Hume, Aristotle, and the Tendrils of Determinism
(J. M. Jordan – Linfield College)
[The Aristotelians] say that whatever happens, happens, come what may, because of
some cause, but they do not notice that they create an uncaused cause when they enroll
chance among the causes. For that is what chance is: the uncaused.
— Proclus, in Platonis Timaeum commentaria
So to that chance which seems slack-reined to roam
Endures its own bridle, and itself moves by law.
— Boethius, Consolatio philosophiae
Opening the analysis of causation in his Treatise, Hume famously remarked: “no
question…has caus’d more disputes both among ancient and modern philosophers, than
this concerning the efficacy of causes, or that quality which made them be followed by
their effects.”1 Hume’s own analysis hardly escaped such disputes; among the vast array
of complaints mounted against it, one in particular has proven most popular and
recrudescent: Hume assumes the causal relation to be one of logically-necessaryconnexion…and then proceeds to burst the balloon he himself inflated.2 A contextual
defense of Hume on this point has been recently advanced by Walter Ott, who argues that
such criticisms are anachronistic in that the identification of causation with logically
necessary connection was accepted by all of Hume’s intellectual predecessors extending
back to classical antiquity.3 While the deterministic bent of Hume’s early-modern
1
A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford UP, 1955), 1.3.14; 156.
E.g. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man (Edinburgh, 1808), 2:604; Thomas Brown,
Observations on the Nature and Tendency of the Doctrine of Mr. Hume (Edinburgh, 1806), 12; C.J.
Ducasse, Nature, Mind and Death (Open Court, 1951), 93-96; G.E.M. Anscombe, Causality and
Determination (Cambridge, 1971). 4; Harre & Madden, Causal Powers (Blackwell, 1975).
3
Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford, 2009), 21.
2
1 predecessors is attested beyond the need for argument, this interpretation stands opposed
to much scholarship on ancient philosophy.4 Nonetheless, I regard Ott’s thesis as both
perspicacious and quite correct; my intention here is to provide it with a detailed defense
as concerns ancient views on causation.5
1. Determination and Necessity in Antiquity
Hume’s conception of causality is historically tied to the larger issue of determinism.
Unfortunately, ‘determinism’ has never been a term of art in the history of metaphysics;
it was and remains a multivious designation often employed in connotations that have
little or nothing to do with causation. Some ancient schools openly accepted determinism;
others stridently opposed it. Nonetheless, I would offer as a global thesis that all such
opposition was in the direct and immediate service of libertarianism. While the issue of
‘Fate’ was widely disputed in antiquity, the determinism underlying it was deemed
worthy of criticism only on moral grounds: viz. as incompatible with human freedom.6
While this thesis is against the most recent scholarly exposition,7 it will be sufficient for
my purposes to establish that even the most ardent ancient libertarians dared not infect
their physical systems with real causal indeterminism.
Such reticence is most obvious with those vociferous defenders of human
freedom: the Epicureans. While their notorious doctrine of ‘the swerve’ would seem to
grant a causal indeterminancy of the most radical sort, its mandate was restricted entirely
4
See Richard Sorabji, “Causation, Laws, and Necessity” in Doubt and Dogmatism (Clarendon, 1980), 250
(hereafter ‘Sorabji 1980a’).
5
Ott does not strongly argue for his thesis; however, at least some of the points he makes on its behalf are
au fait and recapitulated below.
6
E.g. Proclus, Prov. 33; Alexander, Mantissa, xxii.170.2-7. As with Kant and the Romantic reaction to
Newtonianism, the primary concern of the Peripatetics and Epicureans was protecting the human moral
capacity, not attacking the notion of determinism in nature as such.
7
John Dudley, Aristotle’s Conception of Chance (SUNY, 2012). 313.
2 to the service of the freedom of the will,8 and studiously quarantined from infecting
Epicurean physics and their epistemology of causal explanation9—a half-hearted
commitment that was oft-noted by ancient critics.10 The Peripatetics were similarly
motivated though more logically coherent—for Aspasius and every commentator on
Aristotle after, the propositions “a human being is always a source of his own actions,”
and “everything is not determined of necessity or fated” were inextricably tied.11 That is,
the Peripatos were known not only for their libertarianism, but also their firm
commitment to contingency and chance, best evidenced in their criticisms of Megarian
and Stoic fatalism. Aristotle himself insisted: “among things which are, some are always
in the same state and are of necessity…and some are not of necessity nor always, but for
the most part.”12
Impressed by such passages, many commentators have regarded Aristotle as
denying causal determinism—the view that causes determine or are necessarily
connected with their effects.13 Richard Sorabji goes so far as to claim that the notion was
a Stoic invention, and, to the extent that later-Peripatetics describe causal relations as
8
See R. J. Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought (Clarendon, 1998), 219.
See Diogenes Laërtius, Vitae, x.134; Lucretius, De rerum natura, i.150-173; ii.253-260.
10
See Cicero, De fato, ix.18, x.23 (hereafter ‘De fato(a)’); Alexander, De fato, 192.25 (hereafter ‘De
fato(b)); Philodemus, Col.33-34; Plutarch, Stoic.rep. 1045B. Cf. Dudley 2012, 313.
11 in Eth.Nic., 74.10-­‐11; Sharples 2010, 211. 12
Met.1026b27-31; cf. Ph.196b10
13
Richard Loening cites nineteen fin de siècle scholars who advanced indeterminist interpretations; see Die
Zurechningslehre des Aristoteles (Hildesheim, 1903), xviii(n.2-4). Additional figures include: Albert
Rivaud, Le problem du devenir (Paris: Alcan, 1906); W.D. Ross, Aristotle’s Physics (Clarendon, 1936),
Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Clarendon, 1958);; David Balme, “Greek Science and Mechanism I. Aristotle on
Nature and Chance.” The Classical Quarterly 33 (1939): 129-138, Aristotle’s De Partibus Animalium I and
De Generatione Animalium I (Clarendon, 1972); Samuel Sambursky, “On the Possible and the Probable in
Ancient Greece” Osiris 12 (1956): 35-48, Physics of the Stoics (Routledge, 1959); Wolfgang Kullmann,
Wissenschaft und Methode (De Gryuter, 1974); Dorothea Frede, “Aristotle on the Limits of Determinism,”
in Aristotle on Nature and Living Things (Mathesis Pub., 1985); C.J.F. Williams, “Some Comments on
Metaphysics E. 2, 3” Illinois Classical Studies 11 (1986); Robert Gaskin, The Sea Battle and the Master
Argument (De Gruyter, 1995); Christos Panayides, Aristotle on Modality and Determinism (Intercollege
Press, 2002).
9
3 such, he attributes this to the pervasive influence of the Stoic view.14 Crediting the Stoics
with the invention of causation-as-necessary-connection seems excessive; even archenemies, like Carneades, openly conceded: “If everything takes place with antecedent
causes, all events take place in a closely knit web of natural interconnexon; if this is so,
all things are caused by necessity.”15 Indeed, Sorabji himself admits that Aristotle
“concedes that an effect is necessary, given its cause;”16 and several commentators have
taken such concessions as evidence that Aristotle was a complete determinist.17
A great deal of the addlepated morass surrounding this issue stems from
subintelligitur differences concerning the term itself. John Dudley defines ‘determinism’
as “the theory that all events occur necessarily, i.e. the theory that the past could not have
been different and that, given a certain past, the future is already determined.”18 This is a
most confusing definition: Dudley first identifies determinism with ‘necessity’ and the
view that the past could not have been otherwise; he then obliquely refers the matter to
causation, which fixes the future in place “given a certain past.” 19 But if the past “could
not have been different” than it was, what sense does the supposition of a “certain past”
make?20 With greater clarity, Sorabji proposes the following: “By determinism I shall
14
Sorabji 1980a, 253; Sorabji, Necessity, Cause, and Blame (Cornell UP, 1980), 64 (hereafter ‘1980b’)
De fato(a), xiv.31
16
1980b, 8-9
17
Those favoring deterministic interpretations include Leoning; Thedor Gomperz, Greek Thinkers,
(London, 1912); Jakko Hintikka, Time and Necessity (Clarendon, 1973), Aristotle on Modality and
Determinism (North-Holland, 1977); Gail Fine, “Aristotle on Determinism” The Philosophical Review 40
(1981): 561-578, “Truth and Necessity in De Interpretatione 9” History of Philosophy Quarterly 1 (1984),
40ff. Hankinson generally interprets Aristotle as embracing “physical determinism,” but declines to take a
definitive stand on the issue. (1998, 139)
18
2012, 217
19
This is explicit when Dudley claims that the epistemic “corollary” of determinism is “the supreme
intelligence imagined by Laplace.” (2012, 271-272)
20
This is a particularly pernicious confusion as Aristotle clearly and repeatedly claims the past is necessary
because it cannot be otherwise (now), but nowhere claims it could not have been otherwise (then). It was
perfectly possible for Alexander to refrain from crossing the Hellespont against Persia; but he did cross,
and this past event cannot now be otherwise as it is past.
15
4 mean the view that whatever happens has all along been necessary, that is, fixed or
inevitable…I have deliberately defined determinism by reference, not to causation, but to
necessity.”21 Yet elsewhere Sorabji speaks of “causal determinism.”22 Placing two
opposed notions under the same label seems destined to engender confusion; I shall thus
keep to the following division:
•
What Sorabji refers to as ‘determinism’ I shall refer to as ‘necessitarianism,’ or
the position that all events are logically necessary, as intended by the famous
“sea-battle” argument, which makes no reference to causality but the bivalence of
propositions.23
•
What I refer to as ‘determinism’ is precisely and entirely what Sorabji et al. refer
to as causal determinism. It refers to the determination that an antecedent cause or
state of affairs imposes on consequent effects or states of affairs.
While this distinction has been made by some,24 none of the three major scholarly
examinations of Aristotle’s theory recognize the need.25 At this juncture I shall limit
myself to noting that, under the foregoing, my interpretation of Aristotle is compatible
with Sorabji’s, for he himself admits: “Aristotle recognizes the widespread occurrence of
what we should call causal necessity.”26 Indeed, several prominent scholars have noted
21
1980b, ix. Cf. Fine 1981, 561.
