Dennis wrote:

Thin particulars don't cause anything, since whenever a particular acts, it acts in virtue of the universal it possesses.

I disagree. Universals don't cause anything on their own. 

When a particular acts according to its nature it is acting according to a universal and a relationship between that universal and another universal. But the universal is only a necessary cause for the action of the particular, it is not sufficient for it. Whether or not a universal's causal activity is actually manifest in some case depends on there being nothing concrete barring an individual instantiation of that power, E.G. my throat cannot sound without air being present. Even though the universal nature of a human throat is to be able to make sound, it only does so ceterus paribus. It is always defeasible according to concrete conditions that are found in individual cases( to say nothing of God's potentia absoluta). The universal nature is never sufficient on its own to actually bring the effect about. Likewise, a cause is only a cause in regards to that moment and its actual bringing about of an effect, E.G. a teacher does not actually teach unless the student actually learns, and does not teach until the student actually learns. This shows that 

1. We can only call a cause a cause insofar as it actually causes its effect, when it actually causes its effect.
2. If something is necessary for an effect to come about, but not sufficient for it to come about, we call it a cause only the qualified sense. Since it is not enough to guarantee that the effect comes about when it does. 
3. Universal natures are never sufficient to actually cause an effect on their own.
4. So: Universals cannot be called causes in an unqualified sense.
5. Therefore: When a particular acts it is no more a cause due to the universal than the universal is a cause due to it.

Also,human beings will freely. If it was universal "humanity" that was doing the willing then no individual would be able to act in conflict with another individual's willing by nilling that same thing at the same time, since "humanity" would be acting in a contradictory way, both willing and nilling the same thing at once. But humans do conflict with each other this way, so it cannot be universal humanity which is the cause of conflict in this sort, it must be individual humans - which are hylomorphic substances of matter and form themselves. So there are clear examples where it is not the universal which is primary in causation, but particulars that fall under the universal.

Dennis wrote:

Everything that exists has causal power. 

Says who? What about prime matter?( It has no existence on its own, but yet some substratum exists with substances), or the passive intellect?, which only takes on form.

Last edited by No True Scottist (11/21/2016 3:20 pm)

Just to give your causal principle a name, I'll call it the “Eleatic” principle:

Dennis wrote:

Well, I know that Armstrong argued from the fact that thin particulars have causal power which make universals exist. My argument is denying that, and from what I hear, Reinhardt Grossmann had given the same argument.

I don't remember Armstrong arguing from properties' dependence on thin particulars to thin particulars' reality.* (He employs a strong Eleatic principle in Universals & Scientific Realism, but weakened it due to “pesky counterexamples” like Grossmann's later.)

*Charlie Black (a forum member) argued that in a reading group discussion you were part of, once.

John, thank you for the correction. Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate it. 

No True Scottist wrote:

The point is that because anything we could call a "cause" is only defeasibly so unless the effect has actually come about with it, we should only call something that sufficiently brings about the existence of a real effect a cause of an effect.  It does'nt really make sense to call something a cause because it increases the probability of the effect. My playing in traffic may cause my chances of death to rise, but if God chooses to annihilate me in some moment while I play in traffic then my death had nothing to do with my playing in traffic, so should not be considered a cause of it.

I think this serves as as a very good argument as to why there is no such thing as necessity in causation. Two quick points. If I'm eating an ice cream in the sun, and  ice cream melts because God directly causes it to melt instead of the sun's causal efficacy, then God is definitely the cause of the melting. However, had God not acted would the ice cream have melted out of necessity? No, (1) there could be other conditions and powers that dispose against the power of the sun to melt, and thus the cause would be defeasible. A sufficient condition would guarantee the effect.(2) I maintain that there is no such thing as sufficient conditions in causation and no cause ever necessitates this effect. The very possibility of a cause being defeasible renders necessitation obsolete. Of course, in the case of God and divine causality things would be quite different, there I wouldn't know what to think of. 

I see causes as things which dispose towards an effect, although, bringing about an effect is not part of my condition of what I call a cause. Consider a room which is being conditioned by a heater an air conditioner, if I don't feel the heat because the air conditioner is too powerful, does  that mean that the heater is not serving as a cause? I think it's obvious that the heater is serving as a cause, the only thing is that the causes are not in equilibrium and thus one power succeeds over the other.

No True Scottist wrote:

What kind of cases are you thinking of here ?

There could be things which have a singular property, I don't think it is metaphysically impossible for there to be such cases. I can't necessarily think of something off the top of my head, but I'll come back you when I do figure if such a possibility obtains.

No True Scottist wrote:

But what about the asymmetry of the cause and the effect?, insofar as the cause is that which the effect is dependent on for either it's existence, or the way it is existing, and not the other way around. With the added qualification that the cause only gains the label "cause" insofar as it is actually determining the existence of the effect ( which is still sill due to the activity of the cause, not the effect). I'm not sure if we have the same ideas about what causation actually is.

