I offer a new analysis of Aristotle's concept of an accidental cause. Using passages fromMetaphysics Δ and Ε, as well as Physics II, I argue that accidental causes are causally inert. After defending this reading against some objections, I draw some conclusions about Aristotle's basic understanding of causation.

The volume contains 11 contributions of the best experts on the topics of fate, fortune and free will, in reference to Ancient Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Plotinus.

Aristotle’s soul is a first principle (an ‘efficient cause’) of every vital change in an animal, in the way that a craft is a cause of its product’s coming-to-be. We argue that the soul’s causal efficacy cannot therefore be reduced to the formal constitution of vital phenomena, or to discrete interventions into independently constituted processes, but involves the exercise of vital powers. This reading does better justice to Aristotle’s conception of craft as a rational productive disposition; and it captures the (...) soul’s continuous causal role as that which brings about all forms of vital change and underwrites their unity. (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)

Resumen: En Metafísica E 2 y 3 Aristóteles discute el problema de lo que es por accidente y sus causas, con el fin último de examinar si esto puede ser objeto de la filosofía primera. El resultado de esta discusión es, en este sentido, negativo. Sin embargo, la filosofía primera tiene algo que decir acerca del accidente, aunque solo sea mediante un discurso de segundo orden. La naturaleza de lo accidental es así explorada en estas páginas de la Metafísica para (...) confirmar la imposibilidad de un estudio científico acerca de esta forma de ser y sus causas. La parte central de este artículo discute el complejo pasaje E 2, 1026b27-1027a15, donde Aristóteles presenta las causas de lo que es por accidente. Procuraré mostrar que las tres causas allí presentadas son no solo compatibles, sino también relevantes para la completa caracterización de lo accidental, en la medida en que pueden entenderse como la causa formal, eficiente y material de lo que es por accidente.: Aristotle’s Metaphysics E 2 and 3 are devoted to the discussion about accidental being and its causes, with the aim of assessing its credentials as a possible object of first philosophy. The result of this discussion is, in this sense, negative. However, first philosophy has something to say about accidental being, if only through a second order speech. The nature of the accidental is thus explored in these pages of Metaphysics, with the ultimate aim of confirming the impossibility of a scientific study about this way of being and its causes. The central part of this paper deals with E 2, 1026b27-1027a15, where Aristotle introduces the causes of accidental being. I endeavor to show that each of the three causes presented in these lines are compatible and relevant, as they can be understood, respectively, as the formal, efficient and material cause of what happens by accident. (shrink)