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March 08, 2009
Uncaused Cause and Telos
Well, Aristotle is Plato's student. We can't deny that. But he extended and modified Plato's philosophy and is the originator of Western logic and the scientific method.What Aristotle is saying with this uncaused cause is this: Every effect has a cause, and so on back as far as you can go. If the chain never ends, then there are no first principles, and Aristotle won't be able to prove anything. So the chain ends at a point where there are no further causes. There is an uncaused cause. Aristotle looked at this as a principle and not a God, but I call it God.
Now Aristotle also talked about something called telos. Telos essentially means "end" but to Aristotle it meant that something had become what it was originally meant to be, and that was its end. He has a whole book on telos.
Now here's my idea: telos is a bad thing. It means the terminus of the cause and effect chain for an object, in a word, destruction. So what one attempts to do is overcome telos and reach backward towards the uncaused cause. One does this with the help of the Logos, who is a man. This theosis, or movement into God, unwinds the chain of cause and effect until it is overcome. It frees one from the determinism of cause and effect.
Originally from T.D. Lake's Fragments, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 8, 2009 at 12:52 PM