Final Cause Research Articles

Algebraic Biology: Creating Invariant Binding Relations for Biochemical and Biological Categories

The desire to understand the mathematics of living systems is increasing. The widely held presupposition that the mathematics developed for modeling of physical systems as continuous functions can be extended to the discrete chemical reactions of genetic systems is viewed with skepticism. The skepticism is grounded in the issue of scientific invariance and the role of the International System of Units in representing the realities of the apodictic sciences. Various formal logics contribute to the theories of biochemistry and molecular biology and genetics. Various paths of extension are invoked in these formal logics in order to express the information of biological apodicticism. Symbolizing the appropriate notations for invariant relations and for biological extensions of relations is fundamental to the exact generating functions of discrete algebraic biology. Aspects of philosophical perspectives of the relation scientific number systems are contrasted. The deep distinction between physical motion and biological motion is expressed in terms the roles of Aristotelian causes. The interior motion within perplex numbers is contrasted with the exterior motion of physical systems. The need for a new mathematics for biology is suggested.

Peirce’s Theory of Signs (review)

Reviewed by: Peirce’s Theory of Signs Robert Lane T. L. Short. Peirce’s Theory of Signs. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xvii + 374. Cloth, $68.00. Charles Peirce’s simple definition of a sign as something that stands for something to something belies the depth and complexity of his foundational work in semiotics, or as he sometimes wrote, “semeiotic.” T. L. Short’s Peirce’s Theory of Signs is a dense book, and at points difficult. But only the shallowest work on this difficult subject could fail to challenge the reader, and Short’s book is anything but shallow. It is, in fact, a major achievement, a singularly important work on Peirce’s theory of signs and one of the most important works ever to be published on Peirce. The first three chapters set the stage for Short’s eventual explanation of Peirce’s teleological conception of signs. The first reviews historical antecedents of, and alternatives to, Peirce’s approach, while the second considers changes in his views from the 1860s through the 1900s—changes that, on Short’s account, enabled Peirce’s mature theory to avoid devastating problems. Chapter three is a remarkably clear introduction to Peirce’s phenomenological analysis of his three universal categories, around which his taxonomy of signs is organized. Chapters four, five, and six are the philosophical core of the book. Here Short painstakingly explains the notions of final causation and purpose and the semeiotic conceptions derived from them. On Short’s reading of Peirce, significance is interpretability grounded in a logically prior relation between that which is a sign (X) and the object (O) that X signifies. Something (R) interprets X as a sign of O iff: R is, or is an aspect of, a response to X for some purpose (P); R is based on a relation between O and X (or between things of O’s type and things of X’s type); and O’s obtaining bears positively on the appropriateness of R, given P. One of Short’s vivid illustrations is the clawing of a log by a bear in response to a scent associated with the presence of grubs. There is a prior relation between that scent and the presence of grubs, and the clawing is a response to that scent for a specific purpose, viz., the uncovering of grubs to be eaten. The possible presence of grubs in the log makes the bear’s clawing an appropriate response to that scent, given that purpose. The clawing thus interprets the scent as a sign of grubs. As this illustrates, Short believes that the “key terms” of semeiotic “must span the human and the nonhuman”; the term ‘sign’ “is justified, if at all, by the power of the system of semeiotic to illuminate a wide variety of phenomena” (151), not just human cognition (which is continuous with but not reducible to animal behavior). This brief description does not do justice to Short’s meticulous analysis, which sometimes requires him to go beyond the letter of Peirce’s own work in order eventually to engage in “systematic reconstruction of Peirce’s mature semeiotic” (ibid.). Short’s goal is not simply an historically accurate account of Peirce’s thought, but a fully developed theory of signs that is consonant with Peirce’s mature view. Chapters seven, eight, and nine provide a systematic exploration of the various trichotomic distinctions that characterize Peirce’s theory, culminating in a detailed examination [End Page 650] of Peirce’s taxonomy of signs. As Short acknowledges, this is not an exhaustive account (208), but what is lacking in comprehensiveness is made up for in depth and rigor. This is difficult and highly technical material, and Short’s treatment is masterful. Especially intriguing are his brief but piquant explorations of a Peircean semeiotical approach to music, moral judgments, and emotions. The book’s final three chapters apply Peirce’s views to issues within contemporary philosophy of language, mind, and science. Short argues that Peirce’s “analysis enables us to make better sense of theory change than Putnam and others have made” (264), that Peirce’s naturalistic, non-reductive theory of mind provides a successful explanation...

