Aristotle: Causation

[penultimate draft; prepared for publication in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals: A Critical Guide, ed. Sophia Connell – please cite final version] -/- Parts of Animals II.10 makes a new beginning in Aristotle’s study of animals. In it, Aristotle proposes to “now speak as if we are once more at an origin, beginning first with those things that are primary” (655b28-9). This is the start of his account of the non-uniform parts of blooded animals: parts such as eyes, noses, mouths, etc., (...) as opposed to uniform parts like blood and flesh. PA II.10 proposes a new strategy for studying these parts: “one ought to speak about the human kind first” (656a10). Beginning “first” with the “primary” things thus amounts to beginning with humans (655b28-9). -/- Why does Aristotle think this strategy is appropriate for his project? One answer is that it reflects a fundamental anthropocentrism. Lloyd, for instance, has raised the possibility that the basic assumptions that guide Aristotle’s biology may to some extent reflect the anthropocentrism of his culture, where the relation of humans to animals was “a preoccupation of popular beliefs”. In this paper, I develop an interpretation that both builds on and challenges this suggestion. I do so by investigating how Aristotle thinks this strategy works in theory and in practice: his justifications for adopting it and its interaction with his scientific commitments. I argue that Aristotle adopts it in part because he thinks that humans are such that his scientific concepts apply to them in a particularly clear way. (This too is a form of anthropocentrism: one that might be resisted by arguing that humans are not the best illustrations of these concepts—that Aristotle ought to look elsewhere for models with the features he desires.) -/- More specifically, Aristotle holds that starting with humans helps establish the causal explanations of the parts of other animals, particularly when they are recalcitrant. What makes humans suitable for this role is a special teleological relation between their parts and the ends they serve: in humans, he supposes, this connection is particularly tight (in a way I explain below). Consequently, Aristotle thinks he can use humans to illuminate which sorts of features tend to be for the sake of which ends, and then extend the results of this inquiry to the parts of the other animals. (shrink)

It has become somewhat of a platitude to call Aristotle the first epigenesist insofar as he thought form and structure emerged gradually from an unorganized, amorphous embryo. But modern biology now recognizes two senses of “epigenesis”. The first is this more familiar idea about the gradual emergence of form and structure, which is traditionally opposed to the idea of preformationism. But modern biologists also use “epigenesis” to emphasize the context-dependency of the process itself. Used in this sense development is not (...) simply the unfolding of a pre-determined sequence of changes specified in advance by the organism’s genotype. It is also sensitive to inputs from the internal and external environment, which help determine in real-time which of the many potential developmental pathways are actualized during the process. Within this paradigm developing embryos are viewed as dynamic and responsive systems that react to inputs from the internal and external environment ‘on the fly’. In this paper I argue that, while Aristotle was an epigenesist in the first sense, he would have rejected epigenesis in the more modern sense. First, Aristotle’s model of choice for a developing embryo is the automaton that executes a set of preset movements (GA 734b9-13, 741b7-15). The automatons he has in mind are not dynamic AI systems capable of modifying their behaviour on the fly in response to environmental cues but completely deterministic mechanisms whose movements are fixed by their original design. Second, given Aristotle’s views about the different kinds of causal powers there are, it looks like only intentional agents endowed with actual decision-making powers could be capable of the sort of plasticity at the core of a more dynamic epigenesis. For that kind of epigenesis requires powers for alternative outcomes, and Aristotle is explicit that such powers require rational desires (προαίρεσις) that control which of those alternatives to bring about. If I am right, then he could not have made sense of the idea of a developing embryo (as a non-intentional system) making adjustments to its phenotype on the fly in response to emerging problems and opportunities, given the conceptual resources available to him. (shrink)

