Aristotle's Concept of Chance: Accidents, Cause, Necessity, and Determinism

9.Aristotle's Concept of Chance and Related Contemporary Questions

9 ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF CHANCE AND RELATED CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS SDYQWZQ WXYUDQQR K- WXYFK VWL WZQ THZQ —unknown (Nauck, Tragicae dictionis index, fr. 506) The aim of this chapter is not to study any questions relating to science and philosophy in extenso or in their own right – since this would require a separate volume for each question – but only as related to Aristotle’s concept of chance. My aim is to sketch the ancient roots of some contemporary debates.1 The questions briefly raised concern chance as invoked today to explain the order in the universe, the origin of life, evolution and as used in indeterminist theories, such as quantum theory. (a) Chance and the order in the universe As seen in Ch. 1(xvii) and Ch. 4(b), Aristotle rejected chance as the explanation of the order in the universe, since that which occurs by chance cannot occur always or usually. For Democritus, on the other hand, the simple fact is that there is astonishing and very unusual order in the universe, which due to its psychological unexpectedness must be accounted for, but for which he has no explanation, and so 1 Cf. Polansky and Kuczewski, Accidents and Processes…295: “Accidents clearly have contemporary interest. They enter into our understanding of quantum mechanics and the theory of evolution…” ARISTOTLE, CHANCE, AND RELATED QUESTIONS 327 uses the empty term ‘chance’. This disagreement between Aristotle and Democritus would appear to be the remote ancestor of the contemporary debate. It has been seen, however, that Aristotle himself uses ‘chance’ in a prephilosophical sense meaning ‘no cause’ in his ethical works, where the term serves as an ‘explanation’ for the unequal division of external goods, such as noble birth and beauty, among people. The prephilosophical sense is the material cause, the mere fact that some things are as they are. This use of ‘chance’ may be referred to as the ‘hard’ meaning.2 It might be asked, then, what right Aristotle could have to object when Democritus attributes the order in the universe to ‘chance’ in the same ‘hard’ sense, i.e. when Democritus claims that there is no explanation at all for the order in the universe. Aristotle ’s answer would have to be, however, that the order in the universe presents extraordinary regularity, whereas there is no such regularity in the distribution of the external goods required for happiness. Aristotle’s position may also be elaborated: to say that the order in the universe came about by chance (GLDWXYFKQ, DMSRWXYFK) is precisely to feel the need of an adequate explanation,3 and at the same time to deny it4 (since chance is not an existing thing) or to renounce the search for the cause (as in tossing a coin). This is the reason for Aristotle’s objection when Democritus holds that every thing and event in the world comes about by necessity (due to an efficient cause), but that the world itself (i.e. the order in the world) came about by chance (the mere material cause). More subtly, it was seen that for Aristotle the experience of chance in the course of a process is impossible except in a teleological framework (unless the creditor had set himself a goal he would not have experienced the recovery of his debt as a chance event). Aristotle 2 Cf. also infra Conclusion §(b), p. 371. 3 Cf. Windelband, Die Lehren vom Zufall…6: “Denn ‘durch’ ist der sprachliche Ausdruck für den Begriff der Verursachung, welcher andererseits durch das Wort ‘Zufall’ für den betreffenden Fall geleugnet werden soll, und ebenso ist das Verh ältnis des Subjects ‘Zufall’ zum activen Verbum der grammatische Ausdruck der wirkenden Ursache, deren Negation wiederum eben das Subject ‘Zufall’ enthält. In beiden Fällen erscheint die Ursachlosigkeit als Ursache.” 4 In the same way Hume held that the use of the term ‘chance’ implies the denial of a determining cause – cf. Introduction p. 9. 328 ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF CHANCE might, therefore, respond to a Democritean that if he attributes the order in the universe to chance, he is inevitably and by definition in search of a goal and understands the order in the universe as meaningful and as serving a purpose.5 The Democritean position would appear to be paralleled by the widespread contemporary ‘attribution’ of the order in the universe to chance, given that contemporary scientists, in...