Aristotle's _Physics_ is about the causes of motion and culminates in
a proof that God is needed as the ultimate cause of motion. Aristotle
argues that things in motion need to be moved by something other than
themselves - he rejects Plato's self-movers. On pain of regress, there
must be an unmoved mover. If this unmoved mover is to cause motion
eternally, it needs infinite power. It cannot, then, be a body, since
bodies, being of finite size, cannot house infinite power. The unmoved
mover is therefore an incorporeal God. Simplicius reveals that his
teacher, Ammonius, harmonised Aristotle with Plato to counter
Christian charges of pagan disagreement, by making Aristotle's God a
cause of beginningless movement, but of beginningless existence of the
universe. Eternal existence, not less than eternal motion, calls for
an infinite, and hence incorporeal, force. By an irony, this
anti-Christian interpretation turned Aristotle's God from a thinker
into a certain kind of Creator, and so helped to make Aristotle's God
acceptable to St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This text
provides a translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's work.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781780938967
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Bloomsbury UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter