Download or read book Causality in Early Modern Philosophy written by Cruz González-Ayesta and published by Georg Olms Verlag. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of the Modern Age, two important changes occur in relation to the understanding of causality. On one hand, there is a reduction of the four Aristotelian causes to the efficient one. On the other hand, causality passes from an ontological to an epistemological register. Much ground has been covered from the fourfold consideration of the cause as constitutive and explanatory of beings and their movements, to the conception of cause as the relation between two events whose reality and epistemological validity (or necessity) must be justified. This book seeks to tell part of that story. Eight authors are studied from a historical viewpoint: Suárez, Bacon, Boyle, Hobbes, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, and Leibniz. From a systematic viewpoint, the contributions gathered herein can be arranged in keeping with the three realms of inquiry that correspond to the threefold angle according to which Descartes develops his explanation of causality: the interaction between bodies, the interaction between body and soul, and the causal relationship between God and finite substances.
Download or read book Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy written by Dominik Perler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book re-examines the roles of causation and cognition in early modern philosophy. The standard historical narrative suggests that early modern thinkers abandoned Aristotelian models of formal causation in favor of doctrines that appealed to relations of efficient causation between material objects and cognizers. This narrative has been criticized in recent scholarship from at least two directions. Scholars have emphasized that we should not think of the Aristotelian tradition in such monolithic terms, and that many early modern thinkers did not unequivocally reduce all causation to efficient causation. In line with this general approach, this book features original essays written by leading experts in early modern philosophy. It is organized around five guiding questions: What are the entities involved in causal processes leading to cognition? What type(s) or kind(s) of causality are at stake? Are early modern thinkers confined to efficient causation or do other types of causation play a role? What is God's role in causal processes leading to cognition? How do cognitive causal processes relate to other, non-cognitive causal processes? Is the causal process in the case of human cognition in any way special? How does it relate to processes involved in the case of non-human cognition? The essays explore how fifteen early modern thinkers answered these questions: Francisco Suárez, René Descartes, Louis de la Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, John Sergeant, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. The volume is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate relationship between causation and cognition to open up new perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
Download or read book Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy written by Walter Ott and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some philosophers think physical explanations stand on their own: what happens, happens because things have the properties they do. Others think that any such explanation is incomplete: what happens in the physical world must be partly due to the laws of nature. Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy examines the debate between these views from Descartes to Hume. Ott argues that the competing models of causation in the period grow out of the scholastic notion of power. On this Aristotelian view, the connection between cause and effect is logically necessary. Causes are 'intrinsically directed' at what they produce. But when the Aristotelian view is faced with the challenge of mechanism, the core notion of a power splits into two distinct models, each of which persists throughout the early modern period. It is only when seen in this light that the key arguments of the period can reveal their true virtues and flaws. To make his case, Ott explores such central topics as intentionality, the varieties of necessity, and the nature of relations. Arguing for controversial readings of many of the canonical figures, the book also focuses on lesser-known writers such as Pierre-Sylvain Régis, Nicolas Malebranche, and Robert Boyle.
Download or read book Causation and Modern Philosophy written by Keith Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a collection of new essays by leading scholars on the subject of causation in the early modern period, from Descartes to Lady Mary Shepherd. Aimed at researchers, graduate students and advanced undergraduates, the volume advances the understanding of early modern discussions of causation, and situates these discussions in the wider context of early modern philosophy and science. Specifically, the volume contains essays on key early modern thinkers, such as Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant. It also contains essays that examine the important contributions to the causation debate of less widely discussed figures, including Louis la Forge, Thomas Brown and Lady Mary Shepherd.
Download or read book Causality and Mind written by Nicholas Jolley and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents 17 of Nicholas Jolley's essays on early modern philosophy. They focus on two main themes: the debate over the nature of causality; and the issues posed by Descartes' innovations in the philosophy of mind. Together, they show that philosophers in the period are systematic critics of their contemporaries and predecessors.
Download or read book Causation in Early Modern Philosophy written by Steven Nadler and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Causality and Mind written by Nicholas Jolley and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Causality and Mind presents seventeen of Nicholas Jolley's essays on early modern philosophy, which focus on two main themes. One theme is the continuing debate over the nature of causality in the period from Descartes to Hume. Jolley shows that, despite his revolutionary stance, Descartes did no serious re-thinking about causality; it was left to his unorthodox disciple Malebranche to argue that there is no place for natural causality in the new mechanistic picture of the physical world. Several essays explore critical reactions to Malebranche's occasionalism in the writings of Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, and show how in their different ways Leibniz and Hume respond to Malebranche by re-instating the traditional view that science is the search for causes. A second theme of the volume is the set of issues posed by Descartes' innovations in the philosophy of mind. It is argued that Malebranche is once again a pivotal figure. In opposition to Descartes Malebranche insists that ideas, the objects of thought, are not psychological but abstract entities; he thus opposes Descartes' 'dustbin theory of the mind'. Malebranche also challenges Descartes' assumption that intentionality is a mark of the mental and his commitment to the superiority of self-knowledge over knowledge of body. Other essays discuss the debate over innate ideas, Locke's polemics against Descartes' theory of mind, and the issue of Leibniz's phenomenalism. A major aim of the volume is to show that philosophers in the period are systematic critics of their contemporaries and predecessors.
Download or read book The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy 1637 1739 written by Kenneth Clatterbaugh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy examines the debate that began as modern science separated itself from natural philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book specifically explores the two dominant approaches to causation as a metaphysical problem and as a scientific problem.