1980b, 8
23
De int.18a28-19a5; De fato(a), ix.20-21 Cf. Sorabji 2005, iii.111.
24
E.g. Michael White, “Fatalism and Causal Determinism” Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1981), 231;
Panayides, “Aristotle on Causal Determinism and Fatalism” Ancient Philosophy 29 (2009), 107(n.1). Both
refer to the Megarian view as ‘fatalism.’ While this is a common terminology, I am hesitant to follow them
since most of the Stoics identify ‘Fate’ with the inviolable chain of causes. (Cicero, De div.i.125-126; SVF
2.921; Long & Sedley, 337) Following their lead, ‘fatalism’ has often been used in a distinctly causal
sense—even by White, who speaks of “Laplacean fatalism.” (1981, 232)
25
Viz. Hintikka et al., 1977; Sorabji, 1980b Dudley, 2012. Hintikka uses ‘determinism’ in the same vein as
Sorabji, but later acknowledges that another sense of the term concerns not “the Megarian problem” but
rather “transitions from a state to another.” (53)
26
1980b, 152
22
5 that he displays no evident recognition of any difference between logical and causal
necessity.27
2. Customary Objections to Aristotle as Determinist
The view that Aristotle rejected causal determinism is typically advanced on the basis of
one or more of the following lines of reasoning, which crop up repeatedly in his corpus:
1) Aristotle’s rejection of necessitarianism.
2) Aristotle’s rejection of a tergo conditional-necessity.
3) Aristotle’s insistence that material-necessity is insufficient to explain phenomena.
4) Aristotle’s defense of chance and contingence.
In this section I shall address these seriatim, arguing that none of them actually warrants
the indeterminist interpretation.
Aristotle’s rejection of necessitarianism
Diodorus Cronus famously held that “nothing happens which was not necessary, and that
whatever is possible is now or will be.”28 The best example of this conception of
modality is the “The Reaper” argument:
‘If you reap,’ it says, ‘it is not the case that perhaps you will reap and
perhaps you will not reap, but you will reap, whatever happens; and if you
will not reap…whatever happens, you will not reap. But in fact, of
necessity, either you will reap or you will not reap.’ Therefore the
27
Sorabji: “[Aristotle] does not recognize a distinction between causal necessity and necessity which is (in
a broad sense) logical.” (1980b, 223) Hintikka: “[For Aristotle] all real differences disappeared
between…what we called logical or conceptual and on the other hand physical or natural necessity.”
(1977, 34) Funkenstein: “nowhere does Aristotle distinguish between logical-absolute and physical
necessities.” (1983, 163) Nothing in Aristotle’s most explicit definition of possibility gainsays this
interpretation. (An.pr.32a18-20)
28
De fato(a), ix.17; cf. Epictetus, Diss., ii.19, 1-4; SVF 1.109.
6 ‘perhaps’ has been destroyed…But the ‘perhaps’ was what introduced the
contingent. Therefore, the contingent is gone.29
Now, in the passage from Metaphysics E quoted in the previous section concerning those
effects which come-to-be “for the most part,”30 Aristotle includes a caveat clarifying that
he was not denying “necessity in the sense of compulsion but that which means the
impossibility of being otherwise.”31 This caveat strongly implies that it is Diodorus’
notion of necessity Aristotle was criticizing;32 and this notion has nothing to do with
causality but with the bivalence of propositions.33 Carneades rejected the argument on
precisely this basis:
…it does not immediately follow from the fact that every statement is
either true or false that there are immutable causes…that forbid anything
to fall out otherwise than it will fall out…For it makes a great deal of
difference whether a natural cause, existing from all eternity, renders
future things true, or things that are going to be in the future can be
understood to be true even without any natural eternity.34
Carneades’ point is that this latter position is unintelligible: the mere truth of a
proposition does not bring about its existential conclusion, causes do.
It is against this ‘Megarian’ notion of necessity that Aristotle’s criticisms of
sublunary absolute/unconditional-necessity must be understood. Part of the difficulty is
that, like some contemporary commentators, Aristotle does not clearly and consistently
29
Ammonius, in Int.131,25-33
Met.1026b31
31
Met.1026b29; Aquinas, SCG, 2.39.3. Notably, Dudley claims that force/compulsion is “an efficient cause
and causes by absolute-necessity (although it can be hindered by a counter-force).” (2012, 111) This is
most perplexing interpretation insofar as it clearly contradicted by Aristotle twice in the above quote. Not
only is he distinguishing force/compulsion from absolute-necessity, but he clearly defines the latter as what
cannot be otherwise—and thus could never be hindered by a counter-force. This is why Aristotle places
absolute-necessity only in the superlunary sphere of objects whose circular motion can never be impeded.
Dudley also rejects this standard interpretation and claims that absolute-necessity also exists in the
sublunary sphere. (2012, 103)
32
This is a disputable interpretation, as are any that concern this section of Met. E. For a contrary
interpretation, see Panayides 2002, 23-26. My own interpretation should not be taken to suggest that
Aristotle was specifically criticizing Diodorus; see David Sedley “Diodorus Cronus and Hellenistic
Philosophy.” Proceeding of the Cambridge Philological Society 203 (1977): 74-118.
33
De fato(a) ix.20. Sorabji concurs on this point; (1980b, 91) as did Leoning. (1903, 293)
34
De fato(a) xi.28
30
7 distinguish the particular notions of ‘necessity’ at issue; an ambiguity that leads to
confusing passages like that in Metaphysics Λ, where Aristotle seems to reject the
determination of the efficient cause by identifying it with motion and noting that “if
something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than it is.”35 But again, this is only a
rejection of necessitarianism not causal determinism; as he immediately makes clear, any
motion “which cannot be otherwise…is absolutely necessary.”36 Thus, the contingency
Aristotle identifies in the efficient cause of motion concerns only whether a particular
cause or potentiality will be present at a particular time, for this is where the capability of
“being otherwise” lies.
Nonetheless, Aristotle’s famous defense of future contingents in De
interpretatione 9 does have a distinctive causal upshot: when he denies that, if “in the
whole of time the state of things was such that one or the other was true, it was necessary
for this to happen,” he is not merely objecting—like Carneades—to the conflation of
propositional bivalence with causation, but moreover to what might be called the
unlimited transitivity of causality.37 This was an Stoic notion whereby the chain of causes
is fixed throughout time in an eternally recurring cycle;38 thus any future event will be
determined by a sequence of causes extending back to eternity; thus for any X that
comes-to-be, X was always-to-come-to-be; thus ‘◻X’. I refer to this conception of
determinism as ‘determinism raisonné’ and argue in section four that Aristotle does
endeavor to avoid it, but does so without abandoning the principle that proximate
efficient causes determine their effects.
35
Met.1072b3
Met.1072b13
37
Fine concurs. (1981, 568-n.6)
38
See Ricardo Salles, “Determinism and Recurrence in Early Stoic Thought” Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 24 (2003): 253-272.
36
8 Aristotle’s rejection of ‘a tergo’ conditional-necessity
Perhaps the strongest argument against interpreting Aristotle as a causal determinist
hinges on his rejection of ‘unqualified’ and a tergo [‘from behind’] ‘conditionalnecessity,’ which comes in response to his consideration of “whether there is anything
which will necessarily exist, or whether everything may fail to come-to-be.”39 The issue
is complicated and his been the subject of scholarly debate since late-antiquity,40 but a
succinct treatment is possible following Mariska Leunissen’s helpful division of
Aristotle’s notions of necessity:
1) Material (a.k.a. ‘natural,’ or ‘causal’) necessity, which describes the causal
productivity of agents in accordance with their material-substantial natures, as
well as the receptivity of their patients to the activity of the agent.41 (N.B. This
includes efficient causality)
2) Conditional (a.k.a. ‘hypothetical’) necessity, which describes the requirement of
certain antecedent causes given the coming-to-be of certain telic ends.
3) Unconditional (a.k.a. ‘absolute,’ or ‘tout court’) necessity, which describes events
or states of affairs that occur (an reoccur) always and existentially cannot be
otherwise. 42
Aristotle regards all of the foregoing as existing in re, though he is adamant that
unconditional/absolute-necessity finds place only in the perpetuum mobile of the celestial
39
Gen.Corr.337b3.
See Richard Sharples, “‘If What is Earlier, Then of Necessity What is Later’?” Bulletin of the Institute of
Classical Studies 26 (1979): 27-44.
41
Cf. SCG, 2.30.13
42
Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle’s Science of Nature (Cambridge UP, 2010), 103.
40
9 sphere, whose movements occur and reoccur always.43 While there is some scholarly
disagreement on this point,44 it seems evident that his denial of sublunary absolutenecessity is the corollary of his view that no agent-cause therein is wholly sufficient for
the production of its effects.45 This conception extends from a basic maxim of
Aristotelian physics: natural causality is not of a one-sided modality, but rather a
constellation of active powers in the agent, passive powers in the patient, and specific
necessary conditions surrounding the interaction of the two. As we shall see, this matrix
of efficacy requirements allows Aristotle and his scions to account for irregularities in
nature when specific effects “fail to come-to-be” following their customary effects,46 but
this nowise confirms them as indeterminists; a cause may be necessarily connected with
its effect without being of-itself sufficient for it.
