I can see how chemical reactions could seriously undercut or revise the sort of teleology Aristotle found in non-living things.
For example, he might have thought of water as having a particular way of interacting with other things as its purpose. But water interacts very differently under different temperatures, pressures, etc. and with different things. Where's the sense of a unitary telos? Who is to say that water's acting as a solvent at a 1,000 atmowspheres pressure is not part of water's telos? Is it because it rarely acts that way? What if we discover that most water in the universe is at such a pressure? What, then, is accidental, i.e., the result of a chance encounter? Isn't every encounter equally natural?
Of course, Aristotle didn't think of individual non-living things as having individuals purposes, but of the whole cosmos as having one purpose. Perhaps some sort of equlibrium at the cosmic level or other characteristic is a kind of goal of interactions, however diverse they may be even for the same sort of thing.
A little repetitive here: what sense does it make to speak of spontaneity in nature if you can't identify a single purpose for specific sorts of things? If nature doesn't aim at just interacting one way with one sort of thing, then how can some interactions be "intentional" or in some sense aimed at by the interacting natures, while other interactions are unintentional or not what is aimed at? This very distinction between the natural and spontaneous presupposes that some ways of interacting are privileged, doesn't it? But why shoudl they be so priviliged?
For example, he might have thought of water as having a particular way of interacting with other things as its purpose. But water interacts very differently under different temperatures, pressures, etc. and with different things. Where's the sense of a unitary telos? Who is to say that water's acting as a solvent at a 1,000 atmowspheres pressure is not part of water's telos? Is it because it rarely acts that way? What if we discover that most water in the universe is at such a pressure? What, then, is accidental, i.e., the result of a chance encounter? Isn't every encounter equally natural?
Of course, Aristotle didn't think of individual non-living things as having individuals purposes, but of the whole cosmos as having one purpose. Perhaps some sort of equlibrium at the cosmic level or other characteristic is a kind of goal of interactions, however diverse they may be even for the same sort of thing.
A little repetitive here: what sense does it make to speak of spontaneity in nature if you can't identify a single purpose for specific sorts of things? If nature doesn't aim at just interacting one way with one sort of thing, then how can some interactions be "intentional" or in some sense aimed at by the interacting natures, while other interactions are unintentional or not what is aimed at? This very distinction between the natural and spontaneous presupposes that some ways of interacting are privileged, doesn't it? But why shoudl they be so priviliged?
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