Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GOD 281an object of rational thought and desire. This is how the ultimate cause ofchange can move the outermost heaven without itself changing or moving.This account of the causation distinctive of the ultimate cause of changeis not easy to comprehend, but certainly it serves to dissociate the causationdistinctive of the ultimate cause of change from a kind of causation thatdepends on interaction, and to associate it instead with the way in whichan intelligent or rational organism is caused to move when it recognizesthat something is good and worth pursuing. So <strong>Aristotle</strong> conceives of thecausal relation between the ultimate cause of change and the outermostheaven in teleological or final terms. For the ultimate cause of change isthe good which is the end (telos) of the thought and desire of theoutermost heaven, and in general of the cosmos that is delimited andunified by this heaven. The ultimate cause of change moves by being anobject of thought and desire, not by interaction. We may sum up by sayingthat the ultimate cause of change is a teleological or final cause, as opposedto an efficient cause that relies on interaction.But although <strong>Aristotle</strong> clearly rejects the view that the ultimate cause ofchange is an efficient cause that relies on interaction, he appears to thinkthat it is an efficient cause in a broader sense. For the ultimate cause ofchange is not simply the object of thought and desire of the cosmos, it is asupremely real thing and it ‘produces’ this thought and desire in thecosmos, i.e. it causes the cosmos to have this thought and desire. If theultimate cause of change had been simply the object of thought and desireof the cosmos, it need not have been different from merely imaginarythings; for they can be just as much objects of thought and desire. Forexample, I may imagine the house that I am planning to build; and thisimaginary house, we may say loosely speaking, may cause me to build it.But obviously what causes me to act here is not a real house at all, but myown thoughts and imaginings which represent a house. By contrast,suppose that I am hungry and that I see an apple hanging from a branch;then this apple, the real thing that I recognize, may produce in me thedesire for it and the thought of how I may reach it. <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s ultimatecause of change is like the second case, not like the first; and in this sensethe ultimate cause of change functions not only as a teleological or finalcause, but also as an efficient cause, ‘a productive cause’ (poiētikon), as hecalls it. But it is striking that this efficient cause, the ultimate cause ofchange, does not rely on interaction for its causation.