In contrast to the absolute-necessity of celestial motion, hypothetical-necessity is
fundamentally teleological in derivation:
By necessity we shall sometimes mean that the requisite antecedents must
be there, if the final end is to be reached. That is to say, if a certain event
is to come-to-be for the purpose of particular ends, then other certain
properties must be present or certain events must happen—sine qua non—
43
Part.An.639b24; Gen.Corr.338a4-6
Dudley claims that absolute/unconditional-necessity exists in the sublunary sphere by identifying it with
“the material and efficient causes…[which] cause by absolute-necessity.” (2012, 113) This interpretation
not only contradicts commentators such as Alexander (Quaest.2.22,71,13-33), but seemingly unequivocal
claims made by Aristotle himself. (e.g. Gen.Corr.337b14-23) Dudley (correctly) argues that deer shed their
horns by hypothetical-necessity as well as material-necessity, but then (as per the foregoing) claims that
they thus shed them by absolute-necessity as well. (2012, 115) If this be the case, then it would be
metaphysically impossible for any deer to retain its horns, for Aristotle defines absolute/unconditionalnecessity as that which “cannot be otherwise”. (Met.1072b13; cf. Mantissa, xxiii.184.15-18) Yet, it seems
perfectly possible that there could be born a monstrous deer that retains its horns in the winter; and this
being so, the shedding of horns in deer could never be of absolute-necessity. Dudley also grants that causes
that operate of absolute-necessity could be blocked, which makes no sense at all. The whole point for
Aristotle is that the movements of the celestial bodies are absolutely-necessary because they can never be
blocked. Dudley correctly notes, pace Balme, that material/efficient causality is not of hypotheticalnecessity, (2012, 127-128) but seems to regard this as implying that it must be of absolute-necessity.
45
Leunissen 2010, 101.
46
See SCG, 2.30.13-14
44
10 in order that it may do so47—e.g. if a house is to be built, then necessarily
a foundation must be built.48
As Alexander of Aphrodisias explains: “the things that precede the final [member of the
series] only derive necessity without qualification from the end if this comes-to-be of
necessity without qualification…since it follows on this thing that comes-to-be of
necessity that the things before it too come-to-be of necessity.”49 This is what is known as
a fronte [‘from the front’] necessity and formed the basis of Carneades’ aforementioned
criticism of Stoic necessitarianism: “if a…chain of interlinked causes is not going to
bring [an event] about, can it be true in any other manner?”50 The point was conceded by
Chrysippus, who demurred from the necessitarianism of Diodorus and Zeno of Citium by
holding that fate must track causality, such that the true proposition and the antecedent
causes which bring it about are ‘co-fated’ [confatalia].51 Yet, Alexander notes that the
principle “if what is later, of necessity also what is first” holds not only “where one of the
things that are later comes-to-be of necessity,” but “is true also in the case of the things
that come-to-be contingently.”52 Thus, what-is-earlier does not “derive” its own necessity
from the necessity of what-is-later, but rather from its given-ness as such.53
This consideration adds needed context to Aristotle’s question and conclusion
underlying conditional necessity:
47
Cf. Part.An.642a1ff. See Cooper 1987, 243 for an excellent explanation of this point.
Gen.Corr.337b14-25
49
Quaest.2.22,71,13-33
50
De fato(a), xii.27
51
Ibid., xiii.30
52
Quaest.3.5,88.25-28. That is to say, using Aristotle’s example, no house comes-to-be of necessity, but
rather contingently on the existence and inclination of the builder. Yet, if these are given and the house is
then to come to be, the coming-to-be of its foundation is necessary for the coming-to-be of house, even
though contingent.
53
For example, in the case of an Athenian travelling to Thebes, we can say: ‘If he arrives at Thebes he
necessarily quit Athens.’ Neither are necessary in-themselves, but, in the case that he arrives at Thebes, he
must necessarily have quit Athens.
48
11 Assuming that what is prior must have come-to-be if what is posterior is to
be…is the converse also true? If foundations have come-to-be, must a
house come-to-be? It seems that this is not so, unless it is necessary
absolutely for the latter to come-to-be. If that is the case…[then], if the
prior has come-to-be, then the posterior also must come-to-be—
not…because of the prior, but because its future being was assumed as
necessary.54
This asymmetry between a fronte and a tergo necessity is significant both metaphysically
and epistemologically. In terms of the latter, Aristotle’s conception of scientific
deduction is syllogistic in form but causal in essence,55 and “deduction proceeds from
what has come about later…it does not proceed from what is earlier.”56 “There is,” as
Aristotle says, “a great difference between a thing happening propter hoc and post
hoc,”57 and thus one may one infer by “scientific deduction” only from E→C (from the
given-ness of an effect to the necessity of its cause) and never from C→E, (from the
given-ness of cause to the necessity of its effect).
On the metaphysical side, Aristotle’s acceptance of conditional-necessity a fronte
(posterior-to-prior), but rejection of conditional necessity a tergo (prior-to-posterior),
seems to deny that antecedaneous material conditions determine subsequent material
conditions—and by implication any necessary connection between an efficient cause and
its effect: simply because a foundation is constructed does not entail that a house will be
constructed over it. This interpretation was advanced early on; Simplicius explains:
The matter is conditionally necessary; when the end and the purpose are
fixed the material necessity follows, and it is accordingly this which is a
sine qua non of the completion [of the house]…The end does not follow
of necessity on the changes in the matter; it is rather the case that <the
matter> is by nature preordained to fit in with the end…So the end does
not follow its antecedents through any material necessity, but when the
54
Gen.Corr.337b14-23
An.post.71b9-12; Leunissen 2010, 177; Fine 1981, 569. Hintikka et al. 1977, 34.
56
An.post.95a28-30
57
Poet.1452a21
55
12 end is established as a condition, then the material necessity follows
because of this condition…Thus the matter is subject to necessity because
of the end, but not vice versa. For what happens does so for the sake of the
end…[and] it happens not because the matter is the overriding cause, but
because it could not happen without it.58
As Simplicius presents the matter, the material and final causes are united in a kind of
harmonie pré-établie under which any syncopation between them (i.e. where materialnecessity might work against the final cause) is impossible. As we shall see, this is
simply not the case, which belies Simplicius’ claim that the necessity of matter follows
that of the final cause, “but not vice versa.”
A considerable part of the contemporary confusion surrounding Aristotle’s
argument here stems from the fact that he presents it as a refutation of the physikoi, but,
insofar as our modern notion of causal explanation is closer to them than to him, it clouds
the issue at stake; viz. If an efficient cause is given, must its effect follow? Aristotle
himself never explicitly broaches this question for three reasons. First, Aristotle
understood efficient causality to be so thoroughly guided by final causality that, if
anything, the real question is the other way around.59 To cite an ancient example: ‘If a
female mammal is lactating, necessarily she has given birth’60—the inverse of which
would be: ‘If a female mammal gives birth, necessarily she will lactate.’ In the former,
lactation is necessary a fronte; in latter it is necessary a tergo; and while these two
propositions are not logically interchangeable,61 and Aristotle typically only states the
58
in Ph.387,3-28
This is particularly evident in Simplicius’ explication above. See also Part.An 641a23ff. Cf. Philoponus,
in Ph.312,28-30; 120; Nemesius, De nat. hom., §35,104.19.
60
See Menexenus 237e; Sextus, Adv.math., viii.252; P.H., ii.106.
61
The first proposition implies only that giving birth is a necessary condition of lactation; the second
implies that it is sufficient; but, insofar as there is no more absurdity (and thus equal hypotheticalpossibility) in a woman giving birth without lactating than a woman lactating without giving birth, we need
not worry about any confusion of the inverse here.
59
13 former,62 it is obvious that he accepts the latter as well, and says as much in analogous
cases.63 Yet, Aristotle undoubtedly regarded the a tergo formulation as but vacuously true
since, from a teleological perspective, lactation is not an accident materially implied by
birth (like paleness64), but rather mothers lactate for the sake of what they gave birth to.
Second, in analyzing the views of his predecessors, Aristotle imposes his own
quadripartite causal scheme in procrustean fashion, and as a result severely misrepresents
their views. As materialists, the physikoi ignored the existence and import of the formal
cause; in Aristotle’s causal scheme, however, the formal cause is the guide/driver of the
efficient: efficient causes are those that (like the builder of a house) bring matter to a
particular form.65 By imposing this scheme on Democritus et al., Aristotle interprets them
as ignoring efficient causality and absurdly positing all the forms in the world (e.g. a
house, a saw) to be produced directly by the bare material itself (e.g. stone, iron).
Claiming that the physikoi ignored or rejected efficient causality is a ludicrous straw-man
of their views, but straw-men are easier to flog.66 This misrepresentation is absolutely
critical to the argument at hand; as Philoponus presents Aristotle’s question:
…does the form follow the matter out of necessity, which would be [a
case of] necessity tout court,67 for because the matter has such-and-such a
capacity the form entirely and in every case has to follow? Or is it not
62
An.pr.70a14, Rhet.1357b16
E.g. An.post.98b36-38; Rhet.1392b26-30
64
An.pr.70a20. Cf. Suda, alpha-3289-Adler.
65
Dudley 2012, 167. Cf. Aquinas, ST 1.104,a.1
66
Aristotle is often distinctly uncharitable when treating the views of the physikoi, and Democritus in
particular. (e.g. (Gen.An.789b5-8, 20) According to Aristotle’s pupil Aristoxenus, Plato so loathed
Democritus that he wished to have all of his writings burnt. (Vitae, ix.40) It is not unlikely that, during his
twenty years at the Academy, Aristotle inherited a measure of his teacher’s contempt. Aristotle’s complaint
against the physikoi became a commonplace among later authors, as seen in Aetius’ complaint that
Anaximander’s appeal to apeiron as a source of change “fails by referring [only] to the matter, but omitting
the efficient cause.” (DK12A14)
67
Philoponous defines this as: “in one single series that the second should follow the first.” (in Ph.325,24)
63
14 thus, but if the form is to come-to-be, such-and-such a matter must be laid
down previously?68
Again, for Aristotle, that which brings matter to a particular form is the efficient cause,
and thus the question being considered here is exactly the necessity of an efficient cause
for all that comes-to-be. Following Aristotle’s misrepresentation, Philoponus explains
that the physikoi “postulated necessity tout court among things that come-to-be: for they
all said the forms follow out of necessity on the capacities of the matter.”69 This is the
straw-man Aristotle constructed: the notion that the material cause alone necessitates the
coming-to-be of a certain form, which he “refutes” by example of the material
components of a house being obviously insufficient for its coming-to-be without a
builder.70 Yet this example makes no sense as a criticism of the necessary determination
of the efficient cause, for that is precisely what Aristotle is insisting on—“if the forms
followed straightforwardly on the capacity of the matter, what need was there for the
efficient cause…?”71
Third, Aristotle understood causality as a complex matrix of factors. Yet, this
complexity also concealed and confused the question at stake, allowing him to grant
causes that are not followed by their effects, but in such a way as to avoid explicitly
addressing the principle ‘if what is prior, then of necessity what is posterior.’ Much
hinges on the metaphysical requirement that, for Aristotle as for Carneades, necessity
requires causality;72 for any X to be—even as a teleologically requisite end—there must
needs be a chain of causes such that X: “if the earth is soaked, necessarily steam came
68
in Ph.326,5-8
in Ph.326,9-10
70
Ph.194b10ff.
