Aristotle's teleological final cause and Socrates's wisdom in Plato's 'Apology'

Among Aristotle's four causes, the final cause only regards to explain why it is and by providing this, it is argued that ‘Aristotle offers a teleological explanation… that is to say, an explanation that makes a reference to the telos or end of the process’ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCau). In general, it is said that ‘for Aristotle, an end (telos) is always something good’ (http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/39290-teleology-first-principles-and-scientific-method-in-aristotle-s-biology/). Strictly speaking, ‘final causation requires invoking the good as a per se cause. This is why Aristotle thinks no one before him grasped the final cause. For they may have employed the good in their accounts but only as an incidental cause’ (ibid). In this quest for the good as per se (good in itself), Aristotle’s tune resonates with his old mentor, Plato, whose teaching could be summarised in a following way: ‘A life focused on the question of its greatest good is a life lived to its fullest—an excellent or virtuous life’ (http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/perspectives/wisdomasexcellence.htm).

Seeking for the good as per se, or the greatest good, whilst Aristotle takes a direction for the Ethics, Plato sees the best example in his old mentor, Socrates, and whose wisdom. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates ‘identifies his activity with “wisdom”’ (ibid) as the wisest who ‘understands that his wisdom is worthless’ (ibid). This wisdom, and its ultimate state called wisdom as not knowing, provide the very basis of Plato’s thoughts. From his first-hand experience, Plato impersonates his late mentor and retells, ‘…the greatest good for a man [is] to discuss virtue [excellence] every day… for the unexamined life is not worth living for men’ (ibid).

Socrates

For reading the text in full: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/plato-and-aristotle-in-their-ontological-and-teleological-views/