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Re: A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan
Also, on modal necessity and the need for explanations:
Say there is a series of caused/dependent beings. Being A is dependent upon B to exist, which isn't too different from A and in turn is dependent upon C, which is not very different from B and in turn dependent upon D... Nothing else is said about how many members/causes are included in this series.
Now say it is a necessary fact that this series of causes exists.
That being said: (1) can we accept this series is infinite, composed of an infinity of caused/dependent beings? Or can we (2) infer that there must be a first cause which is not dependent upon any other causes? By the standard reasoning about hierarchical series of causes (and I'd extend it to linear ones too, since to me it doesn't make any difference), 1 is impossible, or at least 2 must be true because B can only cause A as long as B exists, but B can only exist so long as C exists, which in turn can only exist as long as D exists, and if D is dependent like them then D can only cause C so long as D itself is being caused by something else, and so on, but then if there were no first cause none of the members would exist.
In this case we will have naturally sought an explanation for A (or B, or C, or D etc) even though they are all part of a necessary series of causes. I cannot see how we wouldn't just interpret this as a straightforward example in which modal necessity does not preclude the need for explanations, and in which even though we consider that the causal series is necessary and every member necessary, we can't just settle for that as if the series could have no first cause. There would have to be an explanation, a first cause, and modal necessity doesn't change that.
You might say that all the relevant facts both contingent and necessary would already have to be included in the factt hat the series exists necessarily, and that the first cause would be included in reference to the existence of the necessary series, e.g. if this causal series is necessarily instantiated, then it is instantiated alongside a first cause. But to me it is hard to make sense of this without considering that in the example I just gave we were nevertheless seeking an explanation that must be there whether or not the series is modally necessary (that a causal series must have a first cause). Prima facie this would be evidence in favor of a PSR that applies even among necessary facts and beings. And we have other reasons for believing in an unrestricted PSR, as Pruss himself says many times.
(If one accepts the real distinction, he might say that caused beings have a real distinction between essence and existence which implies they cannot be necessary. Fine, but nothing has been said about the real distinction in the example; it's just a case of a series of dependent beings, beings which can only exist if they have their existence conditioned by a cause. We might use the example of a foot and the footprint, but as existing in all possible worlds and not merely existing from eternity. One may also say that causation involves the actualization of act/potency mixtures, which would have to be contigent. That's another way to reject what I said. The problem is I am still wary of thinking that act/potency beings *must* be modally contingent; perhaps it's just an ignorance or incapacity on my part to see it, as it would seem to imply that we can show there are contingent things based solely on causation/motion, which would go beyond mere conceivability arguments. If so, then fine, the objection may be dismantled; I just wrote it anyway to clarify my issue with modal necessity and explanation, if it wasn't clear yet)
Last edited by Miguel (3/18/2018 11:32 pm)
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Re: A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan
Anyway, back to triangularity.
If they are an inseparable part you haven't given an explanation for their necessity co-extension (or strictly speaking you have shifted the problem to from two properties necessarily occurring together to their being necessarily unified together by an external unifier). Remember I was asking for a contrastive explanation - why is triangularity necessarily co-present with trilaterality as opposed to say mintyness or blueness?
Explaining distinct things by tying them into a unity is a well-known form of explanation. It is used by Plotinus as the principle of prior simplicity, for instance. We generally use it all the time: we try to explain things by subsuming them into more general laws. Physicists do it by searching for one grand theory which can include all the others, etc.
Admittedly, I was just presenting what I think could be a way for explaining these issues, even though it would have to be more developed in order to answer to all our questions. But I think it's a good indication. You asked why two propertie ncessarily occur together, my answer is that they are actually inseparable parts of a single unit, which explains why they always occur together. But you want a contrastive explanation, why triangularity with trilaterality as opposed to mintyness or blueness. I gave an explanation in terms of formal causality and unity; the thing is that this formal unity has a natural necessity which follows from its coherence which would not be the case with a "minty trilaterality", whatever that could mean. It is self-explanatory and there is no mystery left. It's not the case of a necessary fact that is "brute" or for which we can have absolutely no explanation; it's the case of a self-explanatory necessary fact. Once we understand what trilaterality and triangularity is, how they're inseparable parts of the same coherent formal unity, how a coherent formal unity is possible, there is nothing left to explain. From what has been said, there is no explanation needed for why triangularity isn't necessarily co-present with mintyness because that very suggestion would not make any sense. I don't see it as bruteness, I see it as self-explanatory.