71
in Ph.326,29-30
72
Fine concurs on this point, (1981, 568-571) as does Cooper. (1987, 243, 262-264)
69
15 about; and if that came about, cloud; and if that came about, water.”73 Such is keeping
with Simplicius’ interpretation; far from gainsaying a necessary connection between
efficient cause and effect, though, the stipulation actually reinforces it. As Joseph
Priestley reasoned:
[The] chain of causes and effects cannot be broken, but by such a
provision in the constitution of nature, as that the same event shall not
certainly follow the same preceding circumstances…But then this event,
not being preceded by any circumstances that determined it to be what it
was, would be an effect without a cause.74
This point was not lost on Aristotle, who explicitly rejected any such “provision,”
declaring: “the same cause must necessarily have the same effect on the same things.”75
The reason for this is not difficult to descry: if effects could follow causes willy-nilly,
such that there was no necessary connection between them, a fronte necessity—upon
which the whole edifice of teleology depends—would break down as well. That is, if
there were no necessary connection between any efficient cause and its effect, any
matter-of-fact might come-to-be without any particular cause, or even any cause at all,
and thus the final cause would have no need of a chain of efficient causes to bring about
its designs; they could simply occur sui generis. Therefore, Aristotle’s commitment to a
fronte necessity actually depends—pace Simplicius—on a necessary connection between
efficient causes and their effects.76
The point is, for a committed teleologist like Aristotle, a particular effect is the
product of both final and efficient causes, but it is the former that are paramount, both
73
An.post.96a3
The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity (London, 1777), 10.
75
Cael.295a
76
See Gen.An.789b3-5, 739b26; An.post.94b27-31.
74
16 metaphysically and in terms of scientific explanation.77 A “prior” efficient cause may fail
to produce its effect for any number of reasons, but the effect of final causes—as
“posterior” and thus a sort of fait accompli—must either be the case or not be the case.
Yet, as Chrysippus noted against the Epicurean swerve, the existence of effects without
causes violates the very principle of bivalence such ‘posteriors’ are instantiations of: “If
uncaused motion exists, it will not be the case that every proposition…is either true or
false, for a thing not possessing efficient causes will be neither true nor false.”78
Mere material-necessity is insufficient to explain phenomena
Some commentators have taken Aristotle’s criticism of the physikoi as evidence that he
regarded material-necessity as fundamentally incompatible with teleology and thus
disavowed it.79 This interpretation has been thoroughly refuted in recent literature80 (even
by Simplicius81), so I will not belabor it beyond noting that Aristotle himself explicitly
says: “It is possible for something to be the case both with some aim and from
necessity,”82 and refers certain phenomena to the activity of both.83 Thus, when Aristotle
asks: “why should not nature work, not for the sake of something…but just as the sky
rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity,”84 his response that “it is
impossible that this should be the true view,” hinges not on his rejection of material 77
Gen.An.778b7-11
De fato(a), ix.20
79
See David M. Balme, “Greek Science and Mechanism” The Classical Quarterly 33 (1930), 133;
Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (Clarendon, 1975), 222. Balme seems to have changed his
view. (1987, 283)
80
Christopher Byrne, “Aristotle on Physical Necessity and the Limits of Teleological Explanation” Apeiron
35 (2002): 20-46; Cooper 1987, 243-274.
81
See in Ph.389,4-13
82
An.post.94b26
83
See Part.An.663b13-14; Gen.An.789a7-14
84
Ph.198b17-19
78
17 necessity, but rather on his insistence (with Plato85) that necessity must be guided by a
higher cause directed towards the realization of ends.86
The issue at stake here is ultimately the same as in Aristotle’s defense of a tergo
necessity: in order for the final cause to bring about its desired ends, it employs and
indeed depends on the necessity of the material and efficient causes that bring it about.
This principle held globally for Aristotle: insofar as the world is powered by the
downwelling of fire into the sublunary sphere,87 all of the final causes pulling things
therein towards their telic ends could never do so without the simultaneous push of the
sun as efficient cause.88
Aristotle’s defense of chance and contingence
In Physics II Aristotle notes: “the early physicists found no place for chance among the
causes which they recognized” and held that “everything which we ascribe to chance or
spontaneity has some definite cause.”89 Aristotle dissents from this view and endeavors to
provide the first theory account of aleatory events in the history of philosophy. Before
considering his account, two salient features warrant mention. First, as so often when
confuting the physikoi, Aristotle’s argument is disingenuous; as he himself admits, the
“wise men of old…took no account of chance” because they deemed such a notion to
signify an event without a cause, which “would seem strange indeed.”90 Now the “wise
men of old” were concerned entirely with material and—pace Aristotle—efficient
85
Tim.46e-48b
Gen.An.789b5-8) Cf. Balme 1972, 76-84.
87
Gen.Corr.341a30
88
In this way, Aristotle appealed to the constant activity generated in the countervailing motion of the
celestial sphere to escape the teleological entropy inherent to his physics; see Gen.Corr.337a9-10.
89
196a18, 196a1
90
Ph.196a5-11
86
18 causation; here, then, is where his straw-man pays dividends yet again, for, in rebutting
their view, Aristotle does not view himself under any requirement to prove that causelessevents-qua-efficient-causation are possible, but instead redefines ‘chance’ in such a way
as to render it compatible with the determinism of an efficient causal chain.91
In his seminal treatise on ancient theories of causality, R. J. Hankinson states
plainly: “Aristotle’s account of chance is perfectly compatible with any version of
determinism.”92 Aristotle was able to reconcile these antipodes insofar as his notion of
chance is fundamentally teleological93—events which belong to the general class of
things “in accordance with intention,” but which nevertheless “come to pass accidentally
are said to be by chance.”94 Metaphysics Δ contains the classic example:
We call an accident that which attaches to something and can be truly
asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e.g. if one in digging a hole
for a plant found treasure. This—the finding of treasure—happens by
accident to the man who digs the hole; for neither does the one come of
necessity from the other or after the other, nor if a man plants, does he
usually find treasure.95
While the textbook explication, this is an awkward passage as Aristotle makes no
reference to purpose or ends, but to obvention and inherent lack of necessity.96 A better
example is found in Physics II:
91
See Simplicius, in Ph.357,18-22
1998, 137. This interpretation has also been taken by Hintikka (1977, 111ff.) and A.A. Long, “Stoic
Determinism and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De Fato (i-xiv).” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 52
(1970), 251ff. Ross likewise admits that Aristotle’s notion of chance is still compatible with full
determinism. (1936, 24) Cf. Ross, Aristotle (London, 1923), 77ff. For earlier sources who argued likewise,
see Sorabji 1980b, 3(n.2).
93
Hintikka claims that Aristotle regarded chance as contrary to purpose, but this is overstated. In the case
of the man of who meets his debtor, the chance actually aids in his purpose. It is more appropriate to regard
chance as indifferent rather than contrary to purpose; once this is understood, the global problem Hintikka
raises concerning the modality of chance vanishes. (1977, 114ff.) Cf. Dudley 2012, 125.
94
Ph.196b18-24
95
Met.1025a14-19
96
Many ancient commentators on Aristotle did reformulate the example in such a fashion; e.g. Simplicius,
in Ph.334,6-28. Moreover, Aristotle himself provides another example shortly afterwards that fits with the
account in Physics II. (Met.1025a25-27)
92
19 A man is engaged in collecting subscriptions for a feast. He would have
gone to such and such a place for the purpose of getting the money, if he
had known. He actually went there for another purpose, and it was only
accidentally that he got his money by going there…It is clear then that
chance is an accidental cause in the sphere of those actions for the sake of
something which involve choice.97
Here Aristotle’s conception of chance is evident: it is the accidental coup de foudre
confluence of otherwise distinct teleologies;98 as Lady Philosophy explains the view of
‘Aristoteles meus’ to Boethius: “Whenever something is done for the sake of some given
end, and another thing occurs…different from what was intended, it is called
chance…We may therefore define chance as the unexpected event of concurring causes
among things done for some purpose.”99 Aristotle thus distinguishes ‘chance’ from the
‘spontaneous’ insofar as the latter comes-to-be from efficient and material causes, but the
former only on the order of final causes.100 This conception is markedly distinct from that
of his predecessors and he admits as much.101
Recall that Sorabji advanced an indeterministic interpretation of Aristotle while
granting that he accepted causal determinism/necessity. Part of this seeming contradiction
hinges on his definition of determinism; the more interesting part hinges on his argument
that Aristotle rejected that every event or state-of-affairs takes place from antecedent
causes. Sorabji cites Metaphysics E where Aristotle describes a coincidental meeting at a
well as lacking a cause102 and lauds Aristotle’s “considerable achievement” in
“recogniz[ing] that coincidences do not have causes,” thereby freeing metaphysics from
97
196b33-197a7; cf. Simplicius, in Ph.340,1-6.
See Panayides 2002, 29-34.
99
Consolatio v.38-40. Cf. Isidore, Ety. viii, 11.94
100
Ph.198a10; cf. Rhet.1369a32.
101
Ph.197a8-11.
102
Met.1027b12-14
98
20 the “widely held view that every event and every state of affairs has a cause.”103 Sorabji’s
interpretation has been strongly criticized,104 but I actually concur with him on this point.
This, however, raises an obvious question: If Aristotle accepts the existence of effectively
uncaused states of affairs, how can he possibly be a causal determinist?
