Spinoza's Doctrine of God in Relation to his Conception of Causality

Philosophy ◽  
1948 ◽  
Vol 23 (87) ◽  
pp. 291-301
Author(s):  
T. M. Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
Previous Article ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
The Way

In a previous article I considered Aristotle's view of God as final cause and its relation to the philosophy of Plato; and at the end of the article I remarked on the affinity of both doctrines with that of Spinoza. The present paper is concerned with Spinoza's doctrine of God as it is related to his conception of causality and seeks, inter alia, to show that his explicit rejection of final causes does not prevent his philosophy from having in it something like the true principle of final causation. In each section I first quote the chief relevant definitions or propositions in Spinoza's Ethics, and then state what seems needful in the way of interpretation or comment.

scholarly journals Notes on Avicenna's Concept of Thingness (šay'iyya)

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wisnovsky
Keyword(s):  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Did classical kalām debates about how thing (šay') and existent (maw[gcaron]ūd) relate to each other pave the way for Avicenna's distinction between essence (māhiyya) and existence (wu[gcaron]ūd)? There are some indications that the concept of thingness (šay'iyya) may have played a bridging role between the mutakallimūn's discussions and those of Avicenna. Nevertheless, Avicenna's appeals to thingness occur most densely in passages devoted to analyzing the relationship between efficient and final causes, an entirely Aristotelian topic. A philological question arises: should these passages be emended to read causality (sababiyya) in place of thingness (šay'iyya)? I argue that the balance of evidence compels us to retain thingness. For Avicenna, thingness is the respect in which the final cause is prior to the efficient cause (as well as to the formal and material causes); existence, by contrast, is the respect in which the efficient cause is prior to the final cause. In fact, over the course of Avicenna's career a progression from the kalām problematic of šay' v. maw[gcaron]ūd to his own problematic of māhiyya v. wu[gcaron]ūd can be detected in his discussions of efficient and final causation.

On the Way from Schleiermacher to Barth: A Critical Reappraisal of Isaak August Dorner's Essay on Divine Immutability

2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gockel
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Reciprocal Relation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Historical Life ◽  
The Way

The theme of this article is the reconstruction of the doctrine of God offered by the German theologian and historian of doctrine Isaak August Dorner (1809–84), in his treatise ‘On the Proper Conception of the Doctrine of God's Immutability, with Special Reference to the Reciprocal Relation between God's Suprahistorical and Historical Life.’ Although the theme of God's immutability has received wide attention in the last years, Dorner's essay has gone largely unnoticed, and its contribution to the current debate still awaits appreciation. The following argument shall provide some building-blocks for this goal. It presupposes that Dorner's theology was shaped in dialogue with the thought of Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, but it will extend this perspective and ask for the particular systematic-theological link between Schleiermacher and Karl Barth that Dorner's essay represents.

Colloquium 5 Commentary on Gonzalez

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-177
Author(s):  
Brian Julian
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Final Causes

Abstract This commentary argues that, in contrast to the view of Professor Gonzalez, Aristotle’s account of final causation is not very helpful for addressing contemporary concerns. Aristotle presents it as a type of cause, but, when one considers Aristotle’s distinction between facts and explanations, a final cause is better viewed as simply a fact. It is true that organisms show an internal directedness towards an end, but one can still ask why this is the case. Because of its limitations, Aristotle’s account of final causes is not a third ontological region between materialism and intelligent design, but its lack of explanation leaves it open to attack from either side.

scholarly journals Hume's Correlationism: On Meillassoux, Necessity and Belief

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-160
Author(s):  
Paul O'Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Sufficient Criterion ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
The Way ◽  
Priori Knowledge

The article argues that Meillassoux's 'After Finitude' underestimates the nature and profundity of Hume's sceptical challenge; it neglects the fact that Hume's scepticism concerns final causes (and agrees fundamentally with Bacon and Descartes in this respect), and that in Hume even the operations of reason do not furnish entirely a priori knowledge. We contend that Hume himself institutes a form of correlationism (which in part showed Kant the way to counter the sceptical challenge via transcendental idealism), and sought not merely to abolish the 'principle of sufficient reason' but to salvage it in a weak form, in turning his attention to the grounds for our beliefs in necessity. We argue further that the 'mathematizability' of properties is not a sufficient criterion to yield realist, non-correlational knowledge, or to demonstrate the 'irremediable realism' of the 'ancestral' statement. Finally, we contend that Meillassoux himself relies on a certain 'Kantian moment' which exempts the reasoning subject from otherwise 'omnipotent' chaos, and that ultimately the 'speculative materialist' position remains exposed to the original Humean sceptical challenge. 

Ten Challenges for Digital Humanities and the Way Forward

2020 ◽  
pp. 297-305
Author(s):  
Stella Markantonatou ◽  
Simon Donig ◽  
George Pavlidis ◽  
Thomas Gees ◽  
Adamantios Koumpis
Keyword(s):  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Socially Relevant ◽  
The Way

In a previous article, the authors came up with a list of what they considered 10 challenges that would define the area of digital humanities at large and their evolution in the next years. However, in the almost two years that have passed since the publication of that paper, they are now able to see the need for relating the challenges for digital humanities with what one may characterize as socially relevant topics by means of outlining 10 challenges where the digital humanities can make a social impact. This chapter does that.