Demonstration and Scientific Knowledge in William of Ockham: A Translation of Summa Logicae III-II: De Syllogismo Demonstrativo, and Selections from the Prologue to the Ordinatio (review)

Reviewed by: Demonstration and Scientific Knowledge in William of Ockham: A Translation of Summa Logicae III-II: De Syllogismo Demonstrativo, and Selections from the Prologue to the Ordinatio Alexander W. Hall John Lee Longeway , translator. Demonstration and Scientific Knowledge in William of Ockham: A Translation of Summa Logicae III-II: De Syllogismo Demonstrativo, and Selections from the Prologue to the Ordinatio. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 432. Cloth, $58.00. William of Ockham never delivered his promised exposition of Posterior Analytics. In its place, we have Summa Logicae (SL) III–II, and the Prologue to his Ordinatio. Longeway's [End Page 170] literal translations append writings on the Posterior Analytics by several medieval thinkers and are preceded by a 140-page discussion of medieval science, beginning with Robert Grosseteste and proceeding through Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus, among others. Longeway also provides indices of proper names and citations, an analytic table of contents, a glossary, and tables detailing various thinkers' views on matters pertaining to demonstration. Excepting references to the SL, the tables lack citation, and here, as in other instances, the absence of an index of subjects is felt. Longeway's translation of SL III–II makes three deviations from Gál and Brown's critical edition (St. Bonaventure, 1974). The first two lack support in the apparatus. At chapter 3, l. 21, Longeway reads 'si' for 'sed', which is not required to preserve Ockham's point that a hypothetical syllogism's major premise need not commit one to an attribute's existence. At chapter 5, l. 24, Longeway replaces 'quin' with 'quia', which is unnecessary if 'quin' is rendered 'in fact'. Third, Longeway deletes 'non' at chapter 34, l. 36, relying on Marc of Benevento's error-prone 1508 edition, an emendation required by the sense of the text. But these emendations are minor and Longeway's translation is excellent. Longeway views Ockham as the "founder of European empiricism" (1), and notes his relevance to contemporary issues surrounding the Posterior Analytics, sketching current literature. Longeway supports this with a careful reading of the Latin commentary tradition prior to Ockham. Grosseteste, for example, holds that proof in natural science requires that we grasp real natures, but insists on a role for observation and experimentation, moving toward an Ockhamist epistemology that denies that we can deduce an attribute's inherence through analysis of its subject (32). Albert believes that proof in natural science emerges from attributes' definitions, thus accounting for inherence through factors extrinsic to the subject. Aquinas's understanding of proof resembles Grosseteste's inasmuch as Aquinas believes demonstration emerges from a subject's definition, with the important difference that Aquinas does not share Grosseteste's insistence that the definition reference final causality—a belief emerging from Grosseteste's Platonist conviction that exemplars in the divine mind seek to reproduce themselves in matter. Instead, Longeway notes, Aquinas relies on definition in terms of efficient causality (69). This judgment requires qualification, for Aquinas states that an attribute's inherence instances the second type of belonging per se, viewing the subject as the material cause of inherence (Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, I.10, ll. 51 ff.). Again on the issue of belonging per se, Longeway claims Aquinas ascribes the fourth type "to an efficient causal connection between subject and predicate" (2), though Aquinas states that this mode of belonging takes in all four Aristotelian causes (ibid., I.10, ll. 122 ff.). Moreover, Longeway believes Aquinas uses the second type of per se belonging in the major premise of scientific demonstrations (147), whereas Aquinas actually states that this premise proposes the fourth (Ibid., I.13, ll. 60 ff.)—which does not rule out its instancing the second type, the fourth comprising the others. Scotus's distinction between experiential (per experientiam) and analytic (per se nota) scientific knowledge (scientia) (Ord. I, d. 3, pars 1, q. 4, n. 228) challenges the claim that Ockam founds European empiricism. Experiential scientia must occasionally rely on the principle that like causes generally produce like effects (ibid., n. 235), resting content with mere probability (ibid., n. 237). Scotus deems this the lowest degree of scientia (ibid...

