Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
6.5 Determinants of Irreversible (
Finious
) Change
Aristotle counted any adequate response to a why-question as a cause (
aiti¯
)
(
Physics
194b, 18-20)—but he also made a clear distinction between
efficient
causes (change-initiating agents) and
formal
causes (arrangements necessary for
events to occur). Robert Pasnau (
2004
) carefully described how, during the rapid
development and subsequent slow decline of medieval Scholastic Philosophy, the
understanding of the Aristotelian concept of
substantial form
gradually changed
away from its original (purely formal) Aristotelian meaning and increasingly
acquired overtones of efficient agency. He concluded that further modifications in
the usual philosophical understanding of cause that subsequently occurred should
be interpreted as continuations of that earlier trend. With the success of Newtonian
physics interactions similar to events on billiard tables (where precisely-determined
impacts yield exactly-predictable results) came to be considered prime exemplars
of causal processes.
Efficient
causality took over the designation of cause. Most
philosophers relegated any other factors that might be involved in answers to why
questions to subordinate status or to oblivion. Alicia Juarrero (
1999
) persuasively
argued that the restricted notion of causality that was adopted with the rise of
modern science is an impoverished one—quite inadequate for analysis of complex
questions of properly philosophic interest, such as those that concern human action.
Billiard-ball causality, she observes, is not much use in “telling the difference
between a wink and a blink.”
Mario Bunge, like other philosophers, does “restrict the meaning of the term
cause to
efficient cause
, or extrinsic motive agent, or external influence producing
change” (Bunge
1959
, 33) however he also recognizes that causation “is only one
among several types of determination; there are other types of lawful production,
other levels of interconnection” (30). He distinguishes between
causes
(effective
agents—the
how
of things) and
reasons
(rational explanations—the
why
of things)
pointing out that these two notions are often confounded. Bunge notes: “The
identity of explanation with the disclosing of causes is even rooted in the Greek
language, in which
aition
and
logos
are almost interchangeable since both mean
cause and reason. The confusion of cause with reason, and that of effect with
consequent, are, moreover, common in our everyday speech” (Bunge
1959
,
226-227), but more recently, Bunge observed: “From the point of view of cognitive
neuroscience, reasons for acting are efficient causes” (Bunge
2010
, 224).
In many (perhaps most) biological examples, causes and reasons cannot
be distinguished easily, if at all. “When a trait evolves through intersexual selection,
the source of selection is itself an evolving character. The peacock
s tail evolves
through the mating-preferences in peahens and those preferences coevolve with the
male trait” (Laland et al.
2011
, 1512). Whenever
reciprocal determination
makes it
impossible cleanly to distinguish causes from reasons, restricting causality to
efficient
causes (as philosophers recommend) is not appropriate.
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