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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 priori and a posteriori; A series and B series; Abductive reasoning; Ability; Absolute; Absolute time and space; Abstract and concrete; Adiaphora; Aesthetic emotions
When I will that my arm should rise, my volition is the "occasion" or the "occasional cause" of the movement of my arm; the efficient cause of both my volition and the movement of my arm is God. Malebranche's doctrine, which could be found in contemporary commentaries on Aristotle, and which first appeared in certain Arab philosophers, 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]
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 ...
According to Stoic terminology, Antiochus also called the efficient cause "quality" (Greek poiótēs, Latin qualitas). Theoretically, the primordial matter is featureless, completely unformed and therefore suitable for receiving any form. Matter receives its diverse, constantly changing forms from the efficient cause.