Capitalism and Metaphysics

Contemporary capitalism is becoming increasingly metaphysical. The article contrasts a ‘physical’ capitalism – of the national and manufacturing age – with a ‘metaphysical capitalism’ of the global information society. It describes physical capitalism in terms of (1) extensity, (2) equivalence, (3) equilibrium and (4) the phenomenal, which stands in contrast to metaphysical capitalism’s (1) intensity, (2) inequivalence (or difference), (3) disequilibrium and (4) the noumenal. Most centrally: if use-value or the gift in pre-capitalist society is grounded in concrete inequivalence, and exchange-value in physical capitalism presumes abstract equivalence, then value in contemporary society presumes abstract inequivalence. The article argues that the predominantly physical causation of the earlier epoch is being superseded by a more metaphysical causation. This is discussed in terms of the four Aristotelian causes. Thus there is a shift in efficient cause from abstract homogenous labour to abstract heterogeneous life. Material cause changes from the commodity’s units of equivalence to consist of informational units of inequivalence. Formal cause takes place through the preservation of form as a disequilibriate system through operations of closure. These operations are at the same time information interchanges with a form’s environment. Final (and first) cause becomes the deep-structural generation of information from a compressed virtual substrate. This may have implications for method in the social and human sciences. The article illustrates this shift with a brief discussion of global finance.

Agencia moral de la empresa: el aporte del análisis causal aristotélico

The initial question about the ontological status of the corporation precedes the question about its moral status. The Aristotelian causes are constitutive principles of reality that infl uence each other reciprocally and which we apply to the enterprise to design its anatomy’s ontological structure. The corporation’s material cause is the capability its members have to associate. The formal intrinsic cause is its organization for producing and trading the goods man needs. The extrinsic formal or exemplary cause is the shared mental model. And the corporation’s fi nal cause is its mission. And the common good is the mediate end that gives it sense. The corporation is considered as an entity possessing a certain unity based in the order embodied in the plexus of internal-external relations of the corporation.

Teleology and Human Action in Spinoza

Spinoza enjoys a widespread reputation as the early modern philosopher who makes the most thoroughgoing and principled attack on teleology. Descartes, for example, limits his attack on final causation to the ques tion of its usefulness in physics.1 Spinoza, according to the standard story, accepts Descartes's rejection of teleological explanation in physics, but he also boldly pushes further and denies the legitimacy of teleologi cal explanation even with respect to God. That is, he denies divine provi dence. This standard picture, Jonathan Bennett has notoriously argued, does not go far enough. Not only, according to Bennett, does Spinoza reject final causation in physics and theology, but he also rejects-or at least is committed to rejecting, whether or not he lives up to this commit ment-teleological explanations of human actions. That is, he is com mitted to denying that human actions are goal directed. According to Bennett, Spinoza is committed to holding that if content-bearing states for example, beliefs and desires-explain human actions, they do not do so in virtue of their content. On a commonly accepted account of the goal-directedness of human action, the exclusion of mental content from psychological explanation would entail that psychological explana tions are not teleological. Of course, Bennett admits, Spinoza frequently

Leibniz on Final Causes

In this paper, I investigate Leibniz's conception of final causation. I focus especially on the role that Leibnizian final causes play in intentional action, and I argue that for Leibniz, final causes are a species of efficient causation. It is the intentional nature of final causation that distinguishes it from mechanical efficient causation. I conclude by highlighting some of the implications of Leibniz's conception of final causation for his views on human freedom, and on the unconscious activity of substances.

