Thomas M. Tuozzo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199782185
- eISBN:
- 9780199395583
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199782185.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Aristotle’s efficient cause differs radically from the mechanistic causes characteristic both of his atomist predecessors and of the post-Aristotelian science of the seventeenth century. Like ...
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Aristotle’s efficient cause differs radically from the mechanistic causes characteristic both of his atomist predecessors and of the post-Aristotelian science of the seventeenth century. Like Anaxagoras’ Mind, Aristotle’s efficient cause fundamentally differs from what it causes to move. It is importantly the first origin of a change, and so unsuited to be a link in a chain of causes-that-are-also-effects. Efficient causes are not substances, but rather forms: either powers, which cause changes in substances other than those in which they reside, or natures (including souls), which essentially reside in the substances which they cause to move. The analysis of these kinds of efficient cause, all in their own way unmoved movers, provides possible models for understanding the most enigmatic case of Aristotelian efficient causality: that by which eternal immaterial minds move the celestial spheres.Less
Aristotle’s efficient cause differs radically from the mechanistic causes characteristic both of his atomist predecessors and of the post-Aristotelian science of the seventeenth century. Like Anaxagoras’ Mind, Aristotle’s efficient cause fundamentally differs from what it causes to move. It is importantly the first origin of a change, and so unsuited to be a link in a chain of causes-that-are-also-effects. Efficient causes are not substances, but rather forms: either powers, which cause changes in substances other than those in which they reside, or natures (including souls), which essentially reside in the substances which they cause to move. The analysis of these kinds of efficient cause, all in their own way unmoved movers, provides possible models for understanding the most enigmatic case of Aristotelian efficient causality: that by which eternal immaterial minds move the celestial spheres.
