Unmoved mover

First philosophy

Aristotle argues, in Book 8 of the Physics and Book 12 of the Metaphysics, "that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world." In the Physics (VIII 4–6) Aristotle finds "surprising difficulties" explaining even commonplace change, and in support of his approach of explanation by four causes, he required "a fair bit of technical machinery". This "machinery" includes potentiality and actuality, hylomorphism, the theory of categories, and "an audacious and intriguing argument, that the bare existence of change requires the postulation of a first cause, an unmoved mover whose necessary existence underpins the ceaseless activity of the world of motion". Aristotle's "first philosophy", or Metaphysics ("after the Physics"), develops his peculiar theology of the prime mover, as πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον: an independent divine eternal unchanging immaterial substance.

Celestial spheres

Aristotle adopted the geometrical model of Eudoxus of Cnidus to provide a general explanation of the apparent wandering of the classical planets arising from uniform circular motions of celestial spheres. While the number of spheres in the model itself was subject to change (47 or 55), Aristotle's account of aether, and of potentiality and actuality, required an individual unmoved mover for each sphere.

Final cause and efficient cause

Simplicius argues that the first unmoved mover is a cause not only in the sense of being a final cause—which everyone in his day, as in ours, would accept—but also in the sense of being an efficient cause (1360. 24ff.), and his master Ammonius wrote a whole book defending the thesis (ibid. 1363. 8–10). Simplicius's arguments include citations of Plato's views in the Timaeus—evidence not relevant to the debate unless one happens to believe in the essential harmony of Plato and Aristotle—and inferences from approving remarks which Aristotle makes about the role of Nous in Anaxagoras, which require a good deal of reading between the lines. But he does point out rightly that the unmoved mover fits the definition of an efficient cause—"whence the first source of change or rest" (Phys. II. 3, 194b29–30; Simpl. 1361. 12ff.). The examples which Aristotle adduces do not obviously suggest an application to the first unmoved mover, and it is at least possible that Aristotle originated his fourfold distinction without reference to such an entity. But the real question is whether his definition of the efficient cause includes the unmoved mover willy-nilly. One curious fact remains: that Aristotle never acknowledges the alleged fact that the unmoved mover is an efficient cause (a problem of which Simplicius is well aware: 1363. 12–14)...

— D. W. Graham, Physics

Despite their apparent function in the celestial model, the unmoved movers were a final cause, not an efficient cause for the movement of the spheres; they were solely a constant inspiration, and even if taken for an efficient cause precisely due to being a final cause, the nature of the explanation is purely teleological.

Aristotle's theology

The unmoved mover, if they were anywhere, were said to fill the outer void beyond the sphere of fixed stars:

It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self sufficient of lives… From [the fulfilment of the whole heaven] derive the being and life which other things, some more or less articulately but other feebly, enjoy.

— Aristotle, De Caelo, I.9, 279 a17–30

The unmoved mover is an immaterial substance (separate and individual beings), having neither parts nor magnitude. As such, it would be physically impossible for them to move material objects of any size by pushing, pulling, or collision. Because matter is, for Aristotle, a substratum in which a potential to change can be actualized, any potentiality must be actualized in an eternal being, but it must not be still because continuous activity is essential for all forms of life. This immaterial form of activity must be intellectual and cannot be contingent upon sensory perception if it is to remain uniform; therefore, eternal substance must think only of thinking itself and exist outside the starry sphere, where even the notion of place is undefined for Aristotle. Their influence on lesser beings is purely the result of an "aspiration or desire," and each aetheric celestial sphere emulates one of the unmoved movers, as best it can, by uniform circular motion. The first heaven, the outmost sphere of fixed stars, is moved by a desire to emulate the prime mover (first cause), about whom, the subordinate movers suffer an accidental dependency.

Many of Aristotle's contemporaries complained that oblivious, powerless gods are unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, it was a life which Aristotle enthusiastically endorsed as one most enviable and perfect, the unembellished basis of theology. As the whole of nature depends on the inspiration of the eternal unmoved movers, Aristotle was concerned with establishing the metaphysical necessity of the perpetual motions of the heavens. Through the Sun's seasonal action upon the terrestrial spheres, the cycles of generation and corruption give rise to all natural motion as efficient cause.

The intellect, nous, "or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine" is the highest activity, according to Aristotle (contemplation or speculative thinking, theōríā). It is also the most sustainable, pleasant, self-sufficient activity; something which is aimed at for its own sake. Unlike politics and warfare, it does not involve doing things we'd rather not do, but rather something we do at our leisure. This aim is not strictly human: to achieve it means to live following not mortal thoughts but something immortal and divine within humans. According to Aristotle, contemplation is the only type of happy activity that it would not be ridiculous to imagine the gods having. In Aristotle's psychology and biology, the intellect is the soul (see also eudaimonia). According to Giovanni Reale, the first Unmoved Mover is a living, thinking, and personal God who "possesses the theoretical knowledge alone or in the highest degree...knows not only Himself, but all things in their causes and first principles."

First cause

In Book VIII of his Physics, Aristotle examines the notions of change or motion, and attempts to show by a challenging argument, that the mere supposition of a 'before' and an 'after', requires a first principle. He argues that in the beginning, if the cosmos had come to be, its first motion would lack an antecedent state; and, as Parmenides said, "nothing comes from nothing". The cosmological argument, later attributed to Aristotle, thereby concludes that God exists. However, if the cosmos had a beginning, Aristotle argued, it would require an efficient first cause, a notion that Aristotle took to demonstrate a critical flaw.

But it is a wrong assumption to suppose universally that we have an adequate first principle in virtue of the fact that something always is so ... Thus Democritus reduces the causes that explain nature to the fact that things happened in the past in the same way as they happen now: but he does not think fit to seek for a first principle to explain this 'always' ... Let this conclude what we have to say in support of our contention that there never was a time when there was not motion, and never will be a time when there will not be motion.

— Physics VIII, 2

The purpose of Aristotle's cosmological argument that at least one eternal unmoved mover must exist is to support everyday change.

Of things that exist, substances are the first. But if substances can, then all things can perish... and yet, time and change cannot. Now, the only continuous change is that of place, and the only continuous change of place is circular motion. Therefore, there must be an eternal circular motion and this is confirmed by the fixed stars which are moved by the eternal actual substance that's purely actual.

In Aristotle's estimation, an explanation without the temporal actuality and potentiality of an infinite locomotive chain is required for an eternal cosmos with neither beginning nor end: an unmoved eternal substance for whom the Primum Mobile turns diurnally, whereby all terrestrial cycles are driven by day and night, the seasons of the year, the transformation of the elements, and the nature of plants and animals.