The Memory Evolutive Systems as a Model of Rosen’s Organisms – (Metabolic, Replication) Systems

Robert Rosen has proposed several characteristics to distinguish “simple” physical systems (or “mechanisms”) from “complex” systems, such as living systems, which he calls “organisms”. The Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) introduced by the authors in preceding papers are shown to provide a mathematical model, based on category theory, which satisfies his characteristics of organisms, in particular the merger of the Aristotelian causes. Moreover they identify the condition for the emergence of objects and systems of increasing complexity. As an application, the cognitive system of an animal is modeled by the “MES of cat-neurons” obtained by successive complexifications of his neural system, in which the emergence of higher order cognitive processes gives support to Mario Bunge’s “emergentist monism.”

The Transformation of Virtue in Montaigne's Essays

The Transformation of Virtue in Montaigne's Essays Ann Hartle Montaigne begins "Of Cruelty" with a distinction between virtue and goodness: virtue is "other and nobler than the inclinations toward goodness that are born in us."1 This is because virtue entails struggle and difficulty, whereas the inclinations are easy to follow. Virtue, then, requires the presence of vicious or evil inclinations that must be mastered and overcome. There is no merit without difficulty. But the matter cannot be left this way because Montaigne thinks of Socrates, the most perfect soul he knows, and he cannot imagine any struggle or difficulty in Socrates's practice of virtue. The same is true of Cato. Here we are at the extreme of virtue where virtue has become natural and has passed beyond the level of ordinary virtue, the essence of which seemed to be struggle. Montaigne describes himself as good or innocent rather than as virtuous: he is incapable of struggle within himself (VS427, F311). Goodness and innocence, when compared to the difficulty of virtue, look weak and imperfect, so that even the terms 'good' and 'innocent' are almost terms of contempt in common usage (VS426, F310). Just as goodness seems weak, so also the essay is a weak mode of writing when compared with traditional modes of philosophical expression. There are no arguments in the essays and no conclusions in the traditional, strong sense. Montaigne often speaks of the essays as almost contemptible. His ways of being, his mœurs, are revealed in a form that is perfectly suited to them. Montaigne must justify his self-revelation because he has no great deeds to tell. In this paper I will consider the puzzling fact of the self-revelation of this weak man. I will approach both the content and the form of the Essays from the perspective set out in the very first words: "This book was written in good faith, reader. It warns you from the outset that in it I have set myself no goal but a domestic and private one. I have had no thought of serving either you or my own glory. My powers are inadequate for such a purpose." He concludes "To the Reader" with the consistent admonition: "Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book: it is not reasonable that you employ your leisure on a subject so frivolous and vain" (VS3, F2). From the very beginning, he presents himself as weak: "my powers are inadequate." His weakness, then, is initially set out in terms of two related philosophical issues: final cause and the distinction between public and private. [End Page 3] "To the Reader" is clearly intended as a response to Aristotle: all four Aristotelian causes are brought in, only to be weakened. For Aristotle, the public realm is the master-end, the place of human fulfillment through the exercise of the moral virtues. The public realm is the space of appearances where individuals distinguish themselves by their noble deeds. The most complete manifestation of virtue is the excellent ruler who displays all of the virtues, including practical wisdom or prudence. A public space for the appearance of virtue depends upon a private realm in which the necessities of life are taken care of. The domestic and private, therefore, is the realm of necessity which makes possible the freedom that is the condition for public, political life. Freedom is this freedom from necessity, the freedom to participate fully in the activities of the citizen, activities that constitute human perfection. Montaigne's end is domestic and private, a weaker end than public service or glory, an end compatible with his "forces." In keeping with his domestic and private end, Montaigne presents himself in his "ordinary" and natural way, as he is "without striving." He does not hide his shortcomings but rather portrays his defects and imperfections. Thus, the posture in which he comes forward to the reader is one between the "studied posture" of the world of public appearance and the nakedness of "the sweet freedom of nature's first laws." The Essays are the emergence of this middle, private condition of men into the public realm. They precisely are this emergence because...

