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The efficient or moving cause of a change or movement. This consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a child is a parent.
Final cause and efficient cause [ edit ] Simplicius argues that the first unmoved mover is a cause not only in the sense of being a final cause—which everyone in his day, as in ours, would accept—but also in the sense of being an efficient cause (1360. 24ff.), and his master Ammonius wrote a whole book defending the thesis (ibid. 1363. 8–10).
Occasionalism is a philosophical doctrine about causation which says that created substances cannot be efficient causes of events. Instead, all events are taken to be caused directly by God . (A related concept, which has been called "occasional causation", also denies a link of efficient causation between mundane events, but may differ as to ...
(a) refers to the material cause, what a being's matter consists of (if applicable). (b) refers to the formal cause, what a being's essence is. (c) refers to the efficient cause, what brings about the beginning of, or change to, a being. (d) refers to the final cause, what a being's purpose is.
The modern [1] formulation of the principle is usually ascribed to early Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.Leibniz formulated it, but was not an originator. [2] The idea was conceived of and utilized by various philosophers who preceded him, including Anaximander, [3] Parmenides, Archimedes, [4] Plato and Aristotle, [5] Cicero, [5] Avicenna, [6] Thomas Aquinas, and Spinoza. [7]
One of the causes of a statue being what it is might be that it is bronze. All meanings of the word nature encompass this simple meaning. The efficient cause is the motion of another thing, which makes a thing change, for example a chisel hitting a rock causes a chip to break off. This is the way which the matter is forming into a form so that ...
A priori and a posteriori; A series and B series; Abductive reasoning; Ability; Absolute; Absolute time and space; Abstract and concrete; Adiaphora; Aesthetic emotions
It attempts to reduce all teleological final (and formal) causes to efficient causes. Goetz and Taliaferro urge that this challenge is unjustified, partly because it would imply that the real cause of arguing for the physical causal closure is neurobiological activity in the brain, not (as we know it is) the purpose-based attempt to understand ...