth, etc.). Heavenly bodies, on the other hand, have no targets, but they do have a purpose, which is to move. And these movements themselves are target-like inasmuch as one heavenly body moves in definite, unique paths. Each path itself has a unique place, and that place is not located in some absolute space but rather in relation to other unique heavenly bodies with other unique paths.

Argument: If we dissolve the distinction between mundane and heavenly bodies, then "unique place" no longer has a place in natural philosophy. Unique places in nature can no longer serve as targets. But things still tend to move in certain ways, and stable states of affairs can be acheived, at least for a while before being affected by interactions. If we understand these stable states of affairs as a kind of rest, then the natural world still involves innate forms of motion and rest, with the latter being a kind of telos.

Rambling below: gotta polish:

"Violence" here is whatever disrupts these states.

It is as if the mundane and celestial regions collided, for the new understanding of nature is really a kind of confluence of both kinds of natures. It is a conjunction of what was previously seen only disjunctively. Place has a place, but not numerically unique place; rather, specific place.

Instead of having two regions and four elements, we have a plurality of spontaneous ways of moving. Gravitation, which naturally accelerates. Inertia, which naturally remains constant.

More later...

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