Balthasar impiega in tutta la sua Trilogia fattori fondamentali del pensiero di Platone: il bello, l’eros e l’analogia entis che chiama “Selbstbewegung” ignorando completamente la dottrina dei principi primi che la Scuola di Tübingen ha ricostruito grazie alle testimonianze dei suoi allievi nell’Accademia antica. Per parte sua, la Scuola di Tübingen esclude sistematicamente dall’indagine l’eros e la definizione di psychè del Fedro come “ciò che si muove sempre” e “muove sé stesso”. Non si occupa affatto del bello, perché lo assimila (...) senz’altro all’idea del bene. Propongo perciò una ricerca più filologica in cui espongo il Platone di Balthasar e quello della Scuola di Tübingen e una parte più storico-sistematica in cui delineo il divenire dell’estetica drammatica. Infine, propongo una soluzione del paradosso che ho identificato. La presenza di Platone nell’opera di Balthasar non è stata ancora riconosciuta. Solo due saggi ne parlano, ma sono problematici: in realtà si tratterebbe di Plotino, che sarebbe il vero compimento della filosofia greca. Non viene però preso in considerazione il fatto che Balthasar critica Plotino. (shrink)

Aristotle says that conclusions of practical syllogisms are actions that occur εὐθύς, which is normally translated to indicate temporal immediacy. Both aspects of this—that the conclusions are actions, and that they occur immediately—seem wrong. Interpreting εὐθύς as atemporal, specifically as indicating that nothing more is needed to explain the action, makes better sense of practical syllogisms and solves the problems raised by calling their conclusions actions.

I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several (...) popular and long-standing interpretations, namely, that sunaitia correspond to Aristotle’s idea of hypothetical necessity, that sunaitia are the ‘how’ in an explanation (whereas the true cause is the ‘why’), and that Plato’s causal views should be read through Aristotle’s fourfold schema. I conclude the article by surveying the history of sunaitia after Plato’s usage. (shrink)

The intelligibility of nature was a persistent theme of William A. Wallace, OP, one of the most prolific Catholic scholars of the late twentieth century. This Reader aims to make available a representative selection of his work in the history of science, natural philosophy, and theology illustrating his defense and development of this central theme. Wallace is among the most important Galileo scholars of the past fifty years and a key figure in the recent revival of scientific realism. Further, his (...) long and productive scholarly career has been shaped by a continuous effort to bring the resources of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to the solution of contemporary problems of philosophy and science. Through all of these contributions, Wallace has provided the foundation for a renewed confidence in the capacity of human knowers to attain understanding of the natural order. Consequently, the overall aim of this volume is to secure continued access to his scholarship for readers in the new millennium. -/- Intelligibility of Nature contains twenty-nine previously published essays written by Wallace over a period of some forty years. Many of these essays are currently not readily accessible. They are arranged in five thematic groups, each representing a major subject-area of Wallace's scholarly interests. The first group is devoted to essays on making nature intelligible through the use of scientific models. The second group of essays investigates various ways in which the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is foundational to contemporary scientific research. Essays in the third group are historical studies on the origins of modern science. The fourth group of essays discuss the viability of the cosmological argument for the existence of God in light of natural science. The final group of essays consider the relation of science and religion. Together these essays provide a representative sample of Wallace's multifaceted contributions to scholarship. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that just as a builder uses ‘tools’ to build a house, so too the soul ‘use[s] heat and coldness as tools’ to build an animal (Generation of Animals 740b25–34). I consider two questions about this claim: (1) what sorts of things does the soul use, and what is it for things like them to be organized? and (2) what philosophical work does this sort of organization do in Aristotle’s account of animal generation? I argue that the soul needs (...) flexible intermediate agents, that it organizes them in a way that exploits their flexibility, and that this is due to the demands of a complex, multi-stage process directed at a single end. (shrink)

This paper is an essay in what Austin (_Proc Aristotel Soc_ 57: 1–30, 1956–1957) called "linguistic phenomenology". Its focus is on showing how the grammatical features of ordinary causal verbs, as revealed in the kinds of linguistic constructions they can figure in, can shed light on the nature of the processes that these verbs are used to describe. Specifically, drawing on the comprehensive classification of English verbs founds in Levin (_English verb classes and alternations: a preliminary investigation_, University of Chicago (...) Press, Chicago, 1993), I divide the forms of productive causal processes into five classes, corresponding to Aristotle's ontological categories: there are processes that cause change in location, in state, and in quantity; and that lead to the creation and destruction of substances. These broader categories are then subdivided into other ones, corresponding to different Levin classes, according to further differences in the causal processes they involve. I conclude by discussing the relevance of this argument to research in metaphysics and experimental philosophy. (shrink)

