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 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.

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.

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)?

scholarly journals A divergence between underlying and final causes of death in selected conditions: an analysis of death registries in Peru

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo M. Carrillo-Larco ◽  
Antonio Bernabe-Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Causes Of Death ◽  
Communicable Diseases ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
Mortality Trends ◽  
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Study Country ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Final Causes

BackgroundThe underlying cause of death is used to study country and global mortality trends and profiles. The final cause of death could also inform the ultimately cause of death in individuals with underlying conditions. Whether there is a pattern between the underlying and final cause of death has not been explored using national death registries. We studied what final causes of death were most common among selected underlying causes using national death registries in Peru, 2015.MethodsUnderlying and final causes of death were classified according to their ICD-10 codes. Underlying causes included chronic kidney disease (CKD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hypertension (HTN), diabetes, and selected cancers (cervix, breast, stomach, prostate, and lung). Final causes were categorized as: communicable, cardiovascular, and cancers. Descriptive statistics were used.ResultsA total of 77,065 death registries were analyzed; cases had a mean age of 69.4 (SD: 19.3) years at death and were mostly men (53.9%). When the underlying cause was HTN, the most frequent final cause was cardiovascular diseases (82.3%). For all the other underlying causes, the most frequent final cause was communicable diseases: COPD (86.4%), CKD (79.3%), cancer (76.5%), and diabetes (68.3%).ConclusionsIn four selected underlying causes of death there was a divergence with respect to the final cause, suggesting there was a shift from non-communicable to communicable causes. Although efforts should be deployed to prevent underlying non-communicable diseases, potential communicable complications should not be neglected.

scholarly journals Une critique d'explication par les causes finales: l'anticontractualisme de Hume. Une histoire naturelle du politique

Dialogue ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-662
Author(s):  
Céline Bonicco
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Final Causes

ABSTRACTThis article proposes to show how David Hume's critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i.e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume's political theory—either positive or negative—and epistemology cannot be dissociated.

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
John Ray ◽  
The Way

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”). Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

On Purpose

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Thought ◽  
The Way

Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with it, and even Darwin, who profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. Indeed, purpose seems to be making a comeback today, as both religious advocates of intelligent design and some prominent secular philosophers argue that any explanation of life without the idea of purpose is missing something essential. This book explores the history of purpose in philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical thought, from ancient Greece to the present. The book traces how Platonic, Aristotelian, and Kantian ideas of purpose continue to shape Western thought. Along the way, it also takes up tough questions about the purpose of life—and whether it's possible to have meaning without purpose.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document