Will, Necessity, Invention

'Necessity is the mother of our invention' paraphrases a formulation that first appears in Plato's Republic, in which 'necessity' refers to human needs, and 'our invention' to the concept of a political ideal that the dialogue develops. The phrase is a reminder that even a Rational ideal that includes God, such as Kant's Kingdom of Ends, is as much a human artifact as is a blueprint for a simple shelter. Furthermore, it is a reminder of the weakness of Efficient Causality, as Spinoza proposes, as an explanatory principle of human artifice. For, Efficient Causality, while perhaps governed by Necessity, does not account for the inventiveness of artifaction, nor for the cohesion of an artifact such as a rational theory. In contrast, here, Material Causality, has been introduced to ground the former, and Formal Causality, the latter, i. e. Will and Comprehension, respectively, in the context of personal experience. The "our" in Plato's original suggests that he might not agree with the common generalization, i. e. with the thesis that other every other invention is occasioned by Necessity, but, nevertheless, all invention combines Material and Formal Causality in the same way as his does.