This book aims to answer two main questions about Aristotle’s theory of causality and causal explanation, especially in relation to natural science: (1) How does he answer the main philosophical questions about causes to which he thinks his predecessors’ answers are flawed? (2) How do his answers bear on the main questions we confront in thinking about causality in general? The texts that deal with causality directly are analyzed against the background of his criticisms of his predecessors and his broader (...) views about explanation, highlighting their theoretically important commitments. This allows us to reveal the conceptual architecture of his theory. The basic theory is then applied to two questions about causality, one metaphysical and one epistemological. The metaphysical question is how to account for the relation between causes and what they cause, in light of a fundamental tension between different desiderata for causal explanations. Aristotle’s answer is pluralistic: he does not think that there is one metaphysical relationship between causes and what they cause even within a given mode of causality. The epistemological question asks how we grasp causes, and grasp them in a way that yields scientific understanding. Aristotle’s answer is again a pluralist one: metaphysically different phenomena demand different cognitive resources, and some are more accessible than others. Nevertheless, there is a discernible path from simpler to more sophisticated types of cognitive grasp on causality, in such a way that Aristotle can plausibly satisfy the epistemological constraints he thinks his predecessors cannot. Aristotle thus aims to provide a non-reductionist account of causality that still leaves room for a substantive conception of understanding in natural science. (shrink)

Aristotle's On the Soul aims to uncover the principle of life, what Aristotle calls psuchē. For Aristotle, soul is the form which gives life to a body and causes all its living activities, from breathing to thinking. Aristotle develops a general account of all types of living through examining soul's causal powers. The thirteen new essays in this Critical Guide demonstrate the profound influence of Aristotle's inquiry on biology, psychology and philosophy of mind from antiquity to the present. They deepen (...) our understanding of his key concepts, including form, reason, capacity, and activity. This volume situates Aristotle in his intellectual context and draws judiciously from his other works as well as the history of interpretation to shed light on his intricate views. It also highlights ongoing interpretive debates and Aristotle's continuing relevance. It will prove invaluable for researchers in ancient philosophy and the history of science and ideas. (shrink)

According to Avicenna, whatever exists, whenever it exists, exists of necessity. Not all beings, however, exist with the same kind of necessity: some things exist necessarily per se and others necessarily per aliud. Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual: His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments explains how Avicenna’s modal claims show that God is the first efficient and the ultimate final cause of an eternally existing cosmos. In particular, Celia Kathryn Hatherly shows how Avicenna uses four Aristotelian arguments to (...) prove this very un-Aristotelian conclusion. These arguments include Aristotle's argument for the finitude of efficient causes in Metaphysics 2; for the prime mover in the Physics and Metaphysics 12; for the mutual entailment between the necessary and the eternal in De Caelo 1.12; and against the Megarians in Metaphysics 9. Moreover, Hatherly contends, when Avicenna's version of these arguments is interpreted using his distinctive understanding of modality, the objections of his contemporaries and modern scholars fail. (shrink)

Aristotle’s aitiai are middle terms in Aristotelian syllogisms. I argue that stating the aitia of a thing therefore amounts to re-describing this same thing in an alternative and illuminating way. This, in turn, means that a thing and its aitiai really are one and the same thing under different descriptions. The purpose of this paper is to show that this view is implied by Aristotle’s account of explanation, and that it makes more sense than one might expect.

I argue that, in light of his critique of rival theories of efficient causation, there is a puzzle latent in Aristotle’s own account. To show this, I consider one of his preferred examples of such causation, the activity of experts. Solving the puzzle yields a novel reading of Aristotle, one according to which experts, but not their characteristic arts or skills, are efficient causes.

