….And this is what happens when you mix A level Philosophy with Harry Potter. If you don't do it as a subject, no worries, you'll only loose most of your brain cells. If you have… I've just done all your revision for you ^^, happy reading.
Luv Kafers
Professor Snape on Causation
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Snape surveyed the class in front of him and sighed. The same bunch of dunderheads, year after year, most likely trying to fail their exams on purpose so they could torture him some more.
The Gryffindor brats at the front of the class were not even paying attention, and hadn't even noticed that Snape had stopped lecturing (expect Hermione Granger, but she was exception to a lot of rules of nature anyway). They looked quite engrossed in the unusual colour of Neville's potion (Snape gave an involuntary shiver at the name), probably trying to determine where the boy had gone wrong. Not that he would ever get it right anyway, but you had to give Neville credit for actually turning up to potions every lesson, instead of buncking off in the loos.
The Slytherins seemed to be holding their breaths, waiting for Snape to continue after his long pause. Feeling that this was more than slightly pathetic, Snape silently prayed that one day his Slytherin's would perhaps be anointed with minds of their own, and wouldn't go crawling to the nearest Dark Lord for reassurance.
Snape sighed again, and the Gryffindor's began to get an inkling that something might be up.
Well, Professor Snape had had quite enough, frankly. He was going to show these children what learning really was, no matter how painful the process may be.
Taking a deep breath, Snape leaned back casually against his desk and began his new lecture.
"I suppose," he drawled slowly, letting his gaze drift lazily around the room, "your all wondering what your true purpose in being here is?"
A dozen eyes looked at him as if he'd suddenly lost his mind. Maybe he had, but it was too late to stop now.
"What I mean of course," he continued, "is what caused you to be here? What affected your lives so much that, one day, you would be doing potions under my tutorage?"
Propping himself on one elbow, Professor Snape spoke wistfully for a moment; "I've always admired the work of the great Greek philosophers, muggles though they were." He made a noise of contentment, "Socrates…Plato….Aristotle. Especially Aristotle." Snape stood up suddenly, making his students jump. Wistfulness gone, the Professor turned on his lecture mode. "Today, and for one lesson only, I am going to detail to you one of my favourite philosophical idea's, by the esteemed Aristotle himself, on Causation."
Wide eyed, his students had never before looked so baffled. Snape was thouraly enjoying himself.
Ron lent forward slightly so he could whisper to Harry and Hermione. "Is it just me, or has Proffessor Snape finally lost it?"
Hermione scowled, "Now Ron, you know he's been working very hard for the Light side during that last year, it's no surprise he's probably feeling a little stressed right now-"
"Stressed?" Harry nearly spat, "he's lost his marbles! I'd be surprised if we leave this room without a hex on us…"
Snapes head snapped around as he heard the three Gryffindor's whispering urgently, and he yelled automatically; "5 points from Gryffindor! Don't interrupt me when I'm talking, Potter!"
Harry fumed sullenly for being singled out, but he tried not to answer back, for the sake of his personal safety if nothing else.
"Firstly" Snape lectured on, obviously in his element, "There are four reasons to how, and why, things are the way they are."
"Aristotle came to this conclusion through empirical observation (for those of you to dense to understand, this means he looked at things to see how they worked). Through this, he created four concepts to explain his idea's. These are - Substance; Form and Matter; Act and Potential; Cause"
"Let us take Mr. Potter as an example. His substance is human, or so we are lead to believe. But how do we know this? Aristotle goes on to suggest that substance has two aspects; Matter which changes, and Form, which is permanent. So, Mr. Potters form is that of a human, because that aspect of him is permanent – it is the job of science to classify the forms."
"We therefore know that Mr. Potter is a human, even though his matter changes. Or, his matter has the potential to change, by means of transformation (he can degenerate and regenerate)- like fire transforms wood into charcoal."
Harry wasn't sure he like himself being compared to fire and burning, it might give Snape rather unsavoury idea's about punishing him. The Professor, oblivious to Harry's distress, continued.
"Or, by means of movement. Matter cannot move itself, but can be moved by something already in motion. Matter cannot exist without form – but form can exist without matter, as something with a non-material intellect. But I don't expect any of you are capable of comprehending such a deepthy statement, so I shall move on."
"Everything in the material world is actual, because, of course, all matter must have a form. Matter, being the changeable thing that it is, means that everything has the potential to become something else, like Mr. Potter will always have the potential of becoming a purple mass of glop in any given potions lesson."
Harry gulped. He really was not liking where this was going…
"Act always precedes potential." Snape stressed, looking into the eyes of his students dramatically, "so there must be an actual being existing as the cause of any potential being, just as the abominable James Potter preceded the Potter we see before us today."
"But wait!" shouted Snape, sounding spookily like Mad Eye Moody, and making all his students jump, again. "This leaves us with a problem, or theological implication. There must have been a time, before you and I, or even Mr. Potter here, when there were no actual beings! This means of course, to avoid absurdity, there must have been a First Actual Being." Looking rather pleased with this conclusion, Snape stopped pacing the room, and settled to lean against his desk once more.
The pupils before him were looking on, varying degrees of shock written across their faces, gaping at Snape like fish. Harry seemed to have gone quite pale as the lecture wore on, like he might faint at any moment – feeling as if his inevitable doom by the hands of Mad Snape was looming on the horizon.
But Professor Snape was far from finished yet. Cracking his knuckles like a boxer, Snape was off again: "This leads us to the cause of things, or specifically the final cause of Mr. Potter here."
Harry really did not want to hear the word final coming from Snape right now.
"So here is Aristotle's theory of Cause. There are four causes that explain the way in which the world works the way it does and why everything, like Mr. Potter, is the way it is."
"Firstly, there is the material cause. This is of course, as we have discussed before, the matter of a thing itself. The matter in trees is wood, which can be cut, burned or polished, but can't move. The matter in animals is flesh, bone and sinew, which can be cut or burned (or added to potions), and can move. The matter in Mr. Potter is flesh, bone and sinew, which can be cut or burned, and can move, and can, most astonishingly, think and be moral."
Harry was going to be sick. His friends noticed the green tinge to his cheeks as the words 'cut' and 'burned' rang through the small chamber, and they all tried to move away from him very subtly.
Snape seemed to have gone beyond this plane of existence in terms of noticing his students activity's, he was so absorbed in delivering this theory. With barely a pause for breath Snape was onto his next point.
"Secondly, we have the efficient cause. This is the thing which already exists actually, in order to bring a potential thing into existence. This being the father, James Potter, who procreates the child, The Boy Who Lived Despite Neville Longbottom's Potions Exploding Over Him At Least Once A Week."
Neville, who had long before taken to hiding under the desk in case curses started flying, flinched at the mention of his name. However, he decided to continue trying to ignore what was going on, save him from having a heart attack at such a young age, and continued to stroke Trevor lovingly.
"Then," Snape was on a roll, "we have the formal cause. Simply, this means the form of the thing which makes it what it is and not something else. Therefore, Mr. Potter can never actually be a growth of green fungi, unless his form is changed."
"Lastly, we have the final cause. The end or purpose to which any given thing came into being. Of course, we have yet to discover what end Mr. Potter will come too, but usually time will tell."
There was a dull thud on the stone floor as Harry fell beck in a dead faint – obviously the thought of Snape being his final end had been too much for him, making him pass out in sheer horror.
Professor Snape stopped talking in surprise, peering over the desk at the prone form of Harry Potter, dead to the world on the classroom floor. He couldn't remember any of his lectures having had such an effect as this before, obviously age had done a lot to improve his touch.
Allowing a little satisfactory smile to grace his lips, Snape calmly produced a small vile from a draw in his desk, then silently poured the whole contents over Harry's head.
Gasping, Harry was revived instantly, sticky brown liquid rolling down his nose and cheeks. Ron and Hermione dived to their friends aid, helping him up into his seat as Professor Snape placed the now empty container back in it's place.
