1 of 1- lawrence89
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What if the series of causes is the cause?
Recently I was talking with a friend about the first (and second) way, and he made me this objection. He recognized that it is right to look for a mover, and that the moved movers are not sufficient to move themeselves, if they are taken singularly. But he said that we can't exclude the case where the entire series of movers constitutes the real mover, as if its moving power was an emergent property that the single moved movers didn't have. I answered that the series is not a real entity, but just a human concept, so it's impossible that an idea causes something in reality. But I'm not entirely satisfied with my answer: how do we know that the series is not a real entity composed of other real entities? So how could I answer? I thought that I could also answer that if the series was the unmoved mover, then it would mean that the unmoved mover was composed of single moving parts, which is absurd. But how can we prove that it is absurd? Although it seems something obvious, it could be accused of being a composition fallacy to say that a series made by moved things can't be unmoved, as if I say that a house can't weigh more than 1 pound if it is composed of bricks that weigh 1 pound. So I suppose the only way to prevent this objection is to ground what is a composition in philosophy of nature, discussing that composed objects are contingent themeselves, and so they require a cause. But in this way, aquinas's ways become much longer. Do you see any quicker answer to this objection? Why can't the series be itself a cause?
Last edited by lawrence89 (4/10/2016 5:22 am)
- iwpoe
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
I think that's a category mistake. A series of causes isn't the *sort of thing* that can be a mover. Maybe on your analogy with houses and bricks we might say 'Houses as such just aren't the sort of things that one can build up houses out of'.
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- DanielCC
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
iwpoe wrote:
I think that's a category mistake. A series of causes isn't the *sort of thing* that can be a mover.
I concur. Either that or one of these two:
1. An appeal to self-causation A collection of movers ordered in a certain way i.e. the casual direction may well have properties each individual mover lacks but that in no way explains why it should be the cause of itself (even Hume considered that absurd).
Consideration A: Also: if the collection was the unmoved mover fulfills the role of unmoved mover then it is de facto a necessary being. Yet are not all its parts i.e. the movers that make up the series, contingent? If so then one can counter by saying that it's incoherent to have a necessary being composed solely of contingent parts. If not, and one of the beings in the series is necessary, then why not simplify and claim that is the unmoved mover.
Consideration B: The term 'mover' and 'motion' are less than helpful translations here as what we really mean is 'changer' and 'change'. With this in mind your criticism about composition becomes clearer - on pains of contradiction one cannot have an unchanged being ever part of which is changing.
Re Fallacies of Composition, the critic i.e. the one arguing for the fallacy, still has to explain why the part-whole reasoning in question is fallacious. Until they give a reason to think that a totality of changing parts does not rule out a whole without change the field is yours.
Last edited by DanielCC (4/10/2016 5:46 am)
- lawrence89
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
I think that's a category mistake. A series of causes isn't the *sort of thing* that can be a mover.
Yes but... why?
but that in no way explains why it should be the cause of itself (even Hume considered that absurd).
Yes but... why? 
Also: if the collection was the unmoved mover fulfills the role of unmoved mover then it is de facto a necessary being. Yet are not all its parts i.e. the movers that make up the series, contingent? If so then one can counter by saying that it's incoherent to have a necessary being composed solely of contingent parts.
But it could be answered that it is a composition fallacy. To deduce the contingency of the whole from the contingency of the components needs first that we prove that a necessary being can't ever be composed of contingent beings. But how can we quickly prove it?
on pains of contradiction one cannot have an unchanged being ever part of which is changing.
Yes but... why?
Re Fallacies of Composition, the critic i.e. the one arguing for the fallacy, still has to explain why the part-whole reasoning in question is fallacious. Until they give a reason to think that a totality of changing parts does not rule out a whole without change the field is yours.
No. The critic just notices that there is a chance in which the composition can be false, so he says that we can't logically conclude anything. The thomist must give reason to explain why the series can't be a mover.
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Thread Starter- DanielCC
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
Something that ought to be remembered: one is not required to prove every premise of an argument only that each premise is more plausible than its negation - the critic can of course contest the truth of each and any, at which point they present arguments why this so.
I think that's a category mistake. A series of causes isn't the *sort of thing* that can be a mover.
Yes but... why?
On your head to explain why it could be. Recommend starting by analysing what it means to be a 'mover' and to be a 'series'. The account the Thomists (and others) give takes 'mover' to be a substance term and 'series' to refer to an ordered 'collection', itself a shorthand word for a number of substances (in this case standing in certain relations to one another) - maybe you have another account to put forward though?
but that in no way explains why it should be the cause of itself (even Hume considered that absurd).
