/lit/ - Literature

>>22169001
>Is there anything like it in philosophy, post-Aristotle?
Yeah, the Platonists were always adding more Causes, and Aquinas mangles them around a bit. Total nominalist victory means that only material and efficient causes are discussed today, however.

>who, what, where, when, why, and how. How does that map onto the four causes?
It doesn't, you're comparing two different things.

>Are the Four Causes restrictive and reductionist in a certain way?
This is why they either get added to or reduced.

>>22169001
yes

>>22169083
>Yeah, the Platonists were always adding more Causes
What other causes? How does Aquinas mangle them?
>It doesn't, you're comparing two different things.
I think that's unfair. A quick glance makes both kinds of questions similar, at least in purpose and function.
>This is why they either get added to or reduced.
What do you mean?
>>22169089
Explain. How does Schopenhauer build on the four causes?

>>22169111
he just does ok

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>>22169001
>1)
You'll find something like further elaborations or modifications in the commentaries of the Neoplatonists, Islamic commentators, and the Scholastics, but otherwise you'd want to look toward Descartes and Bacon, who reject or push aside final cause, which is the source of modern science's attitude toward causality. (Though one should observe that all causes are used for explanations: material cause and formal cause are used up and down everywhere without naming them as such, and teleology seems to have come back in evolutionary theory).

>2)
All of those are dealt with by Aristotle in the Categories; for cause, he's looking for that which explains why something is the way it is, and you'd have to work through both the Categories and the Physics to get a fuller sense of why the "when" and "where" aren't treated as causes per se. To be a little more clear, the Greek word for cause is "aitia," which originally has the sense of "guilt," and broadens to mean "responsibility" in neutral, positive, and negative senses. So to look for the "aitia" is to look for what's responsible for something being what it is, if that helps narrow it a little.

>3)
Already touched on for 2), but to use an ordinary example, take a dog: does the being of the dog change on account of whether it's in Glasgow or the Sahara? Now, granted, the behavior and livelihood of the dog may change, but the dog being a dog doesn't, which seems to be what Aristotle is after, regardless of whether, say, the Sahara is inhospitable to dogs or what have you.

>>22171335
I have some familiarity with the Categories but it is not complete.
>(Though one should observe that all causes are used for explanations: material cause and formal cause are used up and down everywhere without naming them as such, and teleology seems to have come back in evolutionary theory).
Teleology is often linked to formal cause in Aristotle when he's talking about things in nature, right? Things are "self-caused." But then Aristotle distances himself from nature to talk about metaphysics, everything is traced back to the emanations of the Unmoved Movers, and now final cause ends up looking more intentional and mental than it was initially treated.
>why the "when" and "where" aren't treated as causes per se
They would be treated as accidents, correct? And accidents are not part of "cause" in the broader sense. Maybe signals of "cause." Is that a good way of putting it?
>Already touched on for 2), but to use an ordinary example, take a dog: does the being of the dog change on account of whether it's in Glasgow or the Sahara?
It depends on whether the accident is connected to its substantiality or not. If we're talking about a Scottish Terrier and an Azawakh in their native places, then there is some connection between location and the being of that dog. This becomes much more true over a long period of time when discussing why something is the way it is. But obviously if you take your Azawakh to Glasgow, it doesn't morph into a Scottish terrier.

>>22171335
>(Though one should observe that all causes are used for explanations: material cause and formal cause are used up and down everywhere without naming them as such, and teleology seems to have come back in evolutionary theory).

It also pops up all the time in physics as well if you consider fundamentsl principles of physics like mass-energy conservation, the path of least action, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.

>>22171335
>material cause and formal cause are used up and down everywhere without naming them as such
Because in physics material and formal causation is just a consequence of efficient causation. The material properties of something is a consequence of the efficient actions of the atoms composing it. The formal properties resulting from the "design" of something are again just the consequence of the efficient actions of it's composing parts. The structure of a crystal is not a separate cause it's a consequence of the efficient actions of the atoms composing it. Material and formal causes are ideas in our heads to simplify thinking about reality they aren't reality.

>>22171981
>It also pops up all the time in physics as well if you consider fundamentsl principles of physics like mass-energy conservation, the path of least action, the laws of thermodynamics, etc.
If this is an example of final causation then final causation is a consequence of efficient causation just like formal and material causation. And importantly in your examples of final causation you go against somethings final cause since you can't go against the laws of physics. That means any ethics derived from final causation would be impossible to go against and every decision a person could make would automatically be ethical.

>>22172288
>Because in physics...
No; if you ask in modern science, "what is water?", you won't get "a product, as with everything, of matter in motion," you'll get "H2O" (formal cause); if you ask why mercury is heavier than water, you'll have an account of the differences between the character of both substances (material cause). If you ask why beavers build dams, or what advantage there is to acting aggressive, the explanation will tend towards teleology without consciously subscribing to that term and its connotations.