I examine the status of Aristotle’s science of soul and argue that it is trans-generic in the way that Aristotle's universal mathematics is. For just as the branches of the latter differ considerably, so too do the sciences of life: botany, zoology, psychology, and (in Aristotle’s view) astronomy and theology. Discovering the correct definition of soul, which is their starting point or first principle, as with other scientific starting points, involves both induction and dialectic. Induction uses scientific observation of living (...) things to move toward this starting point. Dialectic enables the scientist to assemble endoxa, or reputable beliefs, that allow us to solve each puzzle (aporia) that clouds our understanding (nous) of the starting point that induction enables us to reach. (shrink)

Historians have claimed that the two closely related concepts of animism and natural teleology were both decisively rejected in the Scientific Revolution. They tout Robert Boyle as an early modern warden against pre-modern animism. Discussing Avicenna, Aquinas, and Buridan, as well as Renaissance psychology, I instead suggest that teleology went through a slow and uneven process of rationalization. As Neoplatonic theology gained influence over Aristotelian natural philosophy, the meaning of animism likewise grew obscure. Boyle, as some historians have shown, exemplifies (...) this uneven process. There is an unresolved tension between his religious convictions and the implicit animism of his empirical practice. (shrink)

In Physics 2.4–6, Aristotle offers an account of things that happen “by luck” and “spontaneously”. Many of these things are what we might think of as “lucky breaks”: cases where things go well for us, even though we don’t expect them to. In Physics 2.5, Aristotle illustrates this idea with the case of a man who goes to the market for some reason unrelated to collecting a debt he is owed. While he is there, this man just so happens to (...) run into his debtor and get his money back—which is what he “wanted” all along. This case has a number of features that have proved puzzling. Most notably, Aristotle seems to think that while “it happened accidentally to him to come and to do this for the sake of getting the money”, nevertheless the man “did not come for the sake of this”—though he “would have”. What must such a proceeding be like to be described in these ways? Physics 2.4–6 makes several important moves towards answering this question. One of them—among the earliest and seemingly a foundational one—is the claim that “for the sake of something are as many things as could be done by thought and by nature”. The aim of this paper is to identify the role that this claim plays in Aristotle’s account of spontaneous proceedings. It defends two main claims. First, Aristotle’s suggestion that spontaneous proceedings could be done by nature and by thought is the product of a more general strategy. His approach is to sketch an intuitive pattern of explanation for proceedings that happen for the sake of something in the ordinary—non-spontaneous—way, and then to try to extend that model to the case of things that do so spontaneously, preserving as much of it as possible. Applying this strategy reveals that whereas nature and thought in fact function as efficient causes of ordinary proceedings that are for the sake of something, this cannot be the case in spontaneous ones. Instead, nature and thought could function as their causes. Second, I argue that Aristotle’s implementation of this strategy is rooted in his account of causation and especially Physics 2.3’s list of “modes” of causes. When he claims that spontaneous proceedings “could” be done by nature and by thought, he is saying that nature and thought are their efficient causes in capacity. In the practical case, spontaneous proceedings are caused by agents who have certain capacities, connected with their desires and abilities. In the right circumstances, these agents would actively exercise those capacities in acting for the sake of a given end. (shrink)

As there is currently a neo-Aristotelian revival currently taking place within contemporary metaphysics and dispositions, or causal powers are now being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, more attention is beginning to be paid to a central Aristotelian concern: the metaphysics of substantial unity, and the doctrine of hylomorphism. In this paper, I distinguish two strands of hylomorphism present in the contemporary literature and argue that not only does each engender unique conceptual difficulties, but neither adequately captures the (...) metaphysics of Aristotelian hylomorphism. Thus both strands of contemporary hylomorphism, I argue, fundamentally misunderstand what substantial unity amounts to in the hylomorphic framework – namely, the metaphysical inseparability of matter and form. (shrink)

I defend an interpretation of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics Book I which distinguishes between two projects in different passages of that work: (i) to explain what a given science is and (ii) to explain what properly scientific knowledge is. I present Aristotle’s theory in answer to ii, with special attention to his definition of scientific knowledge in 71b9-12 and showing how this is developed on chapters I.2-9 and I.13 into a solid Theory of Scientific Demonstration. The main point of this theory (...) is that demonstrations need to capture relevant explanations. Some formal requirements of the demonstration (as the syllogistic structure and coextension between terms) are unfoldings of the main project, i.e., to capture and present properly relevant causal-explanatory relations. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉBeaucoup ont soutenu qu'il n'y a pas de place pour des expériences scientifiques dans les sciences naturelles d'Aristote : les expériences interviennent dans la nature, mais Aristote soutient que nous devons simplement observer la nature; si nous intervenions, le résultat serait quelque chose d'artificiel ou contraire à la nature. Contre cela, je soutiens qu'Aristote a non seulement effectué des expériences scientifiques, mais a également maintenu qu'il y a beaucoup de connaissances sur la nature qui peuvent être découvertes expérimentalement.