Toward a complexity science of entrepreneurship

Darwinian selectionist theory is characterized as equilibrium bound. Complexity science focuses on order creation, hence is a better platform for a science of entrepreneurship. “Self-organization biologists” study order creation in the context of all four Aristotelian causes: material, formal, final, and efficient, whereas normal science rests only on efficient cause. Mohr's process theory and Siggelkow's narrative about entrepreneurship rest on all four, standing as good representations of postmodernist ontology. Since modern epistemology still calls for model-centered science, agent models are proposed as an alternative to mathematics as a means of applying modern normal science standards to research on entrepreneurship—all without downgrading thick, postmodernist descriptions of complex causality.

Information Seen as Part of the Development of Living Intelligence: the Five-Leveled Cybersemiotic Framework for FIS

It is argued that a true transdisciplinary information science going from physical information to phenomenological understanding needs a metaphysical framework. Three different kinds of causality are implied: efficient, formal and final. And at least five different levels of existence are needed: 1. The quantum vacuum fields with entangled causation. 2. The physical level with is energy and force-based efficient causation. 3. The informational-chemical level with its formal causation based on pattern fitting. 4. The biological-semiotic level with its non-conscious final causation and 5. The social-linguistic level of self-consciousness with its conscious goal-oriented final causation. To integrate these consistently in an evolutionary theory as emergent levels, neither mechanical determinism nor complexity theory are sufficient because they cannot be a foundation for a theory of lived meaning. C. S. Peirce's triadic semiotic philosophy combined with a cybernetic and systemic view, like N. Luhmann's, could create the framework I call Cybersemiotics.

Exploring Liebniz's Kingdoms

The paper identifies two natural kingdoms: one physical, ruled by the laws of efficient causation; the other non-physical, governed by laws of final causation. Living creatures combine both physical and mental characteristics and thereby belong to both natural kingdoms, ensuring that all events are explicable in terms of either set of laws. Distinguishing self-conscious minds from other souls, Leibniz also differentiates the kingdoms of Nature and Grace. Investigating the relations among the various kingdoms, it is found that the relation of mutual dependence between souls and their bodies in the two natural kingdoms mirrors a similar relation of mutual dependence at the level of Nature and Grace generally. Leibniz’s view also implies that the kingdom of Grace exists within the natural kingdom governed by final causation. Finally, it is suggested that we should reject Leibniz’s view that only some creatures are destined to enter the kingdom of Grace. 
 
 My aim is not to fill shops with futile books, written in the air, but where possible to provide something of use (Leibniz to Duke John Ferdinand of Hanover, Nov. 1671: GE I, 274. Cited in Jordan 1927: 38).

"Matter as effete mind": Peirce's synechistic ideas on the semiotic threshold

Following Peirce's broad concept of semiosis as a foundation of a field ofsrudy, the semiotics ofphysical nanrre, it is argued that we have to explore the interconnections of Peirce's semiotics with metaphysics. These interconnections will be analyzed in five steps: (1) Peirce's radical antidualism and evolutionism, implied in his synechistic ideas, (2) Peirce's semiotic statement that "all this universe is perfused with signs if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448, n.1), (3) Peirce's bold statement that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.24), (4) his theory of final causation, which can only be properly understood in the light of semiosis, (5) his metaphysics and his methodeutics in relation to semiotics. The laws of nature are discovered by abductive inference revealing an affinity between the human mind and the designs of nature. Hence, the formal laws of thought are not simply laws of our minds but laws of the intelligibility of things.