Insofar as Aristotle only councils the uncaused-qua-final-causality but never quaefficient-causality, I regard Aristotle’s “achievement” as considerably more restricted
than Sorabji’s sweeping assessment.105 Importantly, Sorabji admits: “I hesitate to count a
coincidence as an event.”106 This is no minor concession, for there is an important
difference between ‘events’ and ‘states-of-affairs’: events are singular and discrete
whereas ‘state-of-affairs’ typically describes a situation or relation between events. Any
event is capable of being considered in relation to any other event; some relations will be
causal, but many others will be merely coincidental. Sorabji thus distinguishes between
the questions ‘Why did it have to rain?’ and ‘Why did it have to rain on my birthday?’
The first question has a definite cause and thus an explanation; the latter does not. But
why could not the second question be answered in the same way as the first? To wit: it
had to rain on your birthday for the same reason it has to rain in every case it does rain:
rain is the necessary effect of a particular set of causes. This was, as Eudemus relates,
exactly the response advanced by determinists such Democritus.107 Now the disgruntled
birthday-boy would not likely be satisfied with this answer, but that is because the cause
it cites is general, while the answer he is demanding concerns a specific-cause-having-to 103
1980b, 11-12. Williams agrees with Sorabji on this interpretation, (1986, 181ff.) as does Augustin
Maison, Introduction à la physique aristotélicienne (Louvain, 1946), 328. See Panayides for a definitive
criticism. (2002, 17)
104
See Dudley 2012, 303; Fine 1981, 564-566. It is worth noting that Sorabji has not abandoned his
interpretation, and reiterated his view as recently as 2005. (2005, ii.124)
105
N.B. Nowhere does Sorbaji make this overarching distinction.
106
1980b, 4
107
Simplicius, in Ph.330,15ff.
21 do-with-his-birthday. In describing such happenings as by chance, it is only this latter
specific cause that Aristotle denies; this denial in no way entails that the rain lacked an
efficient cause,108 only a final cause.109
In accepting a fronte necessity, Aristotle accepts that, if it had to rain on
someone’s birthday (i.e. it was ordained by the gods or some such), then the sequence of
causes producing that rain were necessary as well. This is what the birthday-boy is
asking; not ‘what causes made it rain on my birthday?’ but rather ‘why was rain on my
birthday necessary such that a sequence of causes brought it about?’ If the rain was not
ordained by the gods, it lacks such a final cause, but this does not exclude an efficient
cause. As Cicero reasoned regarding one ‘Icadius,’ a brigand whose legs were crushed by
a stone falling from the roof of a cave he was hiding in: “even if Icadius had not been in
the cave at the time, that rock would have fallen all the same.”110 Cicero was arguing
against “any trace of destiny” underlying the event; while Icadius’ fate was the result of
chance, what remains unquestioned is the immutable material-efficient causal order he
was ensnared by.111
Sorabji recognized the viability of this response and tempers his praise of
Aristotle’s “achievement” by offering that his argument would be conclusive “if
determinism were simply a thesis about causation,” rather than necessity as such.112 Here
the difference between Sorabji’s definition of ‘determinism’ and my own becomes
paramount; Sorabji reasons: “if something…is necessitated…it does not follow that it is
108
See Meteor.348b8ff.
Cf. Fine 1981, 568.
110
De fato(a), iii.6. This example came from Aristotle himself. (Ph.197b29-30)
111
Cf. Simplicius, in Ph.336,30-35.
112
1980b, 12
109
22 caused. A thing can be necessitated without itself having a cause.”113 This claim could
only be true in reference to Megarian necessity, which Aristotle repeatedly rejects.114
Therefore, in spite of our terminological wrangling, Sorabji and I are actually in
agreement on this point: Aristotle accepts that causes determine their effects, but denies
that, in doing so, they render those effects necessary simpliciter.
More importantly, I agree with Sorabji concerning the causelessness of chance
happenings. The particular circumstances of the chance event clearly have causes: the
past man’s desire to hide his gold and the present man’s desire to plant a tree caused
them both to dig a hole; but there was no specific/singular cause of them digging in the
same place. Philoponus explains:
…per se causes are causes strictly while per accidens causes are causes…
pseudonymously, and chance is a per accidens cause, and therefore chance
is not strictly a cause. And we say that chance is a cause of nothing
because we say that chance happenings are uncaused, because they do not
have a determinate per se cause.115
Aristotle’s conception of chance was thus fundamentally the same as Mill’s: chance is the
accidental intersection of otherwise distinct causal streams.116 Beothius thus compared it
113
1980b, 13
See Met. E.3; Met. Θ.3; Cael. A.12; De int. 9.
115
in Ph.276,29-277,3; cf. Ph.197a5-33.
116
J.S. Mill, A System of Logic (London, 1843), III.18.2. Hankinson concurs with my interpretation. (1998,
137) Dudley, however, claims Aristotle recognizes “only one cause…[as] the per se cause, whereas the
second chain could only provide an accidental cause.” (2012, 308) This interpretation raises
insurmountable difficulties. For example, what is the per se cause of the man collecting his debt ‘by
chance’? Prima facie, it seems clearly to have been his decision to go to the market, where he happened to
encounter his debtor. But what of that man? Undoubtedly he would blame his own decision to go to the
market as the cause of him encountering his creditor and having to pay up. Which of these is to be counted
as the “only one” responsible for the chance encounter? There is no reason to privilege one as the per se
cause and relegate the other as per accidens—for both were fundamentally the same decision. Clearly, both
decisions were the per se cause of the meeting and the per accidens cause was both men being in market at
the same time, though for their own independent reasons. Similarly, consider the buried treasure: Dudley
claims that its burial was the per accidens cause while the later man’s digging was the sole per se cause of
its discovery; yet he claims immediately thereafter:“[a]ccidental causes are uncaused, since they do not
exist in their own right.” (Ibid.) This is an accurate characterization of such causes, but renders the example
nonsense insofar as it entails that the burial of the treasure was somehow causeless. But then why was it
there? And what of the man who buried it? Did he not exist in his own right? Of course not: he and his
114
23 to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, which supposedly arose from the same
source, parted in their course, and then reunited.117 Such intersections are by chance
insofar as they lack a specific/determinate per se cause;118 yet insofar as the intersection
would not have come about without the independent causality of both streams, ‘chance’
remains irrevocably bound to that order in toto.119 Concerning the man who finds gold,
Boethius says:
Now this is indeed believed to have happened by chance, but it does not
come from nothing; for it has its proper causes, and their unforeseen and
unexpected coming together appears to have produced a chance
event…[Yet] causes are made to concur and flow together by that order
which, proceeding with inevitable connexion [inevitabili
conexione]…disposes all things in their proper places and times.120
This goes partway to explaining how causal determinism is compatible with the existence
of semi-causeless facts; further considerations will be examined in section four.
3. Positive Arguments in Favor of Aristotle as Determinist
In addition to the foregoing negative considerations, there are several passages and lines
of reasoning which either suggest or provide strong evidence for Aristotle’s determinism.
digging were as much a per se cause of its discovery as the latter man’s digging to bury the plant. The per
accidens cause was only the intersection of the two independent per se causal streams: both men digging in
the same place. The fact that such accidental causes are nothing more than intersections between per se
causal streams is precisely why they “do not exist in their own right.”
117
Consolatio, v.1. This was known to be false by classical authors (e.g. Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo), but
became a commonplace in late-antiquity; see Isidore, Ety. xiii.21.9.
118
This point is made well by Philoponus who, in discussing the man who met his debtor at the market,
points out that there may have been any number of efficient causes which came together such that the two
men ran into each other ‘by chance.’ For example, Philoponus suggests that perhaps the man first
encountered someone else “and conversed with him and spent some time in the conversation,” and without
this conversation “he would have entered the market more quickly and doubtless not have fallen in with the
debtor.” (in Ph. 278,4-8) This entails that, where chance is concerned, ‘effect specificity’ breaks down:
anything may accidentally cause anything.
119
Mill is adamant on this point. (1843, III.18.2) Regarding Aristotle’s view, Panayides concurs. (2002, 1617) Cf. Theodor Christidis, “Chance, Necessity and the Role of Time in Aristotle’s Physics” in Aristotle
and Contemporary Science (Peter Lang, 2001), 71.
120
Consolatio v.42-58.
24 First, I consider certain passages were Aristotle appears to openly embrace such a
position; then I return to the issue of a fronte necessity and the requirement of causality;
finally, I examine the requirement of an ‘impediment’ appealed to by Peripatetic
philosophers to account for instances where a cause fails to produce its effect.
Certain Passages
Due to Aristotle’s inconsistency in terminology and explication of particular points, it is
impossible to constate a definitive interpretation on a complex issue such as this merely
by quoting him. Nonetheless, there are passages where he speaks of efficient causes in a
manner that implies necessary connection. As a global claim, Aristotle is clear:
“Whenever something capable of acting and something capable of being acted on are
together, what is potential becomes actual.”121 The following two passages are crucial:
…why do trees shed their leaves? Well, if it is because of solidification of
their moisture, then if a tree sheds its leaves solidification must belong to
it, and if solidification belongs…it must shed its leaves.122
…if one thing has happened which naturally happens before another…the
other has [necessarily] happened; for instance, if it has lightened, it has
also thundered; and…if one thing has happened which naturally happens
after another…then that other has also happened thus, if it has thundered it
has also lightened.123
In first example, Aristotle describes the causal relation in terms a fronte, but then
proceeds to describe it a tergo; in the second he does the same but vice versa; and in both
cases he clearly regards the two explanations as interchangeable.124 The only examples
Aristotle offers in which the two are potentially incommensurate are those involving a
121
Ph.255a35ff.