The Catholics of France, from the Autumn of 1942 to the Invasion

1944 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-528
Author(s):  
Georgette Vignaux
Keyword(s):  
Previous Article ◽  
Political Position ◽  
The Way

In a previous article we studied the religious and political position of the French Catholics—both of the clergy and of the laity—from the armistice to the end of the summer of 1942. Here we propose to continue this study following the same plan, considering first the questions cm which the clergy and the laity have taken a stand and indicating the nuances which differentiate their positions, and secondly the present problems in which the faithful take part on their own responsibility. French Catholic life, like all life, is in motion. Yet discovering its inspirations and currents can help us to understand the way it will manifest itself in the period of reconstruction.

Aristotle's Concept of God as Final Cause

Philosophy ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 22 (82) ◽  
pp. 112-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
The Subject

During my student days at Edinburgh I became particularly interested in Aristotle's doctrine of God as Final Cause. Concern with other problems and periods of Philosophy, along with many years of teaching in most of its branches, has kept me from ever writing anything down on the subject except in the very briefest way. But it has always seemed to me to claim fuller attention than is commonly accorded to it. That Aristotle's conception, however independently it was worked out, owes much to the philosophy of Plato appears to be beyond question. The design of the present article is to relate Aristotle's view on the subject with that of Plato. I will first state Plato's allied doctrine; then, after indicating Aristotle's criticisms of Plato, so far as relevant to the subject, summarize his argument for his own position; and, lastly, consider the significance of the concept concerned.

The Parliament Act of 1911—II

1912 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-408
Author(s):  
Alfred L. P. Dennis
Keyword(s):  
Previous Article ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Lower House ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Way

A previous article attempted a summary of the contents of the Parliament Act of 1911 and a mention of its immediate ancestry. There followed notice of some historical alleviatory suggestions regarding the composition of the House of Lords and an analysis both of the actual provisions of the Act and of proposals alternative to them with respect to the powers of the Upper House in the matter of “money bills.”This second article, continuing the method of the first, includes at the outset the question of the powers of the House of Lords as to “general legislation,” i. e. public bills other than money bills. There follows reference to historical ancestry in these matters. Thus the consideration of the means by which the Act became law, that potential resort to the use of the royal prerogative by the temporary executive, may clear the way for speculation as to the significance of the Parliament Act as a whole.Briefly the Act provides for a final reduction of the powers of the House of Lords as to general legislation to a suspensive veto operative against House of Commons measures only in two successive sessions; after a lapse of two years after the first introduction of the measure in the Lower House and on its third passage there the bill can become law on the royal assent being given, the Lords notwithstanding.

Doctrinal Controversies

2018 ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Raphael A. Cadenhead
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Authority ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

Chapter 6 examines Gregory’s doctrine of God as it developed in the context of the Eunomian controversy, focusing particularly on the way in which he resists the language of “activity” and “passivity” (and thus, by cultural association, male and female, respectively) from being applied to the Godhead. The full relevance of Gregory’s doctrine of God for the ascetic life is then discussed in depth. The author argues that for Gregory, the imitatio Dei summons the ascetic to a life beyond the fallen associations of male and female, because the persons of the Trinity cannot be described as either passive or active depending on their relationship to each other. Another area of originality in this study is chapter 6’s discussion of the male/female hierarchy in marriage, which Gregory appears to support on the basis of biblical authority. This insight stands in contradistinction to recent feminist readings of his work, which overlook these passages and privilege particular themes in Gregory’s mature thought, especially in relation to the soul’s labile identifications with male and female characteristics.

Whose value? Problems in valuing social enterprise and research implications

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanto Chandra
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Is Value

Purpose This paper argues that we need a more disciplined understanding of social enterprise (SE) that is able to incorporate its diversity across different contexts, yet remains sympathetic to its core ideal of value creation. This paper aims to revisit the meaning of value creation to reflect critically upon the diverse forms of SE. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses the Aristotelian causes, namely, the formal, efficient and final causes, to problematize the meaning of value creation. Findings This paper shows that SEs can create or destroy value depending on who evaluates the value. It also raises the issue that how value is created – the motives, means and action – is affected by the ethical orientation of the actors. Lastly, it encourages researchers to pay attention to how stakeholders are defined in SE, in light of the diverse nature of organizations that are labelled as SEs. Research limitations/implications This paper demonstrates that the current definition of SE is inadequate, and to-some extent, problematic. It then proposes some future research agendas, to unpack the issue of value creation, through social cost, politics, transparency and legal perspectives. Originality/value This research makes new contribution to the SE literature by injecting an Aristotelian perspective to problematize and reframe the meaning of value creation. It asks scholars to answer these questions: from whose perspective is value created or destroyed (formal cause), how is value created (efficient cause) and for whom is the value created (final cause)?

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