Regarding the gasping and spluttering teenager with all the frigidness of an icicle, Snape spoke; "10 points from Gryffindor for fainting in the middle of a lecture Potter, and I'll give you detentions from here 'till sundry if you ever even think of doing it again."
Ron gasped in indignation, "But Professor! That isn't fair, Harry-"
"Life," interrupted Snape, "isn't fair Mr. Weasly, get over it. 10 more points from Gryffindor for talking back to a teacher."
He touched his chin thoughtfully, "Now, where was I…"
The class shrank back with panicked looks.
"Ah yes, I remember. There are of course, many criticisms of Aristotle's theory, one being that his idea's about physics are pre-science, and are without any notion of magic. Science, muggle science that is, likes to prove such dated theory's wrong with their own shoddy idea's about how the universe works. Matter can actually move itself, and the nature of the universe is cyclical, not some hierarchy of causation. And, obviously, matter is permanent, and it is actually form which is not. Or so muggles seem to think."
"Aristotle understands the causes as meta-physical, something he cannot see or touch. This does not really help to prove its viability."
"He does of course believe that everything exists for a good end, as he describes a human life: It begins with the cause, which becomes the human. The human must then live a free and moral life to attain perfection, and then they must reproduce so the process may be continued. However, this seems unlikely in Mr. Potter's case, since he is quite obviously as bent as Mr. Longbottom's cauldron-"
Harry had never felt so mortified in his entire life, his face turning from a sickly white to burning red in mere seconds, just knowing that he was not going to live this day down, ever. Beyond horror struck, Harry buried his face in his hands, wishing the ground would swallow him whole and never let him see daylight again.
"-so we thankfully won't be seeing anymore Potter spawn in the foreseeable future."
"This is how, through moral behaviour, the soul is cultivated and brought closer to the Final Cause, the perfect state of being, the Unmoved Mover, otherwise known as God."
"All of Aristotle's work brings him to this final conclusion, that the universe must have been created by a God who moves us, but cannot be moved himself, hence Unmoved Mover. This God is unaware of our existence – if he was he would be affected by us – but we are inexplicitly drawn to him, because he is perfect, and it is our final goal to become just like him"
Snape paused, seemingly to let all that information sink in. A class full of 6th year students stared as him unbelievingly, bug eyed and confused, never having experienced a teaching having a midlife crisis.
"So that," Snape finished fleetingly, "is the reason why you are here today. Any questions?"
Silence.
"Well, erm… off you go then."
There was a bare moment of hesitation and the classroom was as still as a graveyard – then suddenly all the students fled from the room faster than they'd ever done in their lives, desperate to be free.
Except one.
"Erm," said Harry, "I have a question."
Snape raised an eyebrow at the young man still sitting behind his desk. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"
"Why did you tell everyone I'm gay?" he blurted.
Snape just looked at him and laughed – a real, rich and deep laugh. "Come off it Harry, they would have figured it out for themselves anyway. But honestly, the look on your face was priceless – I don't think I'm ever going to forget that." Snape chuckled again, shaking his head at the Gryffindor.
Harry pulled a face, "Your so mean sometimes, you know that? I can't believe I agreed to help you with this daft prank, I'm never going to live this down!"
Snape simply moved forward and lent of the desk in front of Harry, one hand on either side of the young mans body. Leaning close he said, "But that was the intention, and it just proved to make it that more realistic, don't you think?"
Harry's mouth quirked, "Whatever you say Severus, but I'm going to get my own back, you just wait and see."
"And I'll just have to give you a detention for your efforts Mr.Potter," Snape replied teasingly.
"Yes" said Harry, moving towards the door, "that's what I was hoping for."
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Raise your hands if you haven't a f***ing clue what's going on! Everyone? Ok then ^^.
I may or may not do a sequel. Depends on how well my meta-ethic's revision is going - or, how much hate mail I get :D
Scream in terror, for the Foundation Paper is come……