An.post.98b36-38
123
Rhet.1392b26-30
124
See Met.1065a16-21
122
25 human agent; if non-human agents are involved, the matter is straightforward: “when the
fire is extinguished it is necessary for it to sizzle and make a noise.”125
As far as other classical sources go, there is the somewhat awkward testimony of
Cicero who, describing the views of “the old philosophers,” relates “the opinion of those
who deemed that everything takes place by fate in the sense that this fate exercises the
force of necessity—the opinion to which Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and
Aristotle adhered.”126 The problem here is that Democritus and Aristotle harbor rather
different notions of “the force of necessity,” and moreover Aristotle’s defense of chance
and contingence was traditionally regarded as incompatible with any meaningful notion
of “fate.” Aquinas is more direct: for the Philosopher, “a cause is that on which
something else follows of necessity.”127
Necessity ‘a fronte’ and Causal Necessity
I have previously argues that final causality was not incompatible with materialnecessity, but rather positively required it.128 Aristotle recognized the implication openly:
“in all…things which involve that for the sake of which: the product cannot come-to-be
without things which have a necessary nature.”129
While John Cooper provides a very strong account of how hypothetical-necessity
requires Democritean material/efficient-necessity, like Dudley, he conflates the latter
125
An.post.94b33
De fato(a) xvii.39
127
in Met.Δ, §749, 827
128
Cf. M.D. Boeri, “Chance and Teleology in Aristotle's Physics” International Philosophical Quarterly 35
(1995), 87-96.
129
Ph. 200a8; cf. Part.An.658b14, 663b43
126
26 with absolute-unconditional necessity or “what cannot be otherwise.”130 Avicenna had
sagely warned against this, explaining: “what usually occurs occasionally has an obstacle
which prevents its action…[but] an obstacle never presents itself to what happens
necessarily.”131 Avicenna was referring to the absolute-necessity of the celestial sphere
which is forever free of obstacles; sublunary causes, by contrast, can always be otherwise
due to some oppilation inhibiting the activity thereof. Nonetheless, when a “cause is
present only occasionally, then the action occurs only occasionally, but nevertheless
necessarily.”132 Like Avicenna, Averroes warns that, if obstacles could not occlude the
activity of sublunary causes, “That would mean that all things by nature necessarily
occur,”133 for in this case the distinction between the celestial and sublunary spheres
would collapse. Both agree that nature can only be spared such a fate, can only retain
some semblance of contingence, by the interdiction of impediments.134
The Impediment Requirement
Undoubtedly the strongest argument for regarding Aristotle and his heirs as determinists
lies in their manifest inability to explain how a cause might be present but its effect
absent without summoning an impediment or equivalent deficiency to counteract its
efficacy. This limitation is significant because, in his critique of the ideas of ‘power,’
‘efficacy,’ and ‘necessary connexion,’ Hume argues that if we did indeed possess such
notions, when considering the existence of an agent substantially defined by such a
130
John Cooper, “Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology,” in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s
Biology (Cambridge UP, 1987), 266.
131
Averroes, in Ph.196b10ff.
132
Ibid.
133
Ibid.
134
See in II-Physicorum, t.c.48,66; Kogan, Averroes and the Metaphysics of Causation (SUNY, 1985),
131.
27 capacity, it would be impossible to conceive of any alternative outcome other than its
determinate effect without supposing a change in the ideas under consideration.135 Hume
is adamant this this is never the case, which he takes to prove such notions vacuous.136
Hume’s analysis raises an obvious question for the indeterminists: If the relation
between cause and effect is one of substantial capacities (i.e. ‘powers’) but not of
necessary connection,137 such that a cause could be instantiated and yet its effect not
follow…how would this come-to-pass? It is revealing that, when considering such a
disjunction, Aristotle and his scions invariably invoke either an impediment to the
activity of the cause, the lack of a necessary external condition, an internal deficiency
within the causal agent or receptive patent, or, failing all else, simply declare the agent
not to have been what it was taken to be. That is to say, they invariably attribute such an
outcome to either the contravention of other causal factors or deny that there was any
such cause to begin with.138 Both of these responses avoid the cacodoxical supposition of
ontic indeterminacy by directly supposing a change in the ideas under consideration. The
Peripatetics’ utter inability to explain causal failure without such special-pleading plainly
betrays their understanding of causality as necessary connection.139
Another way to approach this problem is in terms of the remarkable notion of
possibility advanced by Philo the Dialectician, a student of Diodorus, who rejected his
teacher’s conflation of possibility with actuality and instead defined the possible thus:
135
Treatise, 1.3.9
Treatise, 1.4.5
137
Hume rejects any meaningful distinction between these. (Treatise, 1.3.14; Enquiry, 8.1)
138
Gen.An.768b25-27; al-Farabi, in Int.184,3-5; SCG, 2.30.12.
139
Anscombe admits this. (1971, 23) It’s telling that, when attempting to explain how a cause might fail to
produce its effect sans impediment, the only example she and Sorabji are able to offer comes from quantum
mechanics, viz. radioactive decay and ‘Schrödinger’s cat.’ (Anscombe 1971, 24; Sorabji 1980b, 28) If, in
making one’s point, one is forced to appeal to a domain in which the law of non-contradiction is void…one
has effectively conceded the issue at stake.
136
28 “That which is predicated in accordance with the bare fitness of the subject, even if it is
prevented from coming about by some necessary external factor.” 140 As Alexander
relates, “Accordingly Philo said that it is possible that chaff lying in unmown wheat or in
the depth of the sea to be burned where it is.”141 Philo’s conception of possibility was one
of the great heresies of ancient philosophy and the consensus of later schools settled
around that of Zeno: “A proposition is possible which admits of being true, there being
nothing in external circumstances to prevent its being true.”142 Given the logical
requirement of such an occlusion, the upshot is, according to Zeno:
Necessary is that which is true and does not admit of being false, or admits
of being false, but is prevented by external factors…Non-necessary is that
which both is true and is capable of being false, and is not prevented by
external factors from being false.143
This was the view of Aristotle as well,144 and the clear upshot is: a non-necessary
connection is one in which the premises may be true (or the cause given) and yet the
conclusion false (or the effect absent) without any external occlusion. But, if such an
occlusion is necessary to prevent the conclusion (or the effect), then the relation between
the two amounts—ceteris paribus—to a necessary connection. It may thus be assumed
that any philosopher who insists that causes may not always produce effects, but only on
the supposition of an impediment to the efficacy of the cause, is at least tacitly assuming
a necessary connection between them.
140
in An.pr.184,6-7; Long & Sedley, 23.
in An.pr.184,7-9
142
Vitae, vii.75. For a smattering of the consensus around this view, see SVF 2.198ff. This definition is also
cited in the entry for “Necessary” in the Suda. (alpha-1827-Alder)
143
Vitae, vii.75; Long & Sedley 231-232. Cf. Anscombe 1971, 23.
144
See Ph 255a35-255b11; cf. Simplicius, in Ph.311,19. Hintikka agrees: “the absence of external
hindrances has to be built (according to Aristotle) into the full definition of the potentiality in question.”
(1977, 37)
141
29 So then, when David Balme cites De generatione animalium 4.10 as proof of
Aristotle’s indeterminism,145 I reply that Aristotle’s own words belie the conclusion, for
he says: “there are many principles which hinder generation and decay from being
according to nature, and often cause things to fall out contrary to nature.”146 Aristotle was
explicit both on the requirement of an alterative impediment in such cases and the threat
to his physics a true breakdown in the causal order would entail:
…the person who asserts [that among the seeds anything must come-to-be
at random] entirely does away with nature and what exists by nature. For
those things are natural which…originat[ing] from an internal principle,
arrive at some end…but always the tendency in each is towards the same
end, if there is no impediment…In natural products the sequence is
invariable, if there is no impediment.147
In another passage Aristotle remarks: “that there is no science of the accidental is
obvious; for all science is either of that which is always or of that which is for the most
part.”148 He argues that, of things that happen for-the-most-part, the circumstances under
which “that which is contrary to this happens” will themselves “be so…either always or
for the most part.”149 While Aristotle does not expand this point, my interpretation
(following Ross150) is: Those effects which follow their causes only for-the-most-part are
those subject to certain contingent conditions; these conditions occlude the normal effect
either always or for-the-most-part; if the latter, they must be subject to yet further
conditions which occlude the exceptional circumstances always or for-the-most-part,
continuing ad finem until reaching some condition that holds always. Aristotle implies
145
1939, 132
Gen.An.778a8-9
147
Ph.199b14-26
148
Met.1027a20
149
Met.1027a25
150
1958, i.361.
146
30 but never explicitly states this conclusion,151 but, if the chain of ‘for-the-most-part’
exceptions did not ultimately terminate in an ‘always,’ then an effect occurring prater
naturam would have to be due not to any set of particular occluding circumstances, but
an ontological indeterminacy akin to the ‘swerve’.152
Aristotle could never tolerate such casualism. Any undetermined exceptions
would, like the swerve, occur sine causa;153 and would thus be inexplicable.154 They
would also occur sine ratione, thereby violating the principle of sufficient reason, which
Aristotle accepts and appeals to on several occasions.155 In like vein, Aristotle reasons:
If we say that there is first a state of rest for an infinite time, and then
motion is started at some moment, and that the fact that it is this rather
than a previous moment is of no importance, and that it involved no order,
then we can no longer say that it is nature’s work; for if anything is of a
certain character naturally, it either is so invariably and is not sometime of
this and sometime of another character…or there is a ratio in the
variation.156
Such a “ratio in the variation” is, as Aristotle makes clear, necessarily provided by a
sufficient reason lying in the causes of the things themselves.157
Aristotle’s successors were not confused as to his stance on this point and
followed him without exception. As Alexander argued against Philo:
…we say that being possible [is] being able to be or to come-to-be, being
unprevented. For it is not by [its] coming-to-be at all events that [we]
judge what is possible, but by its not having been prevented from comingto-be. That which is not prevented, by some circumstance, from coming 151
Christopher Kirwan, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books Γ, Δ, E (Oxford UP, 1993), E.2.
See Ph.199b19-24. Alexander acknowledges this implication. (Quaest.2.22,71,16-23)
153
This was the most common locus of ancient objections to the swerve. See Cicero, De finibus, i.19;
Plutarch, in Tim.1014e; Plotinus, Enneads III.1.1.15-19.