Sure, but that's a different matter. A has to act on B, and it's the A, which brings about the effect, not the B. The relation between them is a matter which is necessitated by the two terms. I only denied that you need a further universal relation between, and prefer this reduction. 

No True Scottist wrote:

Now if something makes the effect possible , and is still actively doing so in the moment when the effect comes about, then there is room to call it a cause. Universals are causes in this sense, because while they can never be sufficient for an instance of causation on their own, they are often( if not always) part of what underlies an instance of causation. For example, God may determine by his potentia ordinata that an x phenomena causes a y property to inhere in any Z, and this universal relationship will be present in any relevant case. Still without any particulars to instantiate the relationship the effect will never come about. So particulars should be seen as the primary kind of cause insofar as they are the most immediate affective entities for the coming about of real effects. We will never have a case where the particular is in act and then the universal it instantiates comes into being and starts acting, such that the particular on its own was not sufficient, and then a universal was added and the effect came about, it is the opposite that holds.  So we should not hold that particulars only cause in virtue of their universal and hence don't cause anything, because universals have no actual relevancy to any instance of causation without particulars acting, where the particular acting is what will actually make the instance of causation happen.

Just to make sure, this supposes that a particular must be analysed as a thin/bare particular which God acts on. From what I can see, there is some sort of equivocation going on, a trope bundle or bundle of universals would do fair enough to account for things in this world, but whether that universal/trope bundle is not exactly a bundle and instead there is a reality of a substratum which is cause-less, is a different thing. But I think you have a much stronger account of substance, one that requires an independence of existence from the universal which it instantiates, I don't think this is going to work, because all the causal work, again, is done by the universal which it supposedly instantiates and not the thin/bare particular, glued together by the relation of compresence.

No True Scottist wrote:

As far as my examples begging the question against the bundle theorist, the bundle theorist claiming that everything has causal power, and then rejecting the existence of those examples due to that principle, would be equally begging the question against the Aristotelean. For what reason should one believe that everything that exists has causal power?

I take it that it is evident that things serve as causes, I also take it a further evident fact (perhaps requiring some argument) that the properties of a thing cause things. When something is in act, it establishes the thing into existence. The argument would be an inductive argument to cut unnecessary entities from ones ontology. If an account of ontology succeeds in doing this, and they could in fact reduce all said-entities to causal ones alone, then I think it pretty much sets the whole scene. That said, I'm not sure how I'd be defending mathematical truths at all. I understand the Eleatic principle as follows,

Eleatic Stranger wrote:

I say, then, that what possesses any sort of power--whether for making anything at all, of whatever nature, other than it is or for being affected even the least bit by the meagerest thing, even if only once-- I say that all this is in its very being. For I set down as a boundary marking off the things that are, that their being is nothing else but power. Plato: Sophist, 247 D - E.

The Eleatic principle would suffice for making coherent the account of matter or thin particulars undergoing change. The problem for me is why opt. for it beforehand, when the more evident things in causes are the universals? When I weigh an apple, and it weighs say, 0.250 grams, it is not the apple's color, shape, or even size that does the causal work, it's the mass which does it. While it's not imprecise to say that the apple causes the scales to tip, it's not precise enough, for it is mass-universals coupled together that do all the causal work. Given reductionism of properties, they could be in essence reduced to the entities at the bare bottom of the physical universe. Where then is the particular? I can establish the existence of such powers, but I cannot establish the existence of a property-less particular. 

Last edited by Dennis (11/25/2016 9:43 am)

Dennis wrote:

Just to make sure, this supposes that a particular must be analysed as a thin/bare particular which God acts on. From what I can see, there is some sort of equivocation going on, a trope bundle or bundle of universals would do fair enough to account for things in this world, but whether that universal/trope bundle is not exactly a bundle and instead there is a reality of a substratum which is cause-less, is a different thing. But I think you have a much stronger account of substance, one that requires an independence of existence from the universal which it instantiates, I don't think this is going to work, because all the causal work, again, is done by the universal which it supposedly instantiates and not the thin/bare particular, glued together by the relation of compresence.

There are two different accounts of substance at play here. Scottist (a good Aristotelian) is proposing an Aristotelian account of substances, whereas you're proposing a thin or “bare” particular account of substances. (Here is an article on some of the similarities and differences involved.)

But you asked about substances, not just thin particulars.

Dennis wrote:

Yes, I understand this. I like that.

Right. But now you've committed yourself to the implausible theory that the power to shatter breaks my window whether in a brick thrown at it and nothing else, or an asteroid hurtling towards Jupiter and nothing else.

How different is the Eleatic stranger's principle from Armstrong's principle?

The Universals & Scientific Realism Eleatic principle is pretty much the same. The later, weaker version is much weaker.