This paper is about the history of a question in ancient Greek philosophy and medicine: what holds the parts of a whole together? The idea that there is a single cause responsible for cohesion is usually associated with the Stoics. They refer to it as the synectic cause (αἴτιον συνεκτικόν), a term variously translated as ‘cohesive cause,’ ‘containing cause’ or ‘sustaining cause.’ The Stoics, however, are neither the first nor the only thinkers to raise this question or to propose a (...) single answer. Many earlier thinkers offer their own candidates for what actively binds parts together, with differing implications not only for why we are wholes rather than heaps, but also why our bodies inevitably become diseased and fall apart. This paper assembles, up to the time of the Stoics, one part of the history of such a cause: what is called ‘the synechon’ (τὸ συνέχον) – that which holds things together. Starting with our earliest evidence from Anaximenes (sixth century BCE), the paper looks at different candidates and especially the models and metaphors for thinking about causes of cohesion which were proposed by different philosophers and doctors including Empedocles, early Greek doctors, Diogenes of Apollonia, Plato and Aristotle. My goal is to explore why these candidates and models were proposed and how later philosophical objections to them led to changes in how causes of cohesion were understood. (shrink)

Devin Henry’s excellent book takes on Aristotle’s theory of substantial generation. Substantial generation is the sort of “unqualified” change in which a substance comes to be: it is what happens when Socrates comes to be, rather than when he grows a centimetre taller (1). Henry’s overarching argument is that “Aristotle employs a single model of generation throughout the corpus”: the hylomorphic model. -/- This argument comes in two stages. Chapters 2-4 introduce the three principles of the hylomorphic model: matter, form, (...) and efficient cause. Chapters 5-8 consider these principles in Aristotle’s account of animal generation. This discussion is framed by an introduction and two chapters that consider the wider context: Aristotle’s reaction to his intellectual inheritance and his cosmological perspective on generation. -/- The result is a thoughtful, systematic account of Aristotle’s theory and the biological details that fill it out in practice. Its central moves are philosophically rich, well-argued, and responsive to a variety of texts. Indeed, a significant strength is its sustained attention to not only to the implications of the Physics and GC’s more abstract framework for our understanding of the biological details, but also the puzzles those details raise for the theoretical account. Moreover, its careful analysis and formulations of existing debates point up important questions. (shrink)

Aristotle contrasts standard animal generation with ‘spontaneous generation’, which happens when some material putrefies and gives rise to a new organism. This paper addresses two interrelated puzzles about spontaneous generation. First, is it of the same ‘fundamental kind’ of causal process as standard generation? Second, is it ‘spontaneous’, as understood in Physics 2.4–6: rare, accidentally caused, and among things that are for the sake of something? I argue that both puzzles turn on the same questions about the process types involved. (...) I show that the type putrefaction plays a more important role in spontaneous generation than has been recognized so far. Because putrefaction does not play this role in standard generation, the two processes are of different ‘fundamental’ kinds. Moreover, spontaneous generation happens rarely in that it is rare for processes of putrefaction to happen in such a way that they can also be described in terms of concoction. (shrink)

Diogenes subscribes to a principle that, roughly, causal interaction and change require a certain sort of uniformity among the relata. Attending to this principle can help us understand Diogenes's relationship to the superficially similar Anaximenes without insisting, as some do, that Diogenes must be consciously responding to Parmenides. Diogenes is distinctive and philosophically interesting because his principle combines two senses of ‘archê’ (principle, starting-point), namely, the idea of source or origin and that of underlying (material) principle, and gives the rudiments (...) of an argument for associating the two, by which Aristotle may have been influenced. Diogenes’s principle and its deployment in biological explanations thematized a concern that Aristotle at least partially shared, and which led him to appeal, as Diogenes is said to have done, to pneuma (breath, air). (shrink)

