Cause

Aristotle in his " Metaphysics " outlined the doctrine of the 4 causes, or principles ^[1] , adopted by medieval scholasticism, but not yet exhausted by philosophical thinking. When searching for the causes of being , as well as any objects or phenomena in general, it is necessary to pose not one, but four different questions, the answer to which we get a complete understanding of this subject.

• First, we ask what the essence of this fact, this subject; this is a question about the substrate, about the underlying, about matter, or material reason ( Greek ΰλη , Greek ὑποκείμενον , lat. causa materialis ) ^{[1] [2]} .
• Secondly, one asks from what or by whose action the given object is produced; it is a question of a creative, producing cause , or of the source and the beginning of the movement ( Greek αρχή της κινήσεω лат , lat. causa efficiens ).
• Thirdly, the question is asked about the essence of this subject, what it is; this is a question about the idea, about “honor” ( Greek tò τί ἧν εἶναι , lat. qudditas ), about the form or formal reason ( Greek είδος , Greek. μορφή , lat. causa formalis ) ^[2] .
• Fourthly, one asks about why this subject exists; it is a question of the goal, or the final reason ( Greek. τέλος ου ενεκα , lat. causa finalis ).

Aristotle saw the disadvantage of previously existing philosophical systems in that they explained the world, not taking into account the effect of the four reasons noted by him.

• So, the Ionian "physiologists" sought only the material cause of all phenomena, with some believing it in one element, others in another;
• the Pythagoreans settled on the formal reason, which they found in arithmetic and geometric definitions;
• Empedocles and Anaxagoras added to the material elements of the Ionians a producing cause, which the former found in the opposing action of friendly attraction and hostile repulsion, and the latter in the constructive action of the cosmic mind;
• Plato , searching, like the Pythagoreans, for the formal cause of everything that exists, found it in ideas, according to Aristotle, leaving without consideration both the producing and the final causes. Plato distinguishes Greek. νους from Greek. ανάγκη , that is, the deliberate action of the mind on the idea of ​​good (what we call expediency) from the blind and fatal action of material elements (what we call mechanical causality).

Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes, or principles, developed at his school , as well as among the Neoplatonists and turned into a patristic and scholastic philosophy , received some complications. They began to distinguish the first causes from the second, or the nearest ones ( Latin: causae secundae seu proximae ), mediating reasons ( Latin: causae mediae ), ore causes ( Latin: causae instrumentales ), related or accompanying reasons ( Latin: causae concomitantes , in Plato, Greek . συναιτίαι ). With such an enrichment of terminology, medieval thought did not stop evenly at all four points of view established by Aristotle. The concept of the first producing cause (omnipotent Creator), as well as the cause of the ultimate, or goal (absolute perfection, supreme good) was mainly applied to the central idea - the Divine . The formal reason here remained comparatively shadowed, and the material reason was completely excluded, since it was recognized as mandatory for philosophy. theological position on the creation of the world from nothing.

The new philosophy in relation to the Cause is characterized by a threefold desire:

1. if possible, narrow the circle of direct action of the first producing Reason, without resorting to its individual and direct acts to explain certain things and phenomena in the world;
2. eliminate the search for the ultimate Causes, or goals, from the explanations of nature;
3. to investigate the origin and meaning of the very concept of Reason, in particular Reasons for producing.

In the first respect, Descartes’s attempt to limit the creativity of God to one act of creating matter is remarkable, from which the real universe is explained entirely mechanically, and, however, the Cartesian dualism between spirit and matter, soul and body forced some representatives of this school to resort to a Higher being to explain the mutual dependences of physical and mental phenomena (see Gailinks , Malbranche , occasionalism , Spinoza ).

In the second respect, Bacon was at the head of the opponents of teleology, expressing the essence of his thought in the famous aphorism that the final reasons (in which it was supposed to know God's intentions regarding this or that creature) were “like virgins dedicated to God: they are barren”. In the third respect, the analysis of the cause of the productive represents three historical and philosophical points, denoted by the names of Hume, Kant and Maine de Biran. Examining the concept of cause on the basis of observed phenomena, Hume came to the conclusion that this concept expresses only a constant connection of two phenomena, of which one invariably precedes the other; in this view, the very concept of reason is simply denied, which, however, is already distinguished in the general consciousness and contrasted with a simple temporal sequence: their mixing (post hoc = propter hoc) is recognized as an elementary logical error, while according to Hume propter hoc is completely exhausted by the constantly observed post hoc . Hume, with all his wit, could not convincingly refute the objections to his gaze, for example, that the scientifically recognized reason for day and night is the daily rotation of the Earth around its axis, forcing it to turn alternately to the Sun one way or the other - it should be, according to Hume, an observable phenomenon constantly preceding day and night, whereas in reality this rotation is not an observable phenomenon at all, but a mental conclusion from astronomical data, and indeed no sequence or succession there is no difference in time between cause and effect here, so it would be more consistent with Hume's point of view to recognize the cause of the day — the previous night, the cause of the night — the previous day. In general, Hume's argument undoubtedly proves that on the basis of the observed phenomena of the external world the concept of cause cannot be found (see Hume ). Having convinced himself of this and, at the same time, aware of the main significance of this concept for any science, Kant began his critical research on the nature of our knowledge, as a result of which causality, along with other foundations of our cognitive activity, was recognized as an a priori condition for this activity, or a category of pure reason (see Kant ). This protected the general independent significance of causation, but did not determine its own essence.

The French philosopher Men-de-Birand tried to approach her on the basis of internal psychological experience. The concept of reason, in his opinion, is given in the consciousness of volitional effort by which our self opens all its activities; this internally known main act is analogously attributed to beings outside of us. The view of Maine de Biran in some points coincides with the ideas of his German contemporaries, Fichte and Schopenhauer . The main drawback of this view is the lack of evidence that our will is the true reason for our actions; it can only be confidently asserted here that our will in some way participates in the performance of some of our actions (precisely those that can be attributed to us), or, in other words, that the true reason for our actions in certain cases is related to our will; but this indisputable fact does not in itself give any indications either of the essence of this supposed cause, of the nature of its connection with our will, or of the nature of causality as such.

In general, the whole work of the latest philosophical thought on the question of causality suffers from two main drawbacks:

• the separation of the cause producing from the other three types of causality, admissible and even inevitable as a preliminary methodological device, remains the final point of view of the researcher, as a result of which the results of the study must be extremely scholastic in nature and devoid of actual philosophical content and interest;
• the connection between real causality and its true root in a logical law, or the principle of a sufficient basis , remains completely unclear; the relation of particular and individual causes to the universal cause of everything that exists remains insufficiently defined, as a result of which all the latest philosophies , which include the concept of cause, are either too general and abstract, or too fragmentary.

The clarification and elimination of these shortcomings determines the further task of philosophy on this issue.

• Antecedent
• free will
• Fatalism
• Philosophy
• Ethics
• Principle of causality
• Consequence
• Start
• Creator
• Logics
• Deism
• Atheism
• Predestination
• Principle of sufficient reason

• Reason // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.