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On Aristotle's "Physics 8.6-10"On Aristotle's "Physics 8.6-10"

On Aristotle's "Physics 8.6-10"

Simplicius of Cilicia

About this book

"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, harmonized Aristotle with Plato to counter Christian charges of pagan disagreement, by making Aristotle's God a cause not only of beginningless movement, but also of beginningless existence of the universe. Eternal existence, no less than eternal motion, calls for an infinite, and hence incorporeal, force. 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 Saint Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.

Details

OL Work ID
OL11453495W

Subjects

Ancient ScienceEarly works to 1800MotionPhysicsScience, AncientPhysics, early works to 1800

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Book data from Open Library. Cover images courtesy of Open Library.