Avicenna on Teleology: Final Causation and Goodness

Teleology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Jeffrey K. McDonough
Keyword(s):  
Basic Theory ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Good For

This chapter examines Avicenna’s theory of final causation in light of two competing interpretations of Aristotelian teleology. According to the good-centered view, Aristotle’s claim that the end is a cause primarily conveys that some things are caused to occur by goodness. On this view, the concept of an end or goal, for Aristotle, is the concept of something good (from some perspective), and the concept of final causation is that of causation by goodness. According to the agent-centered view, Aristotle’s basic theory of the final cause says that it is the goal of the efficient cause, or the object of a power, that is, what the power is for. On this view, Aristotle’s fundamental account of what it is for something to be an end need not and should not refer to the goodness of that end. Avicenna’s portrayal of the final cause as the “cause of causes,” as well as his distinction between the end of motion and the good of motion, indicate that he adopts an agent-centered view. Though he also holds that every essential agent acts for the sake of something that is good, or apparently good, for the recipient of action, his explanation for this claim is compatible with his fundamentally value-neutral account of what it is to be a final cause.

Predictions in economic-financial news

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudi Palmieri ◽  
Johanna Miecznikowski
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Financial News ◽  
Information Intermediaries ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
Argumentative Reasoning

Compared to other domains of media discourse, economic-financial news contain a considerable amount of speech acts regarding future events, in particular predictions. This can be explained by their specific institutional context, financial markets, where investors constantly seek to single out gain opportunities and to correctly assess their risk. One of the crucial factors making economic-financial predictions worthy of being considered in investment decisions is argumentation, in particular the extent to which the predicted proposition follows from a plausible and acceptable reasoning. Starting from a corpus of 50 articles of the Italian economic-financial press, we consider the inferential dimension of prediction-oriented arguments, focusing on the locus, i.e. the ontological relation on which the connection between the argument(s) and the predictive conclusion rests. All predictions found in the corpus were manually annotated with the software UAM Corpus Tool. For each of them we identified the source, which could be either the journalist him/herself or a third party, typically financial analysts or corporate actors. We distinguished mere predictive opinions from predictive standpoints, i.e. predictions for which the journalist advances one or more supportive arguments (either confirmatory of refutatory). For the latter category, we identified the locus referring to an adaptation of the taxonomy outlined by Rigotti (2009). The findings highlight in particular the following three interesting aspects: (1) in predictions, journalists reinforce their stance by plausible justifications, but weaken it at the same time by marking it as uncertain and/or by using reported speech or evidential means to reduce their responsibility for the predictive speech act; (2) the justification of a predictive standpoint, by the journalist or by third parties, is mostly based on loci of causality, in particular on the locus from efficient cause, the locus from final cause and complex forms of causality where the involvement of rational agents is implied but defocused; (3) moreover, journalists refer to the predictive opinions of experts or corporate insiders to activate the locus from authority, either by explicit argumentation or implicitly, by reporting speech from reliable sources. Our study suggests that the role of predictions in financial news is not so much that of giving any straightforward advice to investors, but rather that of providing chunks of sound argumentative reasoning, including both supportive evidence and rebuttals or refutatory moves, that the investor-reader might apply and combine in the highly uncertain context of financial markets. Overall, our findings shed light on how financial journalists fulfil the function of information intermediaries in finance.

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.

The Metaphor of Light and the Active Intellect as Final Cause: De Anima III.5

1998 ◽  
pp. 112-120
Author(s):  
Sandro D’Onofrio
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Unresolved Problem ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Conception ◽  
Active Intellect ◽  
Aristotle's Metaphysics

The classical unresolved problem of the active intellect, raised by Aristotle in De Anima III.5, has received several interpretations in the history of philosophy. In this paper, I will recover the old hypotheses according to which the active intellect is the god of Aristotle's metaphysics. I propose that if the active intellect is god, it is not an efficient cause but the final cause of human thought-the entelecheia of the human rational soul. Nevertheless, the problem of the active intellect is insoluble simply because we do not count with all the elements required to obtain a sound solution. Yet it can be attenuated by an approach that renders much more coherence to De Anima III.5 than other attempts. To this end, I will (1) analyse the classical conception of Aristotle's two intellects, (2) work on the explanation par excellence of the active intellect, the metaphor of light, distinguishing the double conception of potency and act that may be found in it, and (3) analyse the concept of entelecheia as the process by which the active intellect actualizes intelligibles in the sense of the final cause.

scholarly journals Santo Tomás de Aquino y el Motor inmóvil / Aquinas and the Unmoved Mover

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
David TORRIJOS CASTRILLEJO
Keyword(s):  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The World ◽  
Alexander Of Aphrodisias

Alexander of Aphrodisias understood the Aristotle ́s Unmoved Mover as efficient cause only to the extent that it is the final cause of heaven, which by moving strives to imitate the divine rest. Aquinas seems to agree with him. However his interpretation is original and philosophically more satisfactory: God is the efficient cause of the world, not only as creator, but also as it ́s ruler. In this way God is also the final cause.