What my PSR requires is that there must be an explanation for everything and every fact, that everything must be intelligible, even necessary facts. It doesn't require me to give a specific contrastive explanation for why trilaterality is not necessarily co-present with mintyness, if what trilaterality is is just an inseparable part of a necessarily possible and coherent formal structure which does not include mintyness; mintyness' own form precludes it from being an inseparable part of triangles. It's all self-evident and intelligible to me.
Another way to put it is that while there may be meanigless questions about necessary facts, there still may be meaningful questions concerning necessary facts -- if those involve existential dependency, ethical and philosophical issues, and so on. And even Pruss doesn't think we should not seek explanations for "odd necessities" just because we don't presently have a good grasp on some mathematical explanations, for instance.
Last edited by Miguel (3/19/2018 11:32 am)
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Thread Starter- Calhoun
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Re: A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan
Say there is a series of caused/dependent beings. Being A is dependent upon B to exist, which isn't too different from A and in turn is dependent upon C, which is not very different from B and in turn dependent upon D... Nothing else is said about how many members/causes are included in this series. ........
...In this case we will have naturally sought an explanation for A (or B, or C, or D etc) even though they are all part of a necessary series of causes. I cannot see how we wouldn't just interpret this as a straightforward example in which modal necessity does not preclude the need for explanations, and in which even though we consider that the causal series is necessary and every member necessary, we can't just settle for that as if the series could have no first cause. There would have to be an explanation, a first cause, and modal necessity doesn't change that. ...
But there might be some puzzle about ,whether such series are possible at all. Like How we should analyse the relevant "dependence" here?
One way to analyse it is that ,to say that A depends on B is to say that if B didn't exist A wouldn't either. But this analysis can't be given when talking about necessary beings I think because they can't fail to exist.
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Re: A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan
Calhoun wrote:
Say there is a series of caused/dependent beings. Being A is dependent upon B to exist, which isn't too different from A and in turn is dependent upon C, which is not very different from B and in turn dependent upon D... Nothing else is said about how many members/causes are included in this series. ........
...In this case we will have naturally sought an explanation for A (or B, or C, or D etc) even though they are all part of a necessary series of causes. I cannot see how we wouldn't just interpret this as a straightforward example in which modal necessity does not preclude the need for explanations, and in which even though we consider that the causal series is necessary and every member necessary, we can't just settle for that as if the series could have no first cause. There would have to be an explanation, a first cause, and modal necessity doesn't change that. ...But there might be some puzzle about ,whether such series are possible at all. Like How we should analyse the relevant "dependence" here?
One way to analyse it is that ,to say that A depends on B is to say that if B didn't exist A wouldn't either. But this analysis can't be given when talking about necessary beings I think because they can't fail to exist.
True, but I am just presenting a thought experiment to show that we'd still have to apply PSR for necessary beings in some cases. As I admitted, this whole thing can be avoided if we take it that dependence implies modal contingency and that's fine, but that's something to establish. Moreover, consider this discussion in the context of a cosmological argument: you point out that there are dependent things, the atheist says that the dependent things in question actually exist necessarily. If he does that, then one would suppose the atheist has in mind a manner of understanding causal dependence that does not rely on modal contingency; but then in such a case the absurdity of an infinite series of dependent beings would still force us to seek an explanation for it, even if we grant it is necessary. So causla dependence could be more basic than modal contingency and we'd have reasons to apply PSR to some necessary truths as well. If however dependence implies contingency, then the necessitarianist has to deny causal dependence of things, which seems absurd. As I said, maybe I am confused, but to me it seems that causal dependence is more obvious than even modal contingency, which is what I've been saying.
If we really can say that things such as act/potency, causal dependence, essence/existence are ultimately different ways of talking about modal contingency' then fine. But if not, and if it's possible for there to be a specific series of deendent beings in every possible world, then it will require an explanation in any case, so PSR would have to hold for some necessary facts.
I am sympathetic to the idea that it's all just different ways of expressing modal contingency, but it's not so clear to me. And if so, it would be a reason to not limit PSR, alongside Pruss's suggestions that we might want a PSR for necessary truths to deal with certain philosophical issues, including facts about ethics.
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Re: A simple argument for the personhood of the first cause, by Lonergan
Sorry for the lateness of this one fellows.
1) If that is the case however, you say that the atheist position in this case would be "no more or less incoherent than claiming straight out that the universe is necessary", and you believe this because you take act/potency and essence/existence to ultimately express modal contingency. However, don't you think it is easier to show that things change, or are caused, than to show they are contingent? I understand you're ultimately saying we'd be talking of contingency, but don't you think it's easier to tell that a thing's existence is dependent upon a cause (it has to be actualized by an actual cause, to take act/potency as example) than to tell that the same thing could've failed to exist in a possible world?
