Aristotle's Concept?

Question

Who is Aristotle referring to as the eternal unmoved mover?
Kindly explain the system of operation how this works. Use primordial examples or modern-day life generalities if you must.

Thank you for your time on this question.

Hi Finlsndssvensk,
Thank you for you for trying to help me figure out my question. I am definite, it is Aristotle's. I am looking at the ultimate cause of all motion, but does not move himself/itself.
Fantastic answer you have here though.,

Aristotle maintained that at the end, there is a pure form, form without matter, and he called this an eternal 'unmoved mover', the ultimate cause of all motion, of all becoming in the universe. This 'God' is the cause of all motion, but does not move himself.
Explaining through an example, we have all had the experience of knowing a person, a hero to us, whom we wanted to be like. We have fashioned our lives after him and have grown into his likeness(Hawthorne's immortal story,'The Great Stone face, is illustrative of this experience. The little boy looked at the face so much that he became like it. But the face was not moved. It did not change. So with Aristotle's'unmoved mover', it moves men, it draws matter, but does not move itself, it is not affected.
All in the universe,every object and being in it, desires to realize itself because of God. His existence is the ultimate cause of their striving.

Answer 1

Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover can be found at the end of his book entitled Physics. In this book, Aristotle tries to explain the causes of motion and change which exist in the physical world. Throughout his analysis, he determines that there must be a primary cause of things in the universe. By the end of his book, he cites this first cause as the eternal unmoved mover. This unmoved mover, as the name implies, has always existed, is the cause of all motion and yet itself is unmoved.

In his Physics, Aristotle conceives of causes in several different ways. Our everyday notion of cause and effect (like the cause of the tree falling is that I cut it down) is only one of the ways in which Aristotle conceives of causes. In regards to the first cause of existence, or the unmoved mover, he is thinking of a type of causation which is much different from cause and effect. The unmoved mover is not the first pebble thrown into the pond of existence- it did not create a cause and effect chain which now constitutes the movements of this universe. Instead, the unmoved mover “caused” everything in the universe to have its purpose or its "for the sake of which" that assigns a purpose and identity to everything in the universe. For example, the "cause" or purpose of an acorn is to grow into a tree. The purpose of a tree is to be a tree which will grow leaves and produce more acorns. The purpose of a chair is to be sat upon, the purpose of a pen is to be something to write with and the purpose of rock is to be hard and motionless. The unmoved mover is responsible for creating the order that is now existent in the world- it assigns different things different roles and defines what these roles are. Without the unmoved mover, matter would have no form, no purpose and no motion.

While you may want to picture the unmoved mover as a type of God, it is safer to think of this entity as a first cause, a thing which created the universe, leaving out the anthropomorphized notions of God that we typically associate with divine beings.

Answer 2

Maybe you mean Plato? Here is a quote from a page (link below) that explains it better than I can explain it so I'll leave it at that...

"The cosmological argument is based ultimately on the existence of the cosmos (hence the name) and its main gist is that for something to move it must first be caused to move by something else.

So, if we look at the world, Plato argues, there must be a first cause of all this motion - that is, something that set it all going. However, for this cause to be the ultimate one it must itself be unmoved by anything else (an unmoved or prime mover). This principle Plato called 'soul' or 'life'."

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

<<>> all those,known and not known, who preceded and followed in this selfsame lineage provided different takes on the same, all of whose teachings, as different as they may or may not appear or evidence to be, were but the many siblings of the selfsame parent.