Sobre o Caráter Absoluto ou Relativo da Noção de Bem em sua Conexão com as Noções de Forma e Matéria

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-162
Author(s):  
Luís Filipe Bellintani Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Absolute Sense ◽  
Ulterior Motive ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Living Being

In ethics, the good is the final cause of every action. All other causes are what they are relatively to the final cause, but the final cause is not relative to something else, except as means and efficient cause of an ulterior motive, whereby the supreme end, whose possession brings happiness, is the absolute in ethics. In physics, the same thing: the living being tends to the fullness of its eidos (form) and all matter is moved towards that end. But the notion of happiness is a kind of empty truism (everyone wants to be happy) and the correspondent good will also remain empty until determined by relation to some substantive content, and in that determination we will fatally see the polyphony and the antilogy break out. In the realm of nature, as long as the good is thought from a philosophy of form and as what is useful and advantageous, that strengthens, brings health and preserves life, we will then have a total relativization of its absolute sense, because one form needs to snatch the matter from the other to survive, and the good of one, therefore, will be the evil of another. How to determine the good from the point of view of a philosophy of matter?

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)?

A Cosmos Without a Creator

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-42
Author(s):  
Pietro Daniel Omodeo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The World ◽  
University Professor ◽  
Idea Of God

In the years after the first circulation of Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo’s Padua anti-Copernican colleague, the staunch Aristotelian philosopher, Cesare Cremonini, published a book on ‘traditional’ cosmology, Disputatio de coelo in tres partes divisa (Venice, 1613) which puzzled the Roman authorities of the Inquisition and the Index much more than any works on celestial novelties and ‘neo-Pythagorean’ astronomy. Cremonini’s disputation on the heavens has the form of an over-intricate comment of Aristotle’s conceptions, in the typi­cally argumentative style of Scholasticism. Nonetheless, it immediately raised the concern of Cardinal Bellarmin, the Pope and other Inquisitors. At a close reading, Cremonini’s interpretation of Aristotle’s cosmos proved radically anti- Christian. It represented a radicalization of Pomponazzian Alexandrism. In fact, Cremonini did not only circulate Aristotelian principles used by Pom­ponazzi to argue for the soul’s mortality (first, no thought is possible without imagination and the latter faculty is dependent on the body; secondly, all that is generated will eventually perish). He also wiped away all transcendence from the Aristotelian cosmos. In fact, he marginalized the function of the motive Intelligences by explaining heavenly motions through the action of animal-like inseparable souls although he did not erase nor reduced all Intelligences to only one, in accordance with Alexander. Also, he put at the center of Aristotle’s cosmos the idea of its eternity, a thesis which he explicitly connected with the rejection of the idea of God the Creator. Cremonini assumed that the univer­sal efficiens, that is the efficient cause of all motion and change in the world, is nothing but the first heaven. As a result of this radically naturalist reading of Aristotle, he banned God from the cosmos, reduced Him to the final cause of the world, and deprived Him of any efficiency and will. This essay on less ex­plored sources of Renaissance astronomical debates considers the institutional, cultural and religious setting of Cremonini’s teaching and conceptions. It as­sesses the reasons for his troubles with the religious authorities, and the politi­cal support he was granted by the Serenissima Republic of Venice inspite of the scandalous opinions he circulated as a university professor. My reconstruction of his views is based on the Disputatio de coelo of 1613 and later works, which are directly connected with cosmo-theological polemics with the religious au­thorities: his Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta coeli substantia (1616) and the unpublished book De coeli efficientia, two manuscript copies of which are preserved in the libraries of Padua and Venice.

scholarly journals Man–a Human Person in the Context of the Theory of Efficient and Purposeful Causality. Pedagogical Implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Sławomir Chrost
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Original Source ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Absolute

This article aims to justify the thesis about the need to develop transcendent, transcendental and teleological pedagogy in connection with the anthropological basis, which is the theory of the person and causality. A man–a person – is an ontically substantial individual being, demanding an external cause, which is the Pure Act of Existence–Transcendens–Absolute. The personalistic pedagogics and the pedagogy of the person are therefore inherently related to transcendence. If the subject and object of education is a human person, then transcendental pedagogy must be a sine qua non condition for practising personalistic pedagogics and pedagogy of the person. Personalistic pedagogics and the pedagogy of the person are also intrinsically related to teleology. Efficient cause is coupled with purposeful cause. If there is an action of the Absolute which results in the existence of a man, a human person, then the Absolute, as the fullness of good, is the ultimate goal-motive and final cause of the man–human person. The teleological aspect in personalistic pedagogy and the pedagogy of the person means a particular aim and meaning orientation; full realisation of potentialities and tasks dormant in a unique being–a human person. The goal is not to achieve perfection, but to direct to your original source – the Transcendent–the Absolute–God.

scholarly journals Causality and the Modeling of the Measurement Process in Quantum Theory

Disputatio ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (47) ◽  
pp. 657-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian de Ronde
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Physical Meaning ◽  
Measurement Problem ◽  
Causal Models ◽  
Measurement Process ◽  
New Model ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
The Many

AbstractIn this paper we provide a general account of the causal models which attempt to provide a solution to the famous measurement problem of Quantum Mechanics (QM). We will argue that—leaving aside instrumentalism which restricts the physical meaning of QM to the algorithmic prediction of measurement outcomes—the many interpretations which can be found in the literature can be distinguished through the way they model the measurement process, either in terms of the efficient cause or in terms of the final cause. We will discuss and analyze why both, ‘final cause’ and ‘efficient cause’ models, face severe difficulties to solve the measurement problem. In contradistinction to these schemes we will present a new model based on the immanent cause which, we will argue, provides an intuitive understanding of the measurement process in QM.

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