Why are We Here--any reason?

I thought that it might be a good idea to take some time to address some of the critiques of the Neo-Stoic ideal I discussed in my book, Meaning in a Hostile World.  The one I will address in this article says that my approach, like that of any naturalist philosophy, fails to account for our existence.

What do I mean?  In other words, it does not address the issue of why we are here—as distinct from how we got here—or even why the universe exists.  This is a natural criticism, one that should be expected, and one that we can blame, ironically, on one of the greatest philosophers of the western world—Aristotle.

How so?  He said that there were four categories of causes: the material cause, efficient cause, formal cause, and the ultimate or Final cause.  He concluded this from looking at common artifacts and realizing that each could be described in these categories.  Take a simple three legged stool: the material cause would be the wicker, the wood, and the nails or glue, the “stuff” it takes to make it.  The efficient cause would be the labor to cut and assemble the parts.  The formal cause would be the plant behind the stool, and the ultimate or Final Cause would be the reason for making it.  Did you make it to use yourself, or to sell to another?  Whatever the answer is, that would be the Final Cause in this case.

This works well, of course, with artifacts; they are made by people—and at least  chimps, I admit—for specific functions.  The problem is that this reasoning may not—and, of course, I think does not—apply to natural objects.  An igneous rock may have a material cause—the lava or magma from which it forms—and an efficient cause, the eruption and subsequent cooling, but does it have a formal cause and a final cause? Is it even an artifact at all, or is “artifact” a word that applies only to human made objects?  The burden of proof, of course, would be on those who insist that every object is, in fact, an artifact.

Because our own actions are usually purposeful, and that of animals is often, or at least seem to be, purposeful, primitive people often assumed that nature itself was purposeful.  Do the plants grow well because it rains, or does it rain SO THAT the plants will grow?  The latter was the assumption throughout much of human history.

Hence, we often attribute purposeful actions to nature, and can assume that everything has a cause in the sense of having a purpose.  But, there is no reason to make that assumption, is there?  We cannot explain why the universe is here, because the question is illegitimate.  Of course, there will always be people who ask the question, but children also ask “why” to everything, and insist that the question simply MUST have an answer.  Adults know better; some questions don’t have answers, at least easy ones, and we have to be willing to say so.