Aristotle's unmoved mover theory

Distinguish between Aristotle's four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final).

Explain the concepts of substance (ousia), form, and matter in Aristotle's metaphysics.

Analyze the distinction between potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (energeia).

Apply the potentiality-actuality distinction to explain the nature of change (kinesis).

Explain Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphism (matter-form composition) as the structure of sensible substances.

Define motion (kinesis) as the actualization of a potentiality as such.

Distinguish between the different types of change in Aristotle's physics: generation/corruption, alteration, and locomotion.

Analyze the principle that 'whatever is moved is moved by another' (omne quod movetur ab alio movetur).

Explain the distinction between per se (essential, hierarchical) and per accidens (incidental) causal series.

Reconstruct Aristotle's argument for why a per se series of concurrent movers cannot be infinite.

Identify the logical structure of Aristotle's argument against an infinite regress of movers.

Reconstruct the argument from Physics VII-VIII for the necessity of a first unmoved mover to explain celestial motion.

Reconstruct the more general metaphysical argument from Metaphysics XII (Lambda) for an unmoved mover.

Explain why the first mover must be eternal and unchanging.

Analyze why the first mover must be purely actual (actus purus) with no potentiality.

Explain how the unmoved mover causes motion as a final cause (an object of desire and intellect) rather than an efficient cause.

Evaluate the key premises in both the Physics and Metaphysics versions of the argument.

Explain why the unmoved mover must be an immaterial, non-spatial substance.

Analyze Aristotle's conclusion that the unmoved mover's activity is pure thought thinking itself (noesis noeseos).

Explain the relationship between the primary unmoved mover and the subordinate unmoved movers of the celestial spheres.

Evaluate whether Aristotle's unmoved mover is a personal deity or an impersonal principle.

Analyze the tension between the unmoved mover's perfect self-contemplation and its role as the ultimate final cause for the cosmos.

Reconstruct Aquinas's First Way (the argument from motion) and identify its specific Aristotelian premises.

Compare Aquinas's Second Way (the argument from efficient causation) with the argument from motion.

Analyze how Aquinas integrates Aristotle's 'pure actuality' with the concept of God as 'ipsum esse subsistens' (subsistent being itself).

Explain Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity and its direct connection to the mover being purely actual.

Contrast Aquinas's view of God as both an efficient and final cause with Aristotle's more restricted view of the mover as only a final cause.

Compare Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason with Aristotle's argument against infinite regress.

Analyze David Hume's critique of the empirical basis for the causal principle.

Explain Immanuel Kant's critique regarding the application of the category of causality beyond the realm of possible experience.

Analyze Bertrand Russell's objection that the universe can be considered a 'brute fact' without an external explanation.

Evaluate the dilemma of accepting a necessary being versus accepting the universe as a brute fact.

Contrast Aristotle's argument against an infinite hierarchical series with the temporal Kalam cosmological argument.

Outline the logical structure of a contemporary Aristotelian proof for a first cause (e.g., Edward Feser's).

Analyze contemporary defenses of Aristotelian metaphysical concepts (e.g., actuality/potentiality, causality) against modern objections.

Distinguish between Aristotelian hierarchical/sustaining causality and the event-causality model used in modern physics.

Assess whether the principle of inertia in classical mechanics eliminates the need for a concurrent sustaining cause of motion.

Evaluate challenges to classical causal principles from quantum mechanics, such as quantum indeterminacy and virtual particles.

Analyze the coherence of the concept of 'pure actuality' (actus purus) using tools from contemporary metaphysics, such as modal logic.

Synthesize the strongest contemporary formulation of the unmoved mover argument and the most formidable objections it faces from philosophy and science.