📚 Volume 30, Issue 3 📋 ID: 6qmA4n3

Authors

Viktor Mensah , Karl Li, Jun Kobayashi, Lars Meyer

University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Drawing on the concept of movement Aristotle, proves the existence of a first unmoved mover calling it God. Concerning God, he admits attributes such as being a mover by way of being a beloved, intellection, knowledge, eternity, total actuality and the most perfect being. However he is skeptic about unity or plurality of the unmoved mover, though he finally proves, by relying on the astrology of his time, the existence of forty-nine unmoved movers. He occasionally calls all these unmoved movers as ‘first unmoved movers’, though he sometimes calls only one of them as the first and another as second, third etc. The main concern in this paper is to illustrate the meaning of ‘first’ in Aristotle’s words. \n Criticizing some theories and probabilities, the paper points out that ‘first’ is used in two manners and consequently in two senses: to tell about the unmoved movers without considering their interrelations and to tell about the unmoved movers while considering their interrelations. The unmoved movers are all ‘first’ in the first sense because they are all the sources of the first movement in the first spheres which are first along with their movements, compared to earth and its movements. However, they are not altogether first in the second sense, for the spheres are in different spatial orders (first, second etc.) in relation with each other and thus the source of the movement of the first sphere is called the first mover, that of the second sphere the second mover and so on.
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📝 How to Cite

Viktor Mensah , Karl Li, Jun Kobayashi, Lars Meyer (2023). "The Concept of “First” in Aristotle’s ‘First Movers’". Wulfenia, 30(3).