Few ideas in the history of philosophy have come in for the sustained criticism meted out to Aristotle’s notion of final causation. According to Aristotle and the scholastics, final causes are not just one kind of cause among many, but the very ‘cause of causes’. To appreciate the connection between final causes and efficient causes, it is useful to gather a few reminders of the Aristotelian approach to causation in general. The Aristotelian notion of causation in general has two essential (...) components: a cause is that on which something depends in itself, and a cause is a principle in itself influencing being in another. For the scholastics, the effort to understand the natural order is in large part a matter of identifying these causes in the phenomenon under investigation. For final causes in cases of human agency are, in the last analysis, only ens rationis, namely, beings of reason. (shrink)

In this article, I present in a systematic way Aristotle’s understanding of movement (kinêsis) as efficient cause in the Generation of Animals. This aspect of movement is not disclosed in the approach to movement as an incomplete activity in contrast to energeia, which has been extensively discussed in the literature. I explain in which sense movement is the efficient cause of generation and how this movement is related to the other factors, in particular the source of movement, the seminal fluid, (...) pneuma, and the vital heat, as well as to the form and the soul. The role of movement as efficient cause of generation shows how, for Aristotle, form and soul are inseparable from matter and movement in nature. Explaining the role of movement as efficient cause of generation also helps to make sense of the multiplicity of factors involved in the efficient causality of generation. The key to articulating these factors with one another is the identity of form of the generative movement, which is specifically the same in the source, in the tools, and in the substance that is coming into being. (shrink)

The paper examines Posterior Analytics II 11, 94a20-36 and makes three points. (1) The confusing formula ‘given what things, is it necessary for this to be’ [τίνων ὄντων ἀνάγκη τοῦτ᾿ εἶναι] at a21-22 introduces material cause, not syllogistic necessity. (2) When biological material necessitation is the only causal factor, Aristotle is reluctant to formalize it in syllogistic terms, and this helps to explain why, in II 11, he turns to geometry in order to illustrate a kind of material cause that (...) can be expressed as the middle term of an explanatory syllogism. (3) If geometrical proof is viewed as a complex construction built on simpler constructions, it can in effect be described as a case of purely material constitution. (shrink)

This book examines Aristotle's four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final), offering a systematic discussion of the relation between form and matter, causation, taxonomy, and teleology. The overall aim is to show that the four causes form a system, so that the form of a natural thing relates to its matter as the final cause of a natural process relates to its efficient cause. Aristotle's Four Causes reaches two novel and distinctive conclusions. The first is that the formal cause or (...) essence of a natural thing is not a property of this thing but a generic natural thing. The second is that the final cause of a process is not its purpose but the course that processes of its kind typically take. (shrink)

This paper is a partial defence of presentism against the argument from cross-time relations. It is argued, first, that the Aristotelian view of causation and persistence does not really depict these phenomena in terms of relations between entities existing at different times, and indeed excludes the possibility of such cross-time relations obtaining. Second, it is argued that to reject the existence of the past—and thereby be unable to ground the truth of claims about the past—does not lead to any absurd (...) consequences. (shrink)

I offer a fresh interpretation of the dialectical strategy of Physics 2.8’s arguments that things in nature happen for the sake of something. Whereas many recent interpreters have concluded that these arguments inevitably beg the question against Aristotle’s opponents, I argue that they constitute a careful attempt to build common ground with an opponent who rejects Aristotle’s basic worldview. This common ground, first articulated in the famous Winter Rain Argument, takes the form of an intriguing pattern of reasoning: that natural (...) proceedings that happen in a given manner always or for the most part do not do so by chance. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two short dubitationes on animal’s technical abilities, which Pietro Pomponazzi discussed in 1514 and in 1519 while teaching at the University of Bologna and commenting on Aristotle’s Physica, II, t. 80. A comparative analysis between the respective positions, expressed at a distance of five years, allows to retrace the change in Pomponazzi’s thoughts from the period immediately preceding the composition of De immortalitate animae to the writing of the De incantationibus and De fato.

