Participation in Eternity: The Ultimate Ground of Aristotle’s Teleological Explanation

Document Type : Original Research

Author
Mustafa Zali
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran,Tehran, Iran
10.30497/prr.2020.2759
Abstract
Divine aspect of Aristotelian Philosophy and especially the divine aspect of his teleology is one of the most difficult and controversial problems. This difficulty leads to rejection of any divine aspect in his teleology, because the contemporary defenses of teleology, on the one hand have interpreted divine teleology as an explanation of world as an intentional act of a wise creator, and on the other hand, have regarded Aristotle’s teleology as a methodological approach to explain the functions of natural substances and human actions. So, Aristotle’s teleology has no divine significance. In contrast to this prevailing approach, this article investigates the divine aspect of Aristotle’s teleology. Even though he does not explicitly refer to intelligent design to explain the order of natural and human world, but the ultimate functions of these substances are explained with reference to god as a paradigm of teleology. In natural substances, the kind as an eternal entity is a real telos and the ultimate telos of human being lies in intellect as a divine element. So, the god is regarded as an ideal of intellectual eternal life and the purposiveness of natural and human worlds, is due to their participation of divine life. Therefore, the Aristotle’s teleology has explicit theological implications and has become to an ontological framework for intellectual interpretation of happiness in Abrahamic religions.
Keywords
Aristotle
Final Cause
Living Substance
Eternity
Intellect
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