Cumulation and Formal Causality

As previously argued, the terminal phase of a cumulative process is not necessarily its teleological cause. However, since that phase does impart definition to the hitherto indefinite development that precedes it, it qualifies as the formal cause of the process. Similarly, a representation, at the outset of a process, of its projected outcome, i. e. an intention, is the formal cause of the activity that ensues. Kant mistakenly classifies an intention as an efficient cause, because he does not recognize the distinction that Dewey draws--between an impulse and the specific shape that it takes in its expression as a specific motion--and, therefore, fails to distinguish an intention functioning as the formal cause of a motion from the motivating impulse that the intention organizes. Kant does approach an understanding of Cumulation as Final Cause, with his thesis that Time is the formal condition of all Experience, but falls short of it because he interprets Time as successive, not cumulative.