Monday, June 12, 2017

Formal Causality and Efficient Causality

In his Physics, Aristotle recognizes four distinct Causes, with Teleological primary.  Now, unlike the supplanting of Aristotelian Geocentric Cosmology, the jettisoning of all but Efficient Causality in Modern Physics is not based on any newly discovered Empirical evidence.  Instead, when given, the justification is typically based on a Theological premise, probably most notably Spinoza's assertion that Teleological Causality is only a factor in human activity, not a principle in Nature.  However, such an argument does not address the possibility that Formal Causality is such a principle, in evidence wherever a manifold is organized, e. g. a solar system, the internal structure of an atom, etc., none of which can be reduced to Efficient Causality, the scope of which is only change of location.  For example, Efficient Causality explains the gravitational pull of a sun on one of its planets, while Formal Causality explains the coherence of an entire solar system.  So, evidentiary grounds for the exclusion of that variety of Causality from Modern Physics remain lacking.

No comments:

Post a Comment