EFFICIENT CAUSATION – A HISTORY. Edited by Tad M. Schmaltz. Oxford Philosophical Concepts. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press [Book Review]

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

A new series entitled Oxford Philosophical Concepts (OPC) made its debut in November 2014. As the series’ Editor Christia Mercer notes, this series is an attempt to respond to the call for and the tendency of many philosophers to invigorate the discipline. To that end each volume will rethink a central concept in the history of philosophy, e.g. efficient causation, health, evil, eternity, etc. “Each OPC volume is a history of its concept in that it tells a story about changing solutions to specific philosophical problems” (xiii). The series presents itself as innovative along three main lines: its reexamination of the so-called “canon,” its reconsidering the value of interdisciplinary exchanges, and its encouraging philosophers to move beyond the current borders of philosophy. By engaging with non-Western traditions and carefully considering topics and materials which are not strictly philosophical, the collections from this series aim to render the history of philosophy accessible to a wide audience. The first OPC volume to appear in print is “Efficient Causation – A History” edited by Tad Schmaltz. Using careful historical and philosophical analysis as well as interdisciplinary reflections this anthology proposes to tell the story of how efficient causation, equated nowadays with “causation” tout court, came to play its prominent role in our philosophical and scientific vocabulary. Eleven contributions cover the period from Ancient times (Aristotle and the Stoics), through the Middle Ages (both the Western and the Islamic traditions), passing through the Early Modern times (represented here by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley and Hume), all the way to Kant and finally contemporary philosophers (classified into two opposing camps: Humean and Neo-Aristotelian). There are also four reflections which explore the applications of the notion of efficient causation to areas different from philosophy, especially the arts (literature, music, painting, etc.).

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Leibniz on final causes.Laurence Carlin - 2006 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (2):217-233.
Efficient Causation: A History ed. by Tad M. Schmaltz.Andrea Falcon - 2015 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 53 (3):541-542.
Causation and laws of nature.Max Kistler - 2006 - London: Routledge. Edited by Michael Beaney.
Descartes and occasional causation.Steven Nadler - 1994 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 2 (1):35 – 54.
Walter Ott. Causation & Laws in Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xii+260. $75.00. [REVIEW]Geoffrey Gorham - 2011 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (2):371-375.
Is there an unrecognized teleology in Hume's analysis of causation?Joseph F. Rychlak - 1998 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 18 (1):52-60.
Leibniz on Causation – Part 2.Julia Jorati - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (6):398-405.
Divine substance.Christopher Stead - 1977 - Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Malebranche and Berkeley on Efficient Causation.Lisa Downing - 2014 - In Tad Schmaltz (ed.), Efficient Causation. Oxford University Press. pp. 198-230.
Review of The Oxford history of Western philosophy. [REVIEW]No Authorship Indicated - 2001 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 21 (2):182-183.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-10-01

Downloads
791 (#17,361)

6 months
185 (#12,518)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references