Philosophy Now Forum

For my intro to philosophy class I have to write a paper on Aristole's four causes. After explaining what each cause is and an example of it we have to answers these questions (which are pretty confusing for me)

“Second, once you have explained all Four Causes of your object, ask the question: “In terms of efficient causality is this object self-explanatory, i.e. does it contain its own explanation within itself?” If it does not contain its own explanation within itself, if its efficient cause is external to it, show how you must eventually postulate a self-explanatory or Uncaused Cause in order to give a complete explanation of the existence of your object. Once you have shown how it is necessary to postulate a self-explanatory or Uncaused Cause in order to give a complete explanation of your object, give an account of what the characteristics of such a self-explanatory or Uncaused Cause would be. Could it be temporal or must it necessarily be eternal? Why? Could it be composed of parts or must it necessarily be perfectly simple? Why?

Couple questions:
1. What makes something self-explanatory?
2. What would an example of something self-explanatory be and why?
3. What would an example of something that is not self-explanatory be?
4. What does it mean to postulate a self-explanatory or uncaused cause?
5. What is the last part of the rubric asking, "Could it be composed of parts or must it necessarily be perfectly simple? Why?"?

Sorry for all these questions, I am really confused and don't have anyone else to ask.

Thanks!

phil02 wrote:
Couple questions:
1. What makes something self-explanatory?
2. What would an example of something self-explanatory be and why?
3. What would an example of something that is not self-explanatory be?
4. What does it mean to postulate a self-explanatory or uncaused cause?
5. What is the last part of the rubric asking, "Could it be composed of parts or must it necessarily be perfectly simple? Why?"?

Sorry for all these questions, I am really confused and don't have anyone else to ask.

Thanks!

1) multiple applications (applications of language) can arrive at a self-explanatory symbol (word/sound/utterance,etc.), and also each application is relative to its user. To explain itself means that the user does not need exterior information to understand its commonly held meaning. Its commonly held meaning is upheld by mutual understanding, the lack of mutual understanding when testing/using the symbol qualifies it for a lack of understanding unless there are other causes which are more plausible. A lack of understanding would qualify it for not having its originally understood meaning and therefore not self-explanatory to the user as prior assumed.
2) an example of a self-explanatory word is a word with a combination of descriptive and noun words, like you can derive self-explanatory "meaningless" from "meaning", as the ending "-less" is descriptive of the noun "meaning". It combines the logical existences "nothingness" with " meaningfulness" and arrives at a conclusion given the extra aid of past experience of language use, where "-less" is used to denote other words where there is logical "nothingness" added to "meaningfulness" (the logic I'm talking about is the experience of nothing and the experience of meaning, the blending of pictures in your head into a final picture could do it, where "nothing" is itself and "meaning" is itself, and adding "nothing" to the experience "meaning" gives "nothing" but there remains an expectation still for "meaning" as meaning lay in the record of the mind-picture and instead of just concluding "nothing" you conclude "nothingness of meaningfulness").
3) something not self-explanatory would be something which needs exterior information to make a mutual understanding of it.
4) postulate is to assume a truth. To assume a self-explanation is to derive at a plausibility for an associated idea to be equal of postulates meaning, the more past experience the higher the probability, the more probability the greater and more deep can the assumption run. To assume an uncaused cause is to imply unworldliness, that something reaches from "outside time" and "through time" and into our world, as it is not caused by our world's time, where time is the appearance of new things by causes. Since this thing exists in our world, however, it is granted that such a thing must have permanent existence, since if any change happens to it, something can be blamed to be that thing's cause, as causes are just probability-measures of the re-appearance of new things. Whether these probability measures can reach 100% or not is irrelevant, it will still be probability-determined.
5) I'll answer this in a and b
a) Parts? Nothing stops it from being composed of parts, even infinite amounts of parts. The only condition is that the parts themselves adheres to the principles laid down by the causelessness of its whole, its set, its parent. That is, the parts can not exist as time, they must be permanent existences.
b) being causeless and simple does not have any necessary relationship. While there are no wholes without parts, there is neither any agreements to be made as to whether the chicken or the hen came first, as there does not make any sense to say that parts are the cause of the whole or the whole the cause of parts. If the postulate where to be truly unable to be the cause of something else, then you resolve the problem however and the thing cannot have parts as these parts would have to be either/or.