154
Aristotle is clear: scientia concerns “the causes of things.” (An.post.88b30)
155
Cael.283a11
156
Ph.252a13-19
157
Ph.252a33-252b2. Cf. Plato, Soph. 247e
152
31 to-be that for which it possesses suitability, is possible none the less, even
if it does not come-to-be.158
Alexander was disturbed by Philo’s modality because, if it is possible for chaff to burn at
the bottom of the sea, then it can happen; but Aristotle offered no means to explain
how,159 leaving Alexander to conclude:
…there are two sorts of things that are impossible, some by nature, others
on account of having been prevented. And the things that are impossible
by nature…are those to which it applies that the things opposite to them
will apply of necessity; but the things…for which it is possible to come-tobe impossible on account of having been prevented, are those which have
the possibility or capacity for something, because they have the possibility
but are not [as they are] of necessity.160
Nota bene: Alexander concedes that for a cause to be successfully impeded from
producing an effect, it must be possible for it not to produce said effect. This was the
point made by Avicenna earlier: a cause can only be impeded if it does not operate of
absolute-necessity. Therefore, a conditionally-necessary cause failing to produce its
effect sans any impediment is the simple corollary of Philo’s heretical modality—the
possibility of an effect occurring regardless of any impediment. Both are flatly rejected
by Alexander for the same reason: a cause can only fail given an impediment to its
action, in which case the coming-to-be of the effect is, as Alexander insists, impossible—
and the standard of necessary connection thereby upheld.161
In his famous dispute with al-Ghazali, Averroes desperately attempted to explain
how fire could fail to burn a combustible substrate without, as al-Ghazali demanded,162
abnegating natural causality entirely. He offers:
158
Quaest.1.18,30,27-31
Met.1050b8ff.
160
Quaest.1.18; 31,18-24
161
in An.pr.184,14-15; cf. Aquinas, in Met.Δ, §789.
162
Tahafut al-Falasifa, 196.
159
32 …since one single action-and-passivity between two existent things occurs
only through one relation out of an infinite number…it happens often that
one relation hiders another. Therefore it is not absolutely certain that fire
acts when it is brought near a sensitive body, for surely it is not
improbable that there should be something which stands in such a relation
to the sensitive thing as to hinder the action of the fire, as is asserted of
talc and other things.”163
Averroes also noted that causes might fail due to some internal deficiency in the cause;
for example, scammony may fail to produce its abstersive effect due to its becoming “denatured.”164 Averroes’ responses evidence an obvious ignoratio elenchi, for the question
al-Ghazali (like Hume) is posing is: All else being equal, can we conceive the fire coming
in contact with the cotton and yet not igniting? The answer is Yes, which is why Averroes
simply cannot entertain the question; his rejoinders simply insist that all else cannot
possibly be equal, for only fetters produced by a change in the terms under consideration
are capable of disrupting the connection between cause and its effect. This point was
openly admitted by Suárez:
To be sure, natural causes can…impede one another through resistance or
through a contrary action…But once those things have been posited,
natural causes cannot prevent the action of a necessary agent, since they
do not have the power to change the nature of things or to remove wholly
intrinsic properties…For how can a natural action be prevented if no
impediment is posited?...once the presupposition [of no impediment]…has
been made, the action arises with such a strong necessity that it cannot be
impeded except by removing some part of what has been presupposed.165
What such dialectical maneuvers betray is that Suárez and Averroes, like Alexander and
Aristotle, assume precisely the ‘necessary connexion’ model of causation that al-Ghazali
and Hume attacked.
163
Tahafut al-Tahafut, I.521
Kogan 1985, 130
165
Disputationes metaphysicae, 19.1.14
164
33 Non-rational Potentialities Cannot But Produce Their Effects
In Metaphysics Θ Aristotle distinguishes between rational and non-rational potentialities:
…each of those [powers] which are accompanied by reason is alike
capable of contrary effects,166 but one non-rational power produces one
effect; e.g. the hot is capable only of heating…[And] since…contraries do
not occur in the same thing…what can heat [produces] only heat and what
can cool only cold.167
While the issue at stake here is muddled with Aristotle’s causal ‘likeness principle’ (i.e.
that like causes produce like effects), the notion that non-rational causes are limited to
one distinct effect that they cannot but produce strongly implies a necessary connection:
..as regards potentialities of the [non-rational] kind, when the agent and
the patient meet in the way appropriate to the potentiality in question, the
one must act and the other be acted on, but with the [rational] kind this is
not necessary. For the non-rational potentialities are all productive of one
effect each…[and] can produce opposite results only by their presence or
absence.168
Aristotle elaborates on this point in De interpretatione, reasoning that while some things
are capable of opposites,169 nonetheless:
There are cases of which this is not true. Firstly, with things capable nonrationally; fire, for example, can heat and has an irrational
capability…[which] is not capable of heating and of not heating, and
similarly with everything else that is actualized all the time. Some, indeed,
even of the things with irrational capabilities are at the same time capable
of opposites.170
Now this final caveat by Aristotle appears to allow that irrational agents might be capable
of producing opposites “at the same time,” and thus presumably under the same causal
circumstances. This is a problematic passage for my interpretation that effect diversity is
and can only be the result of other counteracting causes.
166
Cael.281b15-17; Soph.el.166a24.
Met.1046b2-18; cf. 981b3
168
Met.1048a5-8, 1050b34. Cf. Tim.46d; Eth.Nic.1147a25-31; Anscombe 1971, 2.
169
Cf. Met.1048a8-10
170
22b37-23a5
167
34 Nonetheless, Aristotle’s acceptance of the principle of sufficient reason strongly
implies my interpretation,171 as does his frank declaration: “the same cause in the same
relation cannot have opposite effects upon the same thing.”172 In De motu animalium
Aristotle says: “The movements of animals may be compared with those of automatic
puppets [i.e. non-rational], which are set going on the occasion of a tiny movement.”173.
Nonetheless, “In an animal the same part has the power of becoming now larger and now
smaller, and in changing its form, as the parts increase by warmth and again contract by
cold and change their quality.”174 Thus, depending on particular conditions, the causal
disposition of a particular thing might change completely. In this case there must be a
cause of the change in capability, and thus conditional-necessity would still hold.175
Lastly, Alexander explicitly supports my interpretation of this point, declaring the
capacity to act differently under identical circumstances “impossible.”176
A luculent clarification on the causality of non-rational agents is provided by alFarabi in his commentary on De interpretatione: “Aristotle… divides the possible into
two kinds: first, the possible whose existence and non-existence are equally possible and,
secondly, the possible whose existence is more likely and frequent than its nonexistence.”177 While chance is the essence of the former, the latter requires that “there is
in the matter a disposition or other element which renders it more likely to exist, while
171
See Ph.251a23-8, 252a11-252b5; Cael.283a11. Cf. SCG, 3.2.8; ST, 1a.12,3.
Meteor.383a8
173
701a2
174
Mot.701a12-15
175
Part.An.639b21-25
176
Quaest.1.19; 32,28-33,2; 1992, 70. Cf. Mantissa, xxiii.184.15-18. Arthur Madigan supports the
foregoing interpretation, “Metaphysics E.3” Phronesis 29 (1984), 125-126.
177
in Int.95.1-3
172
35 the possibility of its non-existence remains.”178 While al-Farabi seems to support my
interpretation, his final caveat raises the same doubt. It is removed shortly thereafter:
…there are things to which is attributed the possibility to be such and
such, while it is not true to say that it is possible for them not to be so.
There are a number of such things. The first [Aristotle] mentions belongs
to things possible in whose powers there is no reason and whose powers
are not connected with something rational. An example is fire, because it
has a power by which it heats, owing to which we say that it is ‘possible’
for it to heat…The reason why it does not act permanently is that either it
does not find matter, or is prevented from its action by an extrinsic rather
than an intrinsic factor…But there can be no question of an action
contrary to this issuing from it as long as the said power is in it. The
contrary of its action could only issue from it if the power we are talking
about vanished and were succeeded, in the same body, by its contrary.179
One could hardly ask for a more direct answer to the problem at hand: non-rational
agents produce their effect(s) always and by necessity, unless impeded by “extrinsic”
causal factors: “fire is not fit to burn and not to burn. The power inherent in it is a power
to burn alone. If burning does not issue from it is because of an obstruction coming from
the material or of something else.”180
Al-Farabi was not the only commentator to support this interpretation; pseudoPlutarch,181 Plotinus,182 Nemesius,183 Proclus,184 Ammonius,185 Aquinas,186 and Suárez
were of like mind; the latter concluding: “every faculty which altogether lacks the use of
reason exercises its operations by natural necessity.”187
178
in Int.95,8
in Int.181.15-182.10
180
in Int.184.3-5.
181 De fato, 571C-­‐D 182
Enneads IV.4 .3.7-12
183 De nat. hom., §34,104.1-11 184
Prov.13,16-17
185
in Int.148,25-29
186
in Met.Θ, 1789, 1793; SCG 2.35.3-4, 2.23.2, 2.47.3.
187
Disputationes metaphysicae, 19.1.12. Cf. Locke, Essay, II.21.13.
179
36 4. Chance and ‘Determinism Raisonné,’
Thus far I have argued that ancient physics and metaphysics was universally committed
to a determinism of efficient causality; the only seeming exceptions to this encompassing
paradigm came from the Lyceum and the Garden; and in each case the exception was
entirely restricted to the sphere of human freedom and volition. However, I conceded that
Aristotle also rejected the universal determinism later emblematic of the Stoa. Aristotle’s
resistance to the latter was likewise in the service of his libertarianism, but instead of
simply granting an exception to the rational agent, he endeavored to provide a
metaphysical critique:
Will this be or not? —Yes if this happens; and if not, not. And this will
happen if something else does. And thus if time is constantly subtracted
from a limited extent of time, one will obviously come to the present. This
man, then, will die by violence, if he goes out; and he will do this if he is
thirsty; and he will be thirsty if something else happens; and thus we shall
come to that which is now present, or some past event…and this is either
the case or not; so that he will of necessity die, or not die.188
The “necessity” Aristotle is describing in this lucid passage is not that of the Megarians,
but rather what is sometimes called ‘Laplacean determinism;’—viz. the view that the
future is causally determined by the state of the past or present and thus follows
necessarily from it.189 While this mechanistic determinism was a touchstone of the
ancient atomists, it also—with the nous of Anaxagoras, Plato, and the Stoics—assumed a
distinctly metaphysical character—what I term ‘determinism raisonné.’
