Cause and Effect

            One of my upstairs neighbours was moving out as I was leaving for philosophy class, with a real moving company doing the job just like I used to do before my back got sprained.   
            I spent my time before class doing research to try to prove to someone online that most terrorist attacks in North America in the last four years have been committed by non-Muslims. I found that I was right but I doubted if my proof would mean anything to bigots with their minds already made up.   
            Professor Black said she was going to finish her talk on Avicenna and either start her talk on Ghazali or let us off a little early for reading week.
            Causality. Everything in Avicenna’s metaphysics converges around this topic. There are four causes. Causality is a mode of being and not just theology. It’s a study of basic reality and how primary concepts are manifested.
            Aristotle explores this same type of causality from a broader perspective. For him cause is very broad. He is including any principle offering explanation (intrinsic principles).
         
            Material}Intrinsic
            Formal} Intrinsic
            Final} Extrinsic
            Efficient} Extrinsic

            Thing (example: bed) – form – shape
            Matter – material from which it is made.
            Matter might be elements (intrinsic) or the matter from which the thing is constructed (extrinsic).
            For Avicenna the final cause is central. The final cause is the cause of the causality of other causes.

God is an efficient cause.

Aristotle’s four causes in physics; material, formal, efficient and final.Avicenna never outright criticizes Aristotle but says his is a more proper account of the efficient cause.

Efficient cause → Physics → Moving cause or cause of motion or any alteration such as changing my hair colour or any physical changes.

Efficient cause → Metaphysics → Agent cause → to do with being and the existence of the effect rather than its motion. It must also account for why the existence is.

Cause and effect are distinct → Agent and patient are two distinct things.

God and the supra-lunar intellects don’t resemble effects like a human father and son.

Agent cause → Causes being after non-being.

This cannot explain absolute non-being. Effect did not exist before.

An agent cause must be sufficient.

True agent → Sufficient for effect.

There are two causes: the physical cause and the proper true agent. It must be completely active to be a sufficient agent and make agency actual.

The only true agent is one whose effects are never thwarted – god.

Al-kindi incorporated Aristotelian thought into an Islamic philosophical framework. He described god as the creator. This means it acts as both a final and efficient cause. He conceived of god as an active agent. For him god was the agent. God acts through created intermediaries which in turn act on one another - through a chain of cause and effect – to produce the desired result. But the intermediaries do not act at all and are merely conduits for god’s action. This made Aristotle’s first cause and unmoved mover compatible with Islamic philosophy.

If you put these together the agent that is the cause must hold the effect up for its entire existence.

True agency → Creation

True Agency → Concentration in being

The necessary existent in itself

The possible existent in itself – is purely possible but it does not have to exist. It never loses the possibility of existing. Even when it exists its existence is still possible in its own essence. But if you take away the agent cause of the possible existent the PE will disappear.

Avicenna says that the agent cause spills over to give existence to other things.

Plato says that good is naturally diffusive of self. It pours itself out.

We need to tell another causal story over and above.

If creation and conservation in being are part of the same agency there is simultaneity of cause and effect. If all causes are in place, effect follows immediately. If the effect disappears the cause has stopped trying.

Avicenna offers three examples of types of physical change that show the simultaneity principle across the board.

Father → Son – the father doesn’t make a human but rather prepares the matter.

Builder → House – the builder does not cause the building but rather arranges the materials in form.

Fire → Water – the fire is the cause of the change in nature of the water.
Father → Son      } Helping or preparatory causes
Builder → House} simultaneous with their effects

Fire → Water      } preparing or disposing their matter.

The father and the builder are prior to their effects. The father does not cause the son’s nature. There has to be a further cause.

Givers of form. Physical causes prepare matter.

The proximate or nearest cause is the agent intellect. God does not micromanage the universe. It just thinks and thinks and overflows with form. The agent intellect is always doing its thing.

As soon as the physical human body develops, what emanates is the human being.

The body is the preparatory cause for the afterlife. 
           On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought grapes and a sirloin tip roast, among other things. Plus I finally remembered to buy dental floss. Also on the way home I bypassed home because I’d remembered that I’d forgotten to pay for my November phone service.
           I bought a beer to make up for not getting one on Wednesday, even though Thursday is not a beer day in my diet.
           I took a very late siesta and when I woke up before 19:00 I was confused because I’d thought that I was in bed for the night and wondered why I hadn’t brushed my teeth before hitting the sack.
           When I argued with a post on a bigoted social media page, a woman said I was “really dummy”. I pointed out that she’d just qualified a noun with an adverb.