And as a connoisseur of shipbuilding, seeing from a distance a ship driven by a fair wind and well equipped, understands that someone is steering it and leading it to the harbor in front of it, so those who first looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was running from east to west, and that the stars were moving harmoniously, sought the creator of this beautiful arrangement, not thinking that it happened spontaneously, but under the influence of some strong and imperishable essence, such as God was."

The same physico-teleological argument of Aristotle is repeated by Cicero (in Aristotle's fragments 14 R).

(d) Incidentally, we need not necessarily refer to Cicero or Sextus Empiricus to demonstrate Aristotle's physico-teleological arguments. In Aristotle's Metaphysics there is a whole chapter (XII 8), which we shall not quote and analyze here because of its almost exclusively astronomical character, but which is entirely built precisely on the construction of the cosmos with all its celestial spheres precisely on the basis of Aristotle's general doctrine of the prime mover. No less than Plato, Aristotle also finds in the harmony of the celestial spheres nothing but the result of the action of the divine Mind, and all the beauty and harmony of this cosmos he traces precisely to the beauty and harmony of the cosmic or, as he himself says, the divine Mind. Here the difference between Plato and Aristotle is only specifically astronomical (Aristotle here uses the astronomical system of Eudoxus), but in no way philosophical and certainly not aesthetic.

4. The general conclusion of Aristotle himself.

If we wanted to draw a brief conclusion, set forth by Aristotle himself, regarding the necessity of passing from the temporal nature to the eternal nature, from the body to the soul and from individual souls to the cosmic mind, including both general transcendental and specifically physical-teleological arguments, it seems that it would be best to quote the following chapter from the treatise "On the Soul" (III 5; the translator substitutes the Russian "mind" instead of the Greek "mind"). corresponding not to the Greek noys, but rather to the Greek dianoia):

"Since there is everywhere in nature that which constitutes the matter of every kind (and this [principle] potentially contains all that exists), and on the other hand there is a cause and an efficient principle for the creation of all things, [and their dependence is the same] as, for example, art is related to material, it is necessary that these different aspects should also be contained in the soul. There is, on the one hand, a mind that becomes everything, and on the other hand, a certain property like light. For in a certain way light brings to reality the colors that exist potentially. And this mind is special, it is not characterized by suffering states, it is not mixed with anything, being in essence [of its nature] in [constant] activity. For the active principle is always nobler than the suffering, and the primordial force is higher than matter. For realized knowledge is the same as the object. Knowledge in a potential form in a single individual is original in time, but in an absolute sense and in time it is not [original]. For it is impossible [to say of this mind that] it either thinks or does not think. Only when separated does it prove to be what it is, and only this is immortal and eternal. We have no memories, because this mind does not participate in suffering, but the passive mind is transient and [without active reason] nothing [can] think."

§5. Results

1. Aristotle repents before Plato.

(a) Aristotle writes (Met. IV 3, 1005 b 15-20):

"The principle which everyone who comprehends any thing must possess is not a hypothesis; and what a man needs to know, if he knows anything, he must have at his disposal from the very beginning. Thus it is clear that the principle which possesses these properties is the most certain of all, and now let us indicate what this principle is. It is impossible that the same thing should be and should not be inherent in the same thing and in the same sense."

It is clear that Aristotle here preaches the formal-logical law of contradiction, or, better said, the law of non-contradiction. Thus, Aristotle wants to build all his most principled philosophy formally, logically. The identity of being and non-being, teaches Aristotle (IV 4), is possible only in the order of confusion of concepts, in which case being and non-being are understood in different senses; moreover, the first principle is the first because it cannot be proved. Protagoras deliberately uses the polysemy of concepts, not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of argument; and the universal variability of Heraclitus presupposes the existence of immutable essences, that is, neither Protagoras nor the natural philosophers can refute the law of contradiction, but, on the contrary, make use of it (IV 5).