Suárez on propinquity and the efficient cause
| Abstract | In the Principles, Descartes declares that of the four Aristotelian causes, he will retain only one: the efficient. Though some natural philosophers argued on behalf of the final cause, and others held that form could be rehabilitated, the efficient cause was in fact the only one of the four to flourish in the new philosophy. Descartes’ claim would lead one to believe that he preserved the efficient cause—that here, at least, we find continuity. But it is reasonable to wonder whether, when from a fourfold classification three members are removed, the fourth can remain unaltered. The theory of the efficient cause in late Aristotelianism is a kind of bundle. Among its components are a group of what I will call “formal characters”. These are features of efficient causation that are, or so I will argue, relatively independent both of what is said to be the essence of the efficient cause and of the hylomorphic principles of Aristotelian natural philosophy. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesP. Weirich (2011). Exclusion From the Social Contract. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (2):148-169.
Bernard H. J. Verstegen (1994). Law and Economics and the Infinite Regress in Explaining Rationality. Journal of Economic Methodology 1 (2):269-278.
Jeffrey K. McDonough (2008). Leibniz's Two Realms Revisited. Noûs 42 (4):673-696.
Stephen Philip Menn (2000). On Dennis Des Chene's. Perspectives on Science 8 (2).
Shalahudin Kafrawi (2007). What Makes the Efficient Cause Efficient? Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 81:179-191.
Laurence Carlin (2006). Leibniz on Final Causes. Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (2):217-233.
Boris Hennig (2009). The Four Causes. Journal of Philosophy 106 (3):137-160.
John Peterson (2004). Are There Final Causes? Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 78:161-167.
Thomas Tuozzo (2010). How Dynamic Is Aristotle's Efficient Cause? Epoché 15 (2):447-464.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-05-06Total downloads30 ( #40,877 of 549,125 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,125 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