Yes but... why?
On your head to explain why something that does not exist can exert any action, such as bringing itself into being, whilst not existing. Recommend you look into time travel, whether it is possible, and if so how that avoids a theory of temporal parts that would rule out self-causation on other grounds.
on pains of contradiction one cannot have an unchanged being ever part of which is changing.
Yes but... why?
On your head to explain why. Perhaps you would like to start by giving us an account of an appropriate theory of part-whole relationships and emergent properties.
No. The critic just notices that there is a chance in which the composition can be false, so he says that we can't logically conclude anything. The thomist must give reason to explain why the series can't be a mover.
No, once again the onus is on the opponent of an argument to raise objections, even more so if the premise has intuitive plausibility. Merely noting that an argument makes reference to composition on its own is not enough justify a charge of there being a fallacy of composition.
Last edited by DanielCC (4/11/2016 5:35 am)
- John West
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
on pains of contradiction one cannot have an unchanged being ever part of which is changing.
Yes but... why?
Let us use parts to mean spatial parts.
It's worth drawing the distinction between homoeomerous and anomoeomerous properties. A property is homoeomerous if and only if for all particulars, x, which have that property, then for all parts y of x, y also has that property. If a property isn't homoeomerous, it's anomoeomerous.
x changes if and only if x has a property, F, at one time and lacks F at another time.
Consider the mereological sum or fusion of all tea cups. By composition as identity, the fusion is nothing over and above the tea cups. It just is the cups. They just are it. Taken together or as individuals, the cups are the same portion of reality.
It follows that the tea cup fusion is also partially identical with each of its parts taken individually.
If one of the tea cups a chips, it loses the (anomoeomerous) property G of having a certain shape. Then the fusion, a + b + c + d + . . ., loses the (anomoeomerous) property H of having that part with the tea cup shape.[1][2]
The point can be argued in general. If the entirety of y is partially identical with x and y loses a property, x loses a property. All parts are partially identical to their wholes in this manner, or wholly identical to their wholes. Hence, if y is a part of x and y loses a property, x loses a property[3].
If x loses a property, x changes. Hence, if y is a part of x and y loses a property, x changes. Thus, if a part of your whole series loses a property, your whole series changes.
By the same argument, if a part of your whole series gains a property, your whole series changes. Losing or gaining a property exhausts the ways your whole's parts can change[4]. Hence, if a part of your whole series changes, your whole series changes. Thus, the whole of your series cannot be the unmoved mover of its changing parts.
But you knew this at a glance.
[1]If one of the tea cup's simples—one of its parts without its own further proper parts—is painted purple, then the tea cup simple loses a homoeomerous property and the tea cup fusion loses an anomoeomerous property.
[2]The tea cup fusion may instantiate a structural property of which tea cup a's shape property was partly constitutive. In that case, the structural property changes.
[3]It doesn't matter if that property, F, is homoeomerous or anomoeomerous. If F is a homoeomerous property of y but not x, then x loses an anomoeomerous property. If F is an anomoeomerous property of y, then x loses an anomoeomerous property. If F is a homoeomerous property of both x and y, then x still loses a property and F ceases to be a homoeomerous property of x. (Since it's impossible for x to have a homoeomerous property that any part of y lacks, the fourth combination is impossible.)
[4]Without going out of existence, perhaps. I'll leave that case as homework.
- iwpoe
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
John, I like geometric examples because I process shapes well:
Is a stationary sphere that is in rotation changing place as a whole or not? I think that I would want to say that all of its parts are changing their place while the whole as such is not. Indeed, one might even be inclined to say that all the parts are continually working to return to their original place over and over.
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- John West
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Re: What if the series of causes is the cause?
Is a stationary sphere that is in rotation changing place as a whole or not? I think that I would want to say that all of its parts are changing their place while the whole as such is not. Indeed, one might even be inclined to say that all the parts are continually working to return to their original place over and over.
Let us draw a distinction between relations and relational properties. Being 2 centimeters from is a dyadic relation two particulars instantiate. In contrast, being 2 centimeters from an electron is a monadic relational property that certain single particulars instantiate.
If there are relational properties, then the sphere's parts are losing and gaining relational properties. I would say that there are relational properties (that supervene on certain states of affairs). All the same points as the previous post seem to apply with these relational properties.
But what about a universe that is empty except for a simple atom God is spinning? Then there is still the reduction of potencies to act. Presumably a property manifests every time one of the atom's potencies are reduced to act. Another response might be in terms of properties relating to location in absolute space.
Last edited by John West (4/11/2016 9:40 pm)