Friday, June 21, 2019

Material Causality and Heliocentrism

The inverse of Teleological Causality is generally conceived to be Efficient Causality, since the former closes a process, while the latter initiates it.  So, just as Heliocentrism inverts the traditional Earth-Heavens relation of Geocentricism, in Modern Physics, Efficient Causality replaces Teleological Causality as predominant.  However, there is a respect in which the former is not the inverse of the latter.  For, as Whitehead reminds in his correspondence of Concrescence and Telos, Teleological Causality effects a Unity of a Multiplicity, whereas Efficient Causality consists in a mere sequence of Units.  Furthermore, as is, the Aristotelian quartet lacks any inverse of a Multiplicity-Unity relation.  However, the revision of Material Causality that has been proposed here consists in precisely such an inverse, i. e. a principle of Diversification, with Unity as its initial stage.  Accordingly, if there is an inversion of Causality that corresponds to the replacement of Geocentrism by Heliocentrism, it is that of Teleological Causality by this revised Material Causality, which, in Whitehead's system, might be called Discrescence.

No comments:

Post a Comment