Sur la conception aristotélicienne de la causalité.

Robin, Léon

doi:10.1515/agph.1910.23.1.1

Cited by 23 publications

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“…13 13 Robin (1910) argues for an underlying metaphysical simplicity, according to which the causes all reduce to form or essence. …”

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Causation and Explanation in Aristotle

Stein

2011

Philosophy Compass

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Aristotle thinks that we understand something when we know its causes. According to Aristotle but contrary to most recent approaches, causation and explanation cannot be understood separately. Aristotle complicates matters by claiming that there are four causes, which have come to be known as the formal, material, final, and efficient causes. To understand Aristotelian causation and its relationship to explanation, then, we must come to a precise understanding of the four causes, and how they are supposed to be explanatory. Aristotle’s discussion of the causes, however, is compact, and he typically presents them without arguing for them. He thus leaves us with a number of questions, ranging from the highly specific to the highly general. One question in particular has captured the attention of scholars and philosophers over the last century, and it has had a strong influence on recent treatments of the four causes – namely, whether we are right to understand Aristotle as committed to a plurality of kinds of causation, or rather a plurality of kinds of explanation. Sometimes the question is raised as one of whether it would be more accurate to speak of the four ‘becauses’ rather than the four ‘causes’. This worry is highly general, and there are in fact several ways in which it might be formulated; nonetheless, it is important to clarify the precise nature of the problem, and the possible ways of responding to it. At issue is not just whether Aristotle’s notions are sufficiently like the modern notion of causation to be relevant to our concerns, but, more importantly, whether the distinctions he draws are ultimately metaphysical or epistemological in character.

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“…13 13 Robin (1910) argues for an underlying metaphysical simplicity, according to which the causes all reduce to form or essence. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causation and Explanation in Aristotle

Stein

2011

Philosophy Compass

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“…22 Véase Robin (1910). Para una discusión de la concepción aristotélica que toma como punto de par ti da el trabajo de Robin, véase Guariglia (1985).…”

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Explicación causal y holismo de trasfondo en la filosofía natural de Aristóteles

Vigo

2010

Kriterion

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Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought

Hankinson¹

2001

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In this book, R. J. Hankinson traces the history of investigation into the nature of cause and explanation, from the beginnings of Ancient Greek philosophy in 600 bc, through the Graeco‐Roman world, to the end of pagan antiquity in c.500 ad The book consists of chapter‐length studies of the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle (two chapters), Atomism, Stoicism, Scepticism, and Neoplatonism, as well as the Sophistic movement, and Ancient Medicine. Hankinson is principally concerned with the following questions: ‘What did the Greeks understand by a cause?’, and ‘How did the Greeks conceive adequacy in explanation?’. The Ancient Greeks (excepting the Sceptics) are united in their belief that the world and at least some of its process can be rendered intelligible, and that this can be rendered by an inquiry into the nature of things, with reasoned argument as the appropriate method of exhibiting the real structure of the world. Thus, the Greek thinkers set the standards for science, because they are guided by logic and observation in their analysis of causation; but one can also recognize the growth of interest among the Greeks in the nature of explanation itself. The question that becomes central to the development of Greek philosophical science is whether nature can be understood in terms of teleology, or solely in terms of mechanical laws. Hankinson is interested in how the concepts of cause and explanation function in a properly scientific context; but he extends his investigation of these concepts to questions of freedom and responsibility, and fate and astrology, and also the treatment of disease. Hankinson points out that causes and explanations are connected ideas: an explanation is the proffering of reasons, and this involves an account of causes; they are, nevertheless, different concepts—causes are actual items, events, agents, facts, states of affairs, whereas explanations are propositional. Hankinson isolates certain causal principles that recur throughout Greek philosophy: for instance, the principle of sufficient reason, the principle of causal synonymy, and the principle that nothing can come to be from nothing.

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Sur la conception aristotélicienne de la causalité.

Cited by 23 publications

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Causation and Explanation in Aristotle

Causation and Explanation in Aristotle

Explicación causal y holismo de trasfondo en la filosofía natural de Aristóteles

Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought

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