Efficient Causation A History

by Schmaltz, Tad M.

• ISBN13: 9780199782178
• ISBN10: 0199782172
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-10-31
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Causation is now commonly supposed to involve a succession that instantiates some law-like regularity. Efficient Causation: A History examines how our modern notion developed from a very different understanding of efficient causation. This volume begins with Aristotle's initial conception of efficient causation, and then considers the transformations and reconsiderations of this conception in late antiquity, medieval and modern philosophy, ending with contemporary accounts of causation. It includes four short "Reflections" that explore the significance of the concept for literature, the history of music, the history of science, and contemporary art theory.

Author Biography

Tad M. Schmaltz is Professor of Philosophy and James B. and Grace J. Nelson Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has published articles and book chapters on various topics in early modern philosophy, and is the author of Malebranche's Theory of the Soul (Oxford, 1996), Radical Cartesianism (Cambridge, 2002), and Descartes on Causation (Oxford, 2008).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Tad M. Schmaltz

Part I Ancient and Medieval

1. Aristotle and the Discovery of Efficient Causation, Thomas M. Tuozzo

Reflection: Representations of Efficient Causation in the Iliad, Tobias Myers

2. Efficient Causation in the Stoic Tradition, R. J. Hankinson

3. Efficient Causation in Late Antiquity and the Earlier Medieval Era, Ian Wilks

4. Efficient Causation: From Ibn Sina to Ockham, Kara Richardson

Reflection: Efficient Causation and Musical Inspiration, Anna Harwell Celenza

Part II Modern

5. Efficient Causation: From Suárez to Descartes, Tad M. Schmaltz

6. Efficient Causation in Spinoza and Leibniz, Martin Lin

Reflection: Reason, Calculating Machines and Efficient Causation, Matthew L. Jones

7. Efficient Causation in Malebranche and Berkeley, Lisa Downing

8. Efficient Causation in Hume, P. J. E. Kail

9. Efficient Causation in Kant, Eric Watkins

Part III Contemporary

10. Contemporary Efficient Causation: Humean Themes, Douglas Ehring

Reflection:Efficient Causation in Art, Tina Rivers

11. Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian Themes, Stephen Mumford


Bibliography
Pre-20th-Century Sources
20th- and 21st-Century Literature
Index