Material Causality, Motility, Creativity

Material Causality consists in a transition from Certainty to Uncertainty, which marks it as a primary problem for doctrines in which Certainty has the highest priority, i. e. for most of the Philosophical tradition. The chronic antagonism to Material Causality is most typically expressed not via direct confrontation, but, as Deleuze's study of Difference shows, by suppression or neglect, e. g. the treatment of Matter as passively inert, or that of Motility as fundamentally requiring control. However, Novelty entails Uncertainty. Thus, the traditional hostility towards Material Causality is perhaps more graphic in those Vitalistic doctrines that appreciate Creativity. For example, Whitehead, as has been previously discussed, recognizes the contribution to Creativity of neither Discrescence nor Motility. Likewise, Dewey overlooks how an organism can itself be the source of a disruption of its achieved adaptation to an environment. But, perhaps the most graphic expression of frustration with the intractability of Matter is Bergson's struggles to both treat it as inert and, yet, to reduce it to a mode of vitalistic Spirit. His failure to satisfactorily accomplish the latter is evidence of the independence of Matter, and of Material Causality.