Formal Causes for Powers Theorists

Abstract

Forthcoming in Sandstad & Jansen (eds.) Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Formal Causation, Routledge §1. Causation, Powers and Explanation Here's a story about causation that will surely sound familiar:The Aristotelian teaching of causes lasted in the official Western culture until the Renaissance. When modern science was born, formal and final causes were left aside as standing beyond the reach of experiment; and material causes were taken for granted in connection with all natural happenings--though with a definitely non-Aristotelian meaning, since in the modern world view matter is essentially the subject of change, not 'that out of which a thing comes to be and persists'. Hence of the four Aristotelian causes only the efficient cause was regarded as worthy of scientific research. (Bunge 1959: 32).This account is surely oversimplified, and most likely any historian of science will protest that it does not reflect the actual practice of modern science. However, it is a much more accurate depiction of what philosophers, both modern and contemporary, believed happened with the advent of modernitynormally equating efficient causation with mechanical causation, and causal explanation with mechanical explanations. That the equation of causation with efficient causation was widespread to the point of being commonsensical is nicely illustrated by Hume, who attacking efficient causes (billiard balls hitting each other, and so on) is confident to have dismantled causation tout court.Unfortunately, it turns out that we do need other kinds of explanations in our scientific practice; in particular, traces of the much maligned final explanation appears in many of the special sciences, and the very way we speak of laws of nature betrays this fact. The only problem is that the metaphysics elaborated in the meanwhile -in particular, our current received neo-Humean metaphysics, really struggles to make sense of final explanations and final causes. Final causes are just hard to square with the view that the world is nothing but a mosaic of discrete, unrelated particular matters of fact.On the other hand, a metaphysics admitting irreducibly dispositional properties (powers) seems well suited to ground teleological explanations because it can provide a metaphysical correlate to the telos in the explanation. Friends of powers often speak of powers being directed towards something -their manifestations, what the power are for. It is relatively easy, then, to provide a realist theory of final explanations within such metaphysics, because there are obvious candidates to play the role of final causes -the 'what for the sake of which' just is the manifestation of the relevant power(s). Efficient 1 causal explanations, on the other hand, would be grounded in the powers themselves: they are the 'whence the source of change'.Insofar as i) final explanations are required by our best scientific theories, ii) power metaphysics does a better job in grounding them, and iii) we want to be realist about explanation, we have a good naturalistic ar...

Are there essential forms in the social domain?

“…Membership in certain kinds brings with it certain properties. Cats have four legs by nature; it is part of their form or it ‘flows’ from their form, to use this nice metaphor (Giannini & Mumford, 2021; Oderberg, 2007). David Oderberg has explained this kind of flow in terms of causation and origin : the form is cause and origin of the property flowing from it (Oderberg, 2011, p. 101).…”

“…Membership in certain kinds brings with it certain properties. Cats have four legs by nature; it is part of their form or it 'flows' from their form, to use this nice metaphor (Giannini & Mumford, 2021;Oderberg, 2007).…”