Hobbes on Explanation and Understanding

One aspect of Hobbes's philosophy of science which has not been explored in any depth is his view of the explanatory import of science. This is possibly because of the important passages in Hobbes awarding primary, if not sole, significance to the practical dimension of scientific knowledge, i.e., to science as a means of controlling and manipulating nature, an emphasis which is in tune with the general prudential tenor of Hobbes's philosophy. In addition the Hobbesian view of explanation seems straightforward enough: one explains a phenomenon when one assigns a cause to it. On the face of it there does not seem much more to be said about the matter. Hobbesian science explains because it provides knowledge of causes and causes explain because that is what causes do by definition. A problem with the explanatory force of causes arises when one surveys the great variety of conceptions of causality which have been proposed. Do they all have explanatory value and for the same reasons? Are Aristotelian causes and Humean ones of equal explanatory import and in virtue of the same traits? The case of Hobbes is of particular interest in this respect because in his work we find discussions not only of his own notion of causality as a species of efficient cause but also of Scholastic causes, deriving from Aristotle, and of prudence which is based on Humean-type regularities. One can then ask why it is that, according to Hobbes, the type of causes he espouses explain, while the other varieties do not. In attempting to answer this question I shall suggest that one of the reasons they do so is because they afford a particular sort of understanding. This in turn will provide a link with contemporary discussions of the relations between explanation and understanding, and in particular it will provide some insight into the kind of understanding afforded by systematicity by construing understanding as the integration of what is to be explained within one's body of knowledge. In this paper I attempt to piece together from hints in Hobbes's work a Hobbesian theory of explanation as understanding of a certain sort. In the first

The legacy of Georges Cuvier in Auguste Comte's natural philosophy

This paper traces conceptual links between the works of Georges Cuvier and Auguste Comte. The primary conceptual link between the two, and the focus of this paper, is the ‘principle of the conditions of existence’. This principle lies at the heart of Cuvier's theoretical biology and it was adopted by Comte, in modified form, to serve as a foundational concept for his comprehensive and biologically oriented natural philosophy. Contrary to popular interpretations of Cuvier's thought, it is argued that both Cuvier and Comte understood the principle of the conditions of existence as the basis for a non-teleological form of explanation and a properly scientific alternative to the metaphysics of final causation. This conceptual link is historically significant, for the principle of the conditions of existence was also an important concept for French physiologists of the second half of the nineteenth century, including Claude Bernard, who were highly influenced by Comte's natural philosophy. Tracing the legacy of Cuvier in Comte's natural philosophy should thus clarify the work of both of these thinkers while bringing into focus an important line of nineteenth-century conceptual development.

Notes on Avicenna's Concept of Thingness (šay'iyya)

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.

Aristotle's Two Intellects: A Modest Proposal

AbstractIn De anima 3.5, Aristotle argues for the existence of a second intellect, the so-called "Agent Intellect." The logical structure of his argument turns on a distinction between different types of soul, rather than different faculties within a given soul; and the attributes he assigns to the second species make it clear that his concern here - as at the climax of his other great works, such as the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics - is the difference between the human and the divine. If this is right, we needn't go on a wild goose chase trying to invent a role for the so-called Agent Intellect to play. God moves our intellects as he moves the heavenly spheres, "as a beloved": he constitutes the complete actualization towards which all of our intellectual striving is directed. Aristotle regards such final causation as an efficient cause, but not in a way that would make it part of what we would call the causal processes or mechanisms of human psychology. But, he would insist, it is essential for appreciating who we are and what our place is in the world.