Aristotle’s typical procedure is to identify something's four causes. Intentional action has typically been treated as an exception: most think that Aristotle has the standard causalist account, according to which an intentional action is a bodily movement efficiently caused by an attitude of the appropriate sort. I show that action is not an exception to Aristotle’s typical procedure: he has the resources to specify four causes of action, and thus to articulate a powerful theory of action unlike any other on (...) offer. (shrink)

At some point in the Incessu Animalium, Aristotle appeals to some geometrical claims in order to explain why animal progression necessarily involves the bending (of the limbs), and this appeal to geometrical claims might be taking as violating the recommendation to avoid “kind-crossing” (as found in the Posterior Analytic). But a very unclear notion of kind-crossing has been assumed in most debates. I will argue that kind-crossing in the Posterior Analytics does not mean any employment of premises from a discipline (...) other than that to which the explanandum belongs. Kind-crossing was meant to cover a specific sort of employment of premises from a different discipline, namely, the case in which premises from a discipline X are taken as the most important explanatory factor that delivers the fullest appropriate explanation of an explanandum within discipline Y. If this is so, the employment of geometrical premises in the Incessu Animalium is not an instance of the prohibited kind-crossing, but something that is in line with the theory of the Posterior Analytics. (shrink)

I discuss an important feature of the notion of cause in Post. An. 1. 13, 78b13–28, which has been either neglected or misunderstood. Some have treated it as if Aristotle were introducing a false principle about explanation; others have understood the point in terms of coextensiveness of cause and effect. However, none offers a full exegesis of Aristotle's tangled argument or accounts for all of the text's peculiarities. My aim is to disentangle Aristotle's steps to show that he is arguing (...) in favour of a logical requirement for a middle term's being the appropriate cause of its explanandum. Coextensiveness between the middle term and the attribute it explains is advanced as a sine qua non condition of a middle term's being an appropriate or primary cause. This condition is not restricted either to negative causes or to middle terms in second‐figure syllogisms, but ranges over all primary causes qua primary. (shrink)

I present Aristotle’s theory of causation in a way that privileges a comparison with contemporary discussion on causation. I do so by selecting in Aristotle’s theory points that are interesting to contemporary discussion and by translating Aristotle in the contemporary philosophical terminology. I compare Aristotle’s views with Mackie’s (1993/1965) and Sosa’s (1993/1980). Mackie is a humean regularist regarding the metaphysics of causal necessity, but his theory postulates some formal aspects of the causal relation which are similar to the Aristotelian theory. (...) By introducing the notion of causal field as a third causal relatum – a sample in which the cause must be picked out as a explanation coextensive to the effect –, Mackie holds a point very similar to Aristotle, inasmuch as both defend that the causal relation is triadic and both have the extensional desideratum. Sosa (1993/1980) defends that every cause necessitates its effect, arguing against classical Humeanism, and he also proposes a causal pluralism. Both these theses are clearly Aristotelian. Aristotle comprehends that the causal relation has three relata: a subjacent C, a property of that subjacent A and a cause B that explains why such property is attributed to that subjacent. The subjacent is similar to Mackie’s notion of causal field, for in regard to it the cause must be coextensive to the property. But Aristotle also says that for each explanandum (property attributed to a subjacent of which one aims to investigate a cause) there is only one cause, which necessitates it. Sosa and Aristotle are similar because both develop a causal pluralism from a theory of causes as having intrinsic necessitation. For Aristotle, causes/explanations [aitiai] are central for attaining scientific knowledge, and its triadic structure determines the syllogistic structure of scientific demonstrations. Aristotle’s theory of causation also involves comprehending the actualisation of capacities (dispositional properties of objects) affirming that the causal relation is resultant from intrinsic properties of the objects, and the cause B is the essence of the explanandum. (shrink)

