It can now be seen that Descartes’ influence in contemporary thought is significant. Change can be a difficult subject which is why the classical philosophers divided all reality into being and becoming. Although Descartes did not deny change, because he was most interested in Being, he unfortunately, left the mysteries of becoming untouched.

It could be, however, that Descartes thinks that investigating change in the realm of becoming is so complicated, and even seemingly indeterminate, that commenting on the nature of causation with any kind of precision is impossible. He always pursues mathematical precision in his philosophy. When expressing his dislike of the Aristotelian concepts of change, act and potency he says, “They define motion, a fact with which everyone is quite familiar, as the actualization of what exists in potentiality, in so far as it is potential! Now who understands these words? Will not everyone admit that those philosophers have been trying to find a knot in a bulrush”(246)? Certainly, Descartes would have been aware that Aristotle used the term “motion” for any kind of change, not just movement of something from one place to another. The idea that that which is in act has potential seems to be a property of being. Nonetheless, Descartes contents himself with efficient and formal causation, thinks that act and potency are worthy of ridicule, and is rather skeptical about any other kind of causation in the physical world.  For Aristotle, however, act and potency speak to deep and profound metaphysical properties of Being and provide the foundation for change and causation in the realm of becoming. Nonetheless, Descartes argues that formal and efficient causation is all that is necessary for explaining change in finite things.

As pointed out in the previous posts, Descartes wants to build his philosophy on mathematical certainty. We just may not be able to show, according to Descartes, that by using the principles and axioms of mathematics, final causality exists. On the other hand, Aristotle might point out that even if we could not find a geometric formula or mathematical algorithm to prove the existence of final causality with absolute certainty it would not mean final causes do not exist.  Ironically, after all, most algorithms are deployed for a purpose because the humans who write the algorithms act with intentionality.  Descartes, however, seeks a mathematically airtight philosophy in which everything is understood perfectly and free of any mystery of human agency or final purposes—although he does not exactly deny the possibilities of potentiality and final causation in human action. The puzzling thing about human action is that it does not seem easily reducible to mathematical precision. Nonetheless, he is skeptical of final causality and, at times, ridicules (as cited above) metaphysical notions of act and potency, and leaves the mystery of human action untouched due to the fact that it cannot be discovered with absolute certainty. If, however, Descartes’ overall philosophy is to be taken as correct, it must include all reality.  Descartes’ skepticism prevents him from speaking to human purposes and goal-directedness and therefore leaves much of reality—humanaction and purpose—notions which define our understanding of agency, simply unsolved or ignored. Although Descartes does not discard the idea of final cause, he does not answer these important questions about human reality.

So, how is one to critically understand the conversation that takes place between Aristotle and Descartes regarding final causation? From what has been examined, Descartes simply thinks that efficient cause is all that is necessary when describing change and human action in the world. His frame of reference—and the basis of his philosophy—is absolute certainty deriving from his conception of God and his quest for mathematical precision. Aristotle, who does not commit himself to the same precision in all things, would remind Descartes that those things which are not eternal, and that those things which come to be and pass away in the realm of becoming, do not seem to display the kind of properties that God might have.  Things which come to be and cease to be are effects, not causes—justas non-being cannot create being. Causation, itself, is a compelling foundational structure of Being, which is why Aristotle is so fascinated with it. That which is in potency does not put itself in act. Things cannot be the efficient cause of themselves, and Aristotle would explain that an efficient cause must first have a material cause which would bring about a formal cause and a final cause. These causes cannot be reduced to an efficient cause—simplyto that by which something comes to be. Further, efficient causes, alone, do not help us understand the nature of purpose in reality or nature. For example, we take for granted that the DNA of a gerbil causes it to be a small furry quadruped and not a cephalopod.  Efficient causes have a natural end or purpose which connects them to final cause—that for the sake of which something happens—butcannot alone explain final causation.

Can purpose be found in human agency? Aristotle thinks so. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he points out that humans always seek some good or end which they believe produces happiness. Sometimes humans misplace the good they are seeking and do evil things. The notions of just and unjust actions seem to speak to human action and intent.  Aristotle reminds his readers that knowledge of the good is the highest intellectual achievement and end that humans can accomplish. Like any other natural phenomenon—“as sight is in the body, so is reason in the soul”—ethical and practical reasoning has an end to which it is ordered (Aristotle II 342). The basis and ground of natural law and a well-ordered state is rooted in the intellectual ends and purposes of human beings who, by their nature, have potentiality. Descartes does not exactly deny final causes or human potentiality, but by leaving these important questions unexplained, he does not, in the end, help one to think deeply about what it means to live deliberately with meaning, purpose, or significance.

Next time I will explore the metaphysical issues related to Descartes’ methodology of systematic doubt and his doctrine of the“cogito.” This concludes Descartes’ understanding of final causation. I think I’ll make some contemporary assessments of Descartes and his impact on culture and technology a little later.  The important issue of whether his probably unintended separation of physics from metaphysics is good or not will need to be discussed.  For now, it is enough to see that Descartes clearly follows in the mechanistic trajectory developed by Thomas Hobbes and Francis Bacon.  Although Descartes was clearly more systematic and totalizing in his methodology.

Works cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle:1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle:2. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 8. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Descartes, Rene. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 28. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.