Aristotle unmoved mover quote

Philosophy influenced by aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover
Aristotle unmoved mover philosophy
Aristotle four causes examples

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Last year I came across 5 Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser. It’s a modern take on classic logical proofs of God.

Though it reads a bit academic, it’s nonetheless enjoyable and a powerful tool for defending the reality of God’s existence.

Yesterday, the author appeared on Ben Shapiro’s Sunday Special. His explanations and discussions of the classical proofs are fascinating and clarifying.

There’s a saying, “If you can’t teach it, you don’t understand it.” So I’d like to write my thoughts one of these classical proofs – teach them to you, fine Kineti reader – so that I better understand them myself. Along the way, maybe you’ll learn them better as well.

In the interview Feser says his favorite of the five classical proofs of God is the Aristotilian proof, also called the Unmoved Mover argument. This is the one we’re tackling today in this post.

Here’s Feser explaining in his own words the Aristotelian argument for God’s existence:

This proof of God goes back at l

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Cosmological argument

Argument for the existence of God

In the philosophy of religion, a cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of God based upon observational and factual statements concerning the universe (or some general category of its natural contents) typically in the context of causation, change, contingency or finitude.^[1]^[2]^[3] In referring to reason and observation alone for its premises, and precluding revelation, this category of argument falls within the domain of natural theology. A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the prime mover argument.

The concept of causation is a principal underpinning idea in all cosmological arguments, particularly in affirming the necessity for a First Cause. The latter is typically determined in philosophical analysis to be God, as identified within classical conceptions of theism.

The origins of the argument date back to at least Aristotle, developed subsequent

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Aristotle on Causality

1. Introduction

Aristotle was not the first thinker to engage in a causal investigation of the world around us. Quite the opposite: from the very beginning, and independently of Aristotle, the investigation of the natural world consisted in the search for the relevant causes of a variety of natural phenomena. From the Phaedo, for example, we learn that the so-called “inquiry into nature” consisted in a search for “the causes of each thing; why each thing comes into existence, why it goes out of existence, why it exists” (96 a 6–10). In this tradition of investigation, the search for causes was a search for answers to the question “why?”.

Both in the Physics and in the Metaphysics Aristotle places himself in direct continuity with this tradition. At the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle offers a concise review of the results reached by his predecessors (Metaph. I 3–7). From this review we learn that all his predecessors were engaged in an investigation that eventuated in knowledge of one or