Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

288 THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GODthat, unlike sense perception and imagination, which is material, rationalthought is immaterial. In particular, he argued that there are two kinds ofhuman rational thought: one kind, although in itself immaterial, dependson something material, since it depends on sensory perception andimagination, but another kind does not even depend on anything material.But God’s rational thought is like this latter kind of human rationalthought.However, <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues that the object of the rational thought of theultimate cause of change, i.e. what the ultimate cause of change thinks, isnothing but itself. Why does the ultimate cause of change think nothingbut itself ? The answer that <strong>Aristotle</strong> gives is clear:[If reason, the ultimate cause of change, thought something otherthan itself, then] it is evident that something other than itself wouldbe more precious than reason, namely, what it rationally thinks [tonooumenon].(1074 b 29–30 f )The point is that the object thought by the rational intellect, if it isdifferent from the intellect itself, is more precious than the intellect, in thesense of explanatorily and causally more fundamental. For the object thatis thought by the intellect causes the intellect to think and explains why itthinks, and without an object to think, the intellect, although capable ofthinking, would never actually think anything and would forever be‘asleep’ (1074 b 18). To take an example from sense perception rather thanthought, one may have the capacity to hear, but unless there are sounds tobe heard and unless they affect one’s hearing, one will not actually hearanything and one’s capacity will lie dormant. So, if the ultimate cause ofchange thought something other than itself, then this object would becausally and explanatorily more fundamental than the ultimate cause ofchange. But this is absurd, for the ultimate cause of change is precisely themost fundamental thing, explanatorily and causally. So the object thoughtby the ultimate cause of change cannot be anything other than theultimate cause of change itself.But we should note that when <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues that the ultimate cause ofchange thinks nothing but itself, he means that it thinks nothing but theactivity that is distinctive of itself, namely, rational thought. In otherwords, for the ultimate cause of change to think itself is for it to think itsown thinking. This is a very interesting move in <strong>Aristotle</strong>—the move from‘thinking oneself’ to ‘thinking one’s own thinking’. The move goes back toPlato’s dialogue the Charmides, where Socrates similarly moves directly