>The structure of a crystal is not a separate cause it's a consequence of the efficient actions of the atoms composing it. Material and formal causes are ideas in our heads to simplify thinking about reality they aren't reality.
I thought I'd been sufficiently clear at >>22171335 about the word "cause" in Greek as meaning "that which is responsible for something being what and how it is." Appeal to efficient causality doesn't exhaustively answer every question; if I want to know why an object is brittle or hard, giving me an autistic Neil Degrasse Tyson-tier answer about matter in motion won't answer my question like "it's carbon" or "it's titanium" will.

>If this is an example of final causation then final causation is a consequence of efficient causation just like formal and material causation. And importantly in your examples of final causation you go against somethings final cause since you can't go against the laws of physics. That means any ethics derived from final causation would be impossible to go against and every decision a person could make would automatically be ethical
Nta, but that's not at all final causation, which is literally "that for the sake of which" in Greek. Being aggressive for the sake of survival or propagation is final causality, or thinking about diet for the sake of health.

>>22169001
>Is there anything like it in philosophy, post-Aristotle?
no man that was it no one else has added anything else to the subject of causality since Aristotle died its over

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>>22172407
I'd argue that H2O is mostly a material cause, and only very minimally a formal cause. And the "what" lends mostly to material and formal causes, much less so to the efficient and final causes. Finally, it's worth noting that even Aristotle linked the formal cause to the final cause in things he observed in nature, e.g. a tree.

>>22172407
>No; if you ask in modern science, "what is water?", you won't get "a product, as with everything, of matter in motion," you'll get "H2O" (formal cause); if you ask why mercury is heavier than water, you'll have an account of the differences between the character of both substances (material cause).
How does this disagree with what I said? It's simpler to describe something as water or H20 than as a bajillion atoms in a certain state. But science says the properties of water are a consequence of the efficient causation of those atoms.

>if I want to know why an object is brittle or hard, giving me an autistic Neil Degrasse Tyson-tier answer about matter in motion won't answer my question like "it's carbon" or "it's titanium" will.
Have you ever seen a condensed matter physics textbook? They most certainly describe carbon and titanium as matter in motion. Material and formal causes are simplifications that don't really exist in physics.

>Nta, but that's not at all final causation, which is literally "that for the sake of which" in Greek.
Agreed. I was just pointing out how his examples if accepted as final causation would lead to something very different than what Aristotle meant. But his examples are real verifiable physical laws which is why he tried to shoehorn them as final causes. All other examples of final causes are clearly just subjective judgments since final causes don't exist.

>>22172691
>But science says the properties of water are a consequence of the efficient causation of those atoms.
I think we're using efficient causation too loosely. When we're talking about the "what" of something from the modern scientific perspective, "efficient cause" (matter in motion) is implied by material cause (this is H2O) the same way formal cause is implied by the material cause. Nothing greater is brought to the table unless it's absolutely necessary. Thinking about efficient cause in any broader sense requires to step back and analyze the context in which the water is in, such as what caused the water to be in the state it is in (heat brought in from an outside source).

>>22172691
>How does this disagree with what I said? It's simpler to describe something as water or H20 than as a bajillion atoms in a certain state. But science says the properties of water are a consequence of the efficient causation of those atoms.
A consequence, sure, but it's not an answer to the question distinct from "what is fire?" or "what is ice? in that case, which is why it has any import. And I'm not saying you can't stack explanations, as though an account of what water, ice, and steam are won't bring up motion, but what makes the three what they are has to appeal at some point to what differentiates them from mercury in its equivalent states, which means appealing to what they're made of (material cause) and their structure (formal cause).


>Have you ever seen a condensed matter physics textbook? They most certainly describe carbon and titanium as matter in motion. Material and formal causes are simplifications that don't really exist in physics.
At the level of generalizing about atoms, sure, but carbon and titanium have different structures, yeah? And those structures pertain to certain simpler materials (protons, neutrons, electrons), yeah? But further, science isn't just limited to physics as the study of matter in motion; we still have explanations that have analogues to formal and material cause in biology and geology.

>Agreed. I was just pointing out how his examples if accepted as final causation would lead to something very different than what Aristotle meant. But his examples are real verifiable physical laws which is why he tried to shoehorn them as final causes. All other examples of final causes are clearly just subjective judgments since final causes don't exist.
Why do you suppose dog breeds like pointers and retrievers exist? Are they spontaneous products of nature, or are they what they are on account of how we bred them for the sake of some purpose? And again, evolutionary biology (and psychology) are dependent on teleological explanations. Mind, I'm not trying to say Aristotle's results as he applies them are totally consistent and satisfactory (and I would point out that he obfuscates between senses of "final cause" between more public facing works likes the Ethics and Politics vs. the nature and metaphysical texts), but we still use what he calls causes as explanations, whether we agree to call them causes or not.

>the nature and metaphysical texts
I've pointed out earlier that final cause is linked to form and function in Aristotle's work on nature. He buries the lede on teleology except in Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics.

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How do people explain Aristotle's "self-contained telos" when explaining nature? Isn't that basically what science does today, maybe only a little bit more gratuitous? So much for the power of final cause.

grump

Stop gratuitously bumping if you have nothing to add or ask.

>>22175809
I'm waiting for an answer. Sometimes a few bumps is all that it takes.

>>22169083
Sucks for them because materials aren’t real, brah

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