Who dares to be better than Aristotle?

A week ago I posted about something I called "Strauss's Paradox" on the strength of an extensive quote from Leo Strauss. I have more to say on the subject of applying natural reason to questions of ethics, but first I want to step aside to look at a question Strauss asks in that long quote.

His topic is whether there is a teleology for Man, because any natural ethics would have to be based on some kind of natural teleology. And what he says, in his normally indirect way, is this:

"From the point of view of Aristotle -- and who could dare to claim to be a better judge in this matter than Aristotle? -- the issue between the mechanical and the teleological conception of the universe is decided by the manner in which the problem of the heavens, the heavenly bodies, and their motion is solved."

Now, Strauss never states whether he agrees with this opinion, or not. He asks rhetorically who dares to claim to be a better judge than Aristotle, but we can't see his face as he asks it -- so we don't know if he is smirking at a private joke, or in dead earnest. But what he does give us -- and this is vintage Strauss -- is a footnote to the exact references in Aristotle on which he bases his remarks. That footnote reads in full as follows:

Physics 196a25 ff., 199a3-5

OK, what does Aristotle say in those places? I don't own a copy of the Physics and it took me a little while to find a copy online that included Bekker numbering. But I finally found a PDF of the Revised Oxford Translation. Here, therefore, are the two paragraphs which include the passages that Strauss indicates.

196a25-196b4 There are some who actually ascribe this heavenly sphere and all the worlds to spontaneity. They say that the vortex arose spontaneously, i.e. the motion that separated and arranged the universe in its present order. This statement might well cause surprise. For they are asserting that chance is not responsible for the existence or generation of animals and plants, nature or mind or something of the kind being the cause of them (for it is not any chance thing that comes from a given seed but an olive from one kind and a man from another); and yet at the same time they assert that the heavenly sphere and the divinest of visible things arose spontaneously, having no such cause as is assigned to animals and plants. Yet if this is so, it is a fact which deserves to be dwelt upon, and something might well have been said about it. For besides the other absurdities of the statement, it is the more absurd that people should make it when they see nothing coming to be spontaneously in the heavens, but much happening by chance among the things which as they say are not due to chance; whereas we should have expected exactly the opposite.

198b34-199a8 Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty on this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or for the most part come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in summer but only if we have it in winter. If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of coincidence or for the sake of something, and these cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for the sake of something; and that such things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.

To summarize. The first selection says that we are more likely to find design in the heavens than we do on earth, because there is never anything new in the heavens. The second selection says that we can see regular patterns in nature, so therefore natural events cannot have come about by accident.

Leaving Strauss aside for a minute, is there any way that we could accept these arguments today?

• The first one fails because we now know that things do change in the heavens: stars are born and die, and rocks fall from interplanetary space to land on the Earth.
• The second one confuses the assertion (a) that the world originally arose in an unplanned way long ago in the depths of time (but follows definite laws so that after a while regular patterns have showed up) with the assertion (b) that all events in nature happen stochastically all the time. Since (b) is plainly false, Aristotle infers (mistakenly, I think) that (a) must also be false. 

In other words, neither argument would fly today. It is true that the second paragraph could be reworked or adapted into something stronger, by making the argument that the regularities of natural physical law are so remarkable that the odds are against them having happened by accident. But the first paragraph is -- in light of what we know today -- clearly a joke.

The only remaining question is the biographical one whether Strauss understood that those arguments could not stand on their own today. If yes, then his footnote is intended as a subtle wink and nod to his reader, allowing him to pay public deference to the pre-modern view of teleology while not really believing it. If no, then it is a remarkable coincidence that he just happened to find two such weak arguments to support a position he really believed.

Of course the man is dead now, so I suppose we shall never know for sure. But my guess is for Yes. As far as the biographical question about Strauss's personal opinions is concerned, I find the argument from design (i.e., that he chose those passages on purpose) stronger than the argument from random accident.