Increasingly no. If one insists on using the language of causation what does it mean to say something is necessary other than 1. it is possible, and 2. it is uncaused? I actually think causation is a vaguer notion than modality or (even more so) explanation. I am making the assumption here that if a being could cease to exist (thus meaning there is a world in which it ceases to exist) then necessarily there is an explanation for its ceasing to exist.
Although admittedly it’s not about individual necessary beings we have more immediate acquaintance with instances of metaphysical necessity (of the necessary co-instantiation kind) – we literally see that certain things in the world around us could not be otherwise even if the world was different. I think we apply this concept to the idea of a being’s existence as easily as applying casual concepts. Conceivability is not an infallible guide to possibility and I doubt the thought-experiments even represented what they claimed to, but the impossibility of Hume’s seperability claim for causation is not immediately apparent in the same way that, for instance, conceiving a colour without extension or a sound without temporal duration is.
(Analytical metaphysics at least has historically had an easier time with this kind of necessity than any necessity involved in the concept of causation)
Because in general, arguments for the modal contingency of things would involve the possibility of conceiving of a different possible world in which such things don't exist, just ultimately relying on modal intuitions. Perhaps you can say that our understanding of causality would also rely on intuition, but - as I think the literature shows, afaik - it is much harder to deny that there are caused/dependent/changing things than it is to say that the universe is modally necessary. The second is sometimes claimed as an atheist defense against cosmological arguments, but the first is never even contemplated. If, however, a thing's being a mixture of act/potency, or of essence/existence, implies that it is modally contingent, then we'd have a specific argument for the modal contingency of things.
I don't think that's the case with the former claim (I am taking by 'changing things' you means 'things changed by other things'), at least if you mean causation in terms of dependency. The regularity theory of causation would not satisfy it and that had mainstream prominence for ages (not so sure about the counter-factual theory). In general it's been far harder to get naturalists to swallow the kind of a postiori necessity involved in causation worthy of that term than to accept 'visible' necessity in terms of property-entailment and exclusion.
2) If you are granting that act/potency and essence/existence beings are always contingent, why wouldn't you grant it for composite things? Don't you think that if a thing is composed of conjoined parts, that is, parts distinct from itself, there is at least one possible world in which these parts wouldn't be conjoined (i.e. the thing doesn't exist in all possible worlds)?
No, I am taking the fact that it's phenomenologically apparent that certain properties are necessarily co-extensive if instantiated to suggest we are prima facia justified in taking it as a bed-rock fact about the world. This is perhaps more of an epistemic point than a metaphysical one but I say it suffices to show that complexity and contingency are not a priori conceptually identical.
(Another issue is that one is apt to confuse mereological parts, separable physical parts, with metaphysical parts, properties or property-instances. We have a strong intuition that nothing with mereological parts could be a necessary being but that’s a different issue e.g. the fact that a being with mereological parts is almost certainly a material being and a necessary material being is less intuitively plausible since we can conceive of separating and recombining its parts)
4) What is your opinion on Stephen Davis's formulation of PSR? That every being has an explanation for its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. Notably, it avoids the inclusion of facts and would, I assume, avoid most if not all of your worries about explanations for necessary facts, but would still accomodate the need for explanations for dependent beings in any case.
For myself it wouldn't be completely satisfactory, as I think there should be explanations for necessary eternal truths as I mentioned in 3 for example, but it would be better than nothing anyway.
That was the other point I was going to post on the other day. As I mentioned briefly in my review of Ed's take on the PSR argument technically speaking it is a category mistake to speak of an explanation for a thing - explanations apply to why 'something' is the case where that 'something' is a truth or fact (credits to John West for pointing this out in correspondence). So even the Davis’ weak PSR implicitly refers to facts albeit with the scope restricted to existential facts, facts about the existence of substances*. I do agree it’s easier to swallow than the strong version, possibly because we don’t have such a strong intuition against entities being able to alter themselves.
*Actually I think both the strong and weak PSR involve existential facts. Whilst the later focuses on existential facts about substances the former has a wider remit and covers all property-instantiation, if property-instantiation is taken widely enough to include relational properties (I’d be interested to see if there are facts that can’t be translated into property-claims). I mentioned this at the end of my article on Feser’s Aristotelean proof when I claimed the First and Second Way are close to identical with the strong and weak PSR argument respectively.