Aristotle and determinism

In Physics book II, Aristotle talks about Chance (and luck/fortune). Here, he gives us a glimpse down the rabbit hole of an argument that still clings soundly in the world today.

What role does chance play in the world?

According to Aristotle, it is merely the name that we give to an event where two effects of two causes came together. IE I’m walking under some trees and a pinecone hits me. One cause is that I’m walking under trees for my health, another is that the tree, at just the right moment (merely coincidental) severs its connection with the pinecone to procreate. Thus nothing happens by chance, ever, instead we see chance in coincidental, where two things happened for the sake other other things and came together.

The underlying argument is that everything happens for some purposed reason (the final cause, remember, is telos) and that, therefore, each thing follows some pre-determined path toward that end. This argument is one of the logical pillars for the concepts of Determinism, the idea that everything happens according to predetermined causes. Such an idea strikes against the concept of Free Will, and the proponents of such a concept will offer the immediate counter-attack “But I can change my system!”

Thus enters the murky waters.

Let’s say that I want to prove my free will by committing action X (the action itself doesn’t matter at all). Why are you so insistent on proving action X? It is because you are pre-determinately apprehensive about the loss of free will? Is that apprehension the cause of some further thing, which was caused by some other thing, and so on ad nauseum?

Still others will say, “I can will to do something or not do something!” But is this truly will? I leave with the question, “Does will require action?” and the statement that Aristotle seems to think action is quite important for something to be existent, so he’d probably say no.