Download or read book On Efficient Causality written by Francisco Suárez and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) was an eminent philosopher and theologian whose Disputationes Metaphysicae was first published in Spain in 1597 and was widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The Disputationes Metaphysicae had a great influence on the development of early modern philosophy and on such well-known figures as Descartes and Leibniz. This is the first time that Disputations 17, 18, and 19 have been translated into English. The Metaphysical Disputations provide an excellent philosophical introduction to the medieval Aristotelian discussion of efficient causality. The work constitutes a synthesis of monumental proportions: problematic issues are lucidly delineated and the various arguments are laid out in depth. Disputations 17, 18, and 19 deal explicitly with such issues as the nature of causality, the types of efficient causes, the prerequisites for causal action, causal contingency, human free choice, and chance.
Download or read book The Interpretation of Early Modern Philosophy written by Paul Taborsky and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-23 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is early modern philosophy? Two interpretative trends have predominated in the related literature. One, with roots in the work of Hegel and Heidegger, sees early modern thinking either as the outcome of a process of gradual rationalization (leading to the principle of sufficient reason, and to “ontology” as distinct from metaphysics), or as a reflection of an inherent subjectivity or representational semantics. The other sees it as reformulations of medieval versions of substance and cause, suggested by, or leading to, early modern scientific developments. This book proposes a rather different kind of explanation. It suggests that the concept of relation, specifically that of dyadic, anti-symmetrical relations, can throw light on a wide variety of developments in early modern thought, such as those concerning causality, sense perception, temporality, and the mereological approach to substance. The book argues that these relations are grounded in an interpretation of causal influence, and not in semantic theories or subjectivity. Furthermore, if it is correct that the problem of unity was, for most of classical antiquity, what the problems of motion, causality and perception were for early modern thinkers, then early modern thought is much closer to the thought of Aristotle than is commonly supposed. The genesis of early modern thought might instead be taken to have occurred in opposition to one aspect of the thought of Duns Scotus (an aspect that lives on in contemporary Neo-Aristotelianism), and that can be explained once the relational perspective examined here is taken into account.
Download or read book Conceptions of Causality in Early Modern Philosophy written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs written by Richard F. Hassing and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2018-03-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teleology - the inquiry into the goals or goods at which nature, history, God, and human beings aim - is among the most fundamental yet controversial themes in the history of philosophy. Are there ends in nonhuman nature? Does human history have a goal? Do humanly unintended events of great significance express some sort of purpose? Do human beings have ends prior to choice? The essays in this volume address the abiding questions of final causality. The chapters are arranged in historical order from Aristotle through Hegel to contemporary anthropic-principle cosmology.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe written by Desmond M. Clarke and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-01-27 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A team of leading scholars survey the development of philosophy in the period of extraordinary intellectual change from the mid-16th century to the early 18th century. They cover metaphysics and natural philosophy; the mind, the passions, and aesthetics; epistemology, logic, mathematics, and language; ethics and political philosophy; and religion.
Download or read book Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy written by Walter R. Ott and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of one of the most important debates in 17th- and 18th-century philosophy: the nature of causation. Ott offers controversial readings of such canonical figures as Descartes, Locke, and Hume, and explores related topics such as intentionality, necessity, and relations.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy written by Donald Rutherford and published by . This book was released on 2006-10-12 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of one of the most innovative periods in the history of Western philosophy.
Download or read book Causality and Modern Science written by Mario Bunge and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I regard it as a truly seminal work in this field." — Professor William A. Wallace, author of Causality and Scientific ExplanationThis third edition of a distinguished book on the subject of causality is clear evidence that this principle continues to be an important area of philosophic enquiry.Non-technical and clearly written, this book focuses on the ontological problem of causality, with specific emphasis on the place of the causal principle in modern science. The author first defines the terminology employed and describes various formulations on the causal principle. He then examines the two primary critiques of causality, the empiricist and the romantic, as a prelude to the detailed explanation of the actual assertions of causal determination. Finally, Dr. Bunge analyzes the function of the causal principle in science, touching on such subjects as scientific law, scientific explanation, and scientific prediction. Included, also, is an appendix that offers specific replies to questions and criticisms raised upon the publication of the first edition.Now professor of philosophy and head of the Foundation and Philosophy of Science Unit at McGill University in Montreal, Dr. Mario Bunge has formerly been a full professor of theoretical physics. His observations on causality are of great interest to both scientists and humanists, as well as the general scientific and philosophic reader.
Download or read book Skepticism Causality and Skepticism about Causality Volume 10 written by Alexander W. Hall and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-11 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skepticism, Causality and Skepticism about Causality studies the interrelated themes of causality and skepticism in contemporary, early modern and medieval philosophy. Thomas Aquinas’s celebrated proofs of the existence of God (the Five Ways of the Summa Theologica) rely in part on an Aristotelian notion of synchronous causality, wherein the things that exist and persist require an accounting that ultimately terminates in the ongoing activity of a first mover, as the existence and persistence of an ecosystem is traceable to the sun. By contrast, in David Hume’s early modern account, causality consists in the regularity of successive events (a rolling billiard ball’s collision with a stationary one is always followed by the movement of the latter). Moreover, Newtonian and Einsteinian accounts respectively suggest that motion, once initiated, requires no explanation. In light of these developments, the first set of essays in this volume re-evaluates the Aristotelian paradigm and its relation to modern science, contending that in some fields (such as ecology, thermodynamics or information theory) contemporary science still preserves some intuitions about causality that support Aquinas’s deliberations. Hume’s skepticism about causality is heir to late medieval and early modern development that transformed not only the notion of causality in general, but also the idea of the causal connections between our cognitive faculties, God, and the world in particular, giving rise to extreme, solipsistic forms of skepticism, such as Descartes’ Demon skepticism. The second set of essays considers whether Aquinas’s thought would be susceptible in some ways to this form of skepticism, and what motivated, just a couple of generations later, the turn to epistemology already involving this sort of skepticism.