Although Aristotle's contribution to biology has long been recognized, there are many philosophers and historians of science who still hold that he was the great delayer of natural science, calling him the man who held up the Scientific Revolution by two thousand years. They argue that Aristotle never considered the nature of matter as such or the changes that perceptible objects undergo simply as physical objects; he only thought about the many different, specific natures found in perceptible objects. Against this (...) view, this book argues that Aristotle offers a systematic account of matter, motion, and the basic causal powers found in all physical objects. It argues that Aristotle not only sees all perceptible objects as sharing certain basic physical properties, but he also holds that perceptible objects have these physical properties because they are ultimately made from physical matter of one kind or another. Finally, it argues that for Aristotle the basic properties of matter, including the basic properties of the material elements, cannot be understood teleologically. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of Aristotle’s tenet that chance and accidental causes are indeterminate. According to one existing reading, the predicate ‘indeterminate’ is said of the effect of chance, meaning ‘causally indeterminate.’ Another reading claims instead that the predicate ‘indeterminate’ is said of the cause of a chance event, meaning something close to ‘potentially infinite in number.’ For my part, I contend that the predicate ‘indeterminate,’ when applied to Aristotle’s concept of accidental cause and to chance, is best understood (...) as a second-order predicate. More precisely, Aristotle uses ‘indeterminate’ to qualify a certain type of causal relation, rather than to indicate a quality of the causal power or of the effect. As a preparatory step in my argument, I contend that ‘accidental’ and ‘per se’ are also best understood as second-order predicates of ‘cause,’ and as a corollary of my main thesis I offer an interpretation of how chance involves an infinite number of possible causes. (shrink)

We have reason to think that a fundamental goal of natural science, on Aristotle’s view, is to discover the essence-specifying definitions of natural kinds—with biological species as perhaps the most obvious case. However, we have in the end precious little evidence regarding what an Aristotelian definition of the form of a natural kind would look like, and so Aristotle’s view remains especially obscure precisely where it seems to be most applicable. I argue that if we can get a better understanding (...) of how the forms of natural kinds are or come to be known, and how they make things intelligible, we can get a better appreciation of the nature of form in general, as well as solve certain puzzles about form and definition. (shrink)

Ao desenvolver sua teoria causal no livro II da Física, Aristóteles explica e exemplifica cada uma das causas separadamente, como se existissem por si só. Mas, ao se fazerem presentes nos entes, encontram-se ligadas uma às outras, expressando uma relação de subordinação entre si. Cada ente possui uma causa de um dos quatro tipos em sua formação, sendo uma causa material, uma formal, uma eficiente e uma final. Desse modo, meu objetivo é apresentar como as causas existem nos entes a (...) partir de seus diferentes modos de subordinações, visando, principalmente, como cada uma se relaciona com causa final. (shrink)

In some influential histories of ancient philosophy, teleological explanation and mechanistic explanation are assumed to be directly opposed and mutually exclusive alternatives. I contend that this assumption is deeply flawed, and distorts our understanding both of teleological and mechanistic explanation, and of the history of mechanistic philosophy. To prove this point, I shall provide an overview of the first systematic treatise on mechanics, the short and neglected work Mechanical Problems, written either by Aristotle or by a very early member of (...) his school. I will argue that the work is thoroughly Aristotelian in methodology, and that taking it seriously can deepen our understanding of Aristotle’s discussion of animal and human self-motion in the Physics and On the Movement of Animals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTLloyd encourages us to look anew at philosophy and science by using a comparative methodology, comparing the familiar Western form of philosophy, for example, with the forms found in ancient China. Taking lessons from comparative biology, this paper attempts to show that such comparison can only take place when we understand what we are looking at in the familiar case. The question of the centrality of the drive for certainty is addressed. Why has certainty been so attractive and what does (...) it mean if philosophers and scientists cannot achieve certainty? (shrink)

Duas das principais controvérsias que têm ocupado aqueles que se dedicam à teoria aris- totélica do movimento animal são a controvérsia acerca da forma da cognição através da qual um animal irracional apreende um objeto como um objeto de desejo e a controvérsia acerca da função desempenhada pela cognição na explicação aristotélica dos movimentos voluntários de locomoção animal. Neste artigo, eu apresento uma teoria acerca das formas como o desejo e a cognição se articulam na teoria aristotélica segundo a qual (...) um animal irracional apreende um objeto como um objeto de desejo através da percepção incidental deste objeto e, ao contrário do que a maioria parece acreditar, esta percepção não tem sempre a mesma função na produção destes movimentos. Se o que for dito aqui estiver correto, em alguns casos esta percepção é responsável tanto pela geração do desejo quan- to pela sua orientação, mas em outros ela é responsável apenas pela sua orientação. (shrink)