Indifference, Necessity, and Descartes's Derivation of the Laws of Motion

Indifference, Necessity, and Descartes's Derivation of the Laws of Motion BLAKE D. DUTTON WHILEWORKINGON Le Monde, his first comprehensive scientific treatise, Descartes writes the following to Mersenne: "I think that all those to whom God has given the use of this reason have an obligation to employ it principally in the endeavor to know him and to know themselves. This is the task with which I began my studies; and I can say that I would not have been able to discover the foundations of physics if I had not looked for them along that road" (Letter to Mersenne, 163o AT I, 144). ' As the letter makes clear, knowledge of the foundations of Cartesian physics is inextricably linked to the knowledge of God. Unfortunately, Descartes never explains why this is the case, and the relation in which his theistic doctrine stands to his physics remains unspecified. In what follows I wish to clarify that relation by examining some of the problems surrounding Descartes's attempt to locate the metaphysical foundations of his physics in his doctrine of God. I begin my analysis with a discussion of the doctrine of divine indifference and argue that this doctrine is of great importance to any interpretation of the foundations of Cartesian physics, insofar as it provides Descartes with a rationale for dismissing the appeal to final causation in scientific explanation. Insofar as this is the case, it supplies an important piece of his justification for mechanism. I will show, however, that the very reasons which allow this doctrine to be used to underwrite a ' All citations from the works of Descartesare from John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, Anthony Kenny,trs.,ThePhilosophicalWritingsofDescartes,3 vols.(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1985& a99x). I followthe Adam and Tannery pagination. I would like to thank Allen Wood,James Ross, Gary Hatfield and ClayStinson for their valuablecommentson earlydraftSof this paper. [193] t94 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL 1996 mechanistic science appear to undercut what is perhaps the most striking example of Descartes's efforts to ground that science in his theism, viz., his derivation of the laws of motion from the idea of God. Since these laws govern all of the interactions among bodies in the Cartesian universe, if the indifference doctrine truly undercuts their derivation, it would seem that Descartes's dream of establishing proper metaphysical foundations for his physics in his theism fails at a rather crucial point. After laying all of this out I will argue that these tensions can be resolved once we clarify the kind of necessity which Descartes assigns to the laws of motion. In order to do this, I will examine these laws in light of his views on the necessity of the created eternal truths and the impact of the divine indifference doctrine on those views. In this I will challenge the widely held view that the laws of motion are themselves eternal truths, 2 and argue that it is only when we properly differentiate the kind of necessity which pertains to each that we can resolve the apparent conflict between the divine indifference and the derivation of the laws. 1. DIVINE INDIFFERENCE AND THE REJECTION OF FINAL CAUSATION In the replies to Mersenne, Descartes adamantly denies that there is anything in the nature of the things that God has created which could have compelled him to create as he did rather than otherwise. In fact, Descartes asserts, nothing in the nature of things could have even acted as a reason for God to have created them such since the divine will is absolutely indifferent to all which it has created or could create. He writes: "It is self-contradictory to suppose that the will of God was not indifferent from eternity with respect to everything which has happened or will ever happen; for it is impossible to imagine that anything is thought of in the divine intellect as good or true, or worthy of belief or action or omission, prior to the decision of the divine will to make it so. I am not speaking here of temporal priority: I mean that there is not even any priority of order, or nature, or of 'rationally determined...

Placing Our Counseling Texts in Context: A Reply to Lyddon

Following Lyddon (1995), contextualist understandings of development, including dialectical change and cognitive construction, are distinguished from organismic perspectives on the basis of the distinction between formal and final causation. Life‐span developmental and postmodern contextualist trends are offered as a viable framework for emerging counseling theories that seek to capture the diversity of human development.

Towards a Framework of Propositional Knowledge in Architecture

Modernity has brought about a general modification of ideas which emphasize the importance of propositional knowledge in architecture. The present essay offers first steps toward an inclusive model for outline, analysis and criticism of this type of knowledge. The discussion is initiated with philosophical differentiations which give rise to two basic sections: “workshop-knowledge” and “directive knowledge”. These, in turn, are further divided, and an affinity is shown between the model developed in the article and the four Aristotelian causes.