Temporality and Formal Cause

A Formal Cause fundamentally occurs at the termination of a process, which is perhaps most clearly observed in processes in which the shape that a development takes remains unsettled until the end. In such cases, the terminal stage defines what leads up to it, and, because that end is neither inevitable nor foreseen, the traditional classification of it as a Teleological Cause superimposes an extrinsic premise on the interpretation of the process. More frequently, a Formal Cause functions as one's attentive monitoring of one's performance, thus appearing as seemingly parallel to the action. But, in fact, it is continually subsequent to each phase, yet so seamlessly coordinated with phase-to-phase transitions that it appears concomitant with them. Accordingly, an Intention is the appearance at the outset of a performance as the choice of a possible formal cause to guide that nascent performance, and is neither a preview of the result of the performance, as the Aristotelian tradition has it, nor an efficient cause of it, as Kant proposes. In other words, an Intention is a derivative Formal Cause. Now, as has been previously discussed, the source of all experiential termination is the Temporalizing representation of Motility, so, Temporalization is the Formal Cause of Experience.