By ‘determinism raisonné’ I refer to the causal ontology underlying metaphysical
rationalism from the early-Stoics to the neo-Platonists to Leibniz and Spinoza. This
188
Met. 1027a32-1027b6
See Essai philosophique sur les probabilités (Cosmio, 2007), 4. Cf. De div.i.127; Leibniz, Discours de
métaphysique, §13.
189
37 causal ontology is one in which every aspect of the world, every matter of fact, is
logically-metaphysically connected to every other, no matter how minor or seemingly
unrelated, by irrefrangible bonds.190 The most sweeping account of this cosmology comes
from Alexander’s De fato:
[The Stoics] say that this universe, which is one and contains in itself all
that exists, and is organized by a Nature which is alive, rational and
intelligent, possesses the organization of the things that are, which is
eternal and progresses according to a certain sequence and order; the
things which come to be first are causes for those after them, and in this
way all things are bound together with one another. Nothing comes to be
in the universe in such a way that there is not something else which
follows it with no alternative and is attached to it as to a cause; nor, on the
other hand, can any of the things which come to be subsequently be
disconnected from the things which have come to be previously, so as not
to follow some one of them as if bound to it. But everything which has
come to be is followed by something else which of necessity depends on it
as a cause, and everything which comes to be has something preceding it
to which it is connected as a cause. For nothing either is or comes to be in
the universe without a cause, because there is nothing of the things in it
that is separated and disconnected from all the things that have preceded.
For the universe would be torn apart and divided and not remain single for
ever, organized according to a single order and organization, if any
causeless motion were introduced; at it would be introduced, if all the
things that are and come to be did not have causes which have come to be
beforehand [and] which they follow of necessity…Fate itself, Nature, and
the reason according to which the whole is organized, they assert to be
God; it is present in all that is and comes to be, and in this way employs
the individual nature of every thing for the organization of the whole.191
It is precisely this systemic determinism that Aristotle described in the above—a universe
causally interwoven so tightly as to compress into a plenum, systematically arraigned so
determinately as to render any matter of fact (theoretically) deducible from any other, and
190
191
See Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Clarendon, 1998), 49f.
De fato(b), 191,32-193,1
38 embedded in a causal-temporal order so rigid that its every feature proceeds seriatim
from the infinite abyss of the past towards the horizon-less eternity of the future.192
Aristotle’s key innovation over Socrates and Plato was to place teleology
squarely in the world rather than imposed upon it by a transcendent demiurge.193 Yet, he
still followed them in distinguishing between final and material-efficient causality: the
final cause was linked to and required the other causes, but was still essentially distinct
from them in re. This distinction was collapsed by the Stoics and their pantheistic
cosmology; in identifying the world with the Deity,194 the order of efficient causes and
the providential ends they realize became one and the same.195 Seneca thus asks:
For what else is Nature but God and the Divine Reason that pervades the
whole universe and all its parts?...If likewise you should call him Fate, it
would be no falsehood; for, since Fate is nothing but a connected chain of
causes, he is the first of all the causes on which the others depend.196
Under such reasoning, any teleological account/explanation of an event may be reduced
to a deterministic-efficient account/explanation, or vice versa197—and thus the order of
final causality offered no escape from the inexorable determinism of efficient causality.
Yet, for Aristotle, the final and efficient causes are fundamentally distinct,
capable of independent action and even opposition to each other. It was not, then, a
commitment to indeterminism that opposed his causal ontology to the Stoics’; it was his
unwillingness to collapse causality into a single hylarchic principle, his insistence that
192
See Panayides 2002, 26-29.
See Balme, “Teleology and Necessity,” in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biology, 275.
194
Seneca, Nat. quaest., ii.45
195
Bobzien 1998, 45ff.
196
De beneficiis, iv.7. Cf. Eusebius, Praep. evang. xv.15. With the neo-Platonic synthesis of Plato and
Aristotle, this cosmology came to dominate Western philosophy and theology. It was particularly attractive
to Christians and Muslims in that it made the Deity both the efficient and final cause of the world. See
Simplicius, in Ph. 1360,24-1363,11. Cf. Augustine, De civ. v.8; SVF 2.933; Proclus, ET §98.
197
Sophie Botros, “Freedom, Causality, Fatalism and Early Stoic Philosophy,” Phronesis 13 (1985), 280.
Cf. Sharples, “Soft Determinism and Freedom in Early Stoicism,” Phronesis 31 (1986), 266-267.
193
39 causes are polyadic, and his allowance of their capacity for contrariety which each other
that pitted him against determinism raisonné. This Peripatetic commitment to causal
pluralism expresses itself in four factors that oppose the Stoic/neo-Platonic scheme of an
unbroken chain of Being where causality is the unstoppable solder “bringing antecedents
and consequents into complete connection.”198
Material deficiency
For Aristotle, formal causality is not only the driver of efficient, but also the in re vehicle
of final causality;199 he nonetheless grants that the transference of form from agent to
patient may be disrupted by some deficiency in the material or efficient cause, thereby
leading to the production of ‘monstrosities.’ Aristotle rejects that such lusus naturae
should be understood as occurring against nature, but nonetheless concedes that they do
work against the drive of the final cause and the order it endeavors to impose.200 This was
not an original concession, but an explication of the “straying cause” of the Timaeus,
whereby the recalcitrance of prime matter disrupts the providential plans of the
Demiurgos.201 As Aristotle puts it: “matter cannot be easily brought under rule.”202
Necessary accidents
198
Enneads II.3.16.18-25. Cf. III.1.4; III.2.15.1-6.
Ph.199a30-32; Gen.An.766a15. Cf. Hankinson 1998, 134f.
200
Gen.An. 770b9-16. Dudley claims that “monsters should be considered to occur by chance.” (2012, 166)
However, Aristotle explicitly ties chance to final causality and purpose, (Ph. 196b18-24, 199b6-7; Rhet.
1369a32; cf. Consolatio v.38-40) and Dudley admits as much himself elsewhere. (2012, 33) Monsters, by
contrast, exist contrary to purpose and Aristotle attributes their existence to material-necessity not chance.
(Gen.An.766a19-21; cf. 772b14) This was a consensus position in later-antiquity and the Middle Ages:
Simplicius, in Ph.311,26-29; Augustine, Contra Faustum, 26.3; Aquinas, De pot.q.1 a.3.
201
Tim.48a
202
Gen.An.778a7. Dudley denies that monsters are caused by “the recalcitrance of matter” and insists that
nowhere does Aristotle speak in such terms. (2012, 169) I am not sure how else to interpret this passage.
199
40 In addition to ‘monstrosities,’ Aristotle recognizes the existence of ‘necessary-accidents’
or things that come-to-be from the final cause, but are themselves to no purpose. The best
example is bile produced by the gall-bladder:
The most probable opinion is that, as the bile when it is present in any
other part of the body is a mere residuum…so also when it is present in
the region of the liver it is a residue and not for the sake of anything…For
though even the residua are occasionally used by nature for some useful
purpose, yet we must not in all cases expect to find such a final cause; for
granted the existence of this or that constituent, with such and such
properties, many results must ensue as necessary consequences of these
properties.203
Necessary-accidents are essentially similar to those produced by material deficiency, but
instead of being byproducts of the material cause that work against the final cause, they
are byproducts of final cause itself that serve no further end. Both recrements break up
the “complete connection” assumed by determinism raisonné: though coming-to-be as
part of the causal-purposive order of nature, they themselves contribute nothing to it, and
thus do not point towards anything other than themselves.204
Effectless effects
This point I shall pass over at present for, while it forms a major point of disagreement
between Aristotelian causal ontology and that of determinism raisonné, the manner in
which it does so is complex and beyond the ambit of my present concerns. Suffice it to
say that Aristotle and his heirs reject that, as Alexander puts it: “everything which has
come-to-be is followed by something else which of necessity depends on it as a cause.”205
That is to say, Aristotle and his cohort accept—as the metaphysical-determinists
203
677a12-19
On this point Theophrastus criticized Aristotle’s expansive teleology by appealing to the example of the
male nipple. See William Fortenbaugh, Theophrastus of Eresus (Rutgers UP, 1985), 147-148.
205
De fato(b), 192,6-7
204
41 cannot—that there can be effects of causes which themselves produce no further effects,
and thus reject the maxim natura nihil frustra facit.206 This is no minor point but one that
cuts powerfully against a large swath of the history of rationalist metaphysics,207 yet I
shall set it aside for future consideration elsewhere.
Chance and coincidence
Of all ‘four factors’ this is the clincher. Recall that Aristotle’s notion of chance does not
break up the causal continuum by positing happenings that lack efficient causes. Chance
happenings count as such not for want of a determining cause, but of a determinant cause
that unites two or more distinct causal streams.208 The man who buried treasure was the
efficient cause of its burial and did so for a purpose; the later man who dug in the same
spot was the efficient cause of its discovery and was also digging for a purpose, but not
for the purpose of discovering treasure. In a certain sense, then, a coincidence is to the
efficient cause what ‘material deficiency’ is to the material, and ‘necessary-accidents’ are
to the final: a product of efficient causality that is not brought about for the sake of
anything—it just happens.209
On this point it is import to recall that, for Aristotle, chance events happen
without coming-to-be,210 which both keeps with Plato’s teaching,211 as well as avoids
flaunting the ultimate maxim of metaphysics: nihil fit sine causa.212 This is because
coming-to-be is part of the sublunary cycle of generation and corruption, the engine of
206
See Ph.197b29. The rejection of this maxim is implicit to the notion of necessary accidents as well.
E.g. Spinoza, Ethics, I.36.
208
Philoponus, in Ph. 274,12-22. Cf. Anscombe 1971, 16.
209
See Simplicius, in Ph.348ff.
210
Met.1026b22
211
Philebus 26e. Cf. Prov.13,24.
212
Consolatio v.25-32
207
42 which is efficient causality. Chance events arise within this cycle, but are accidental
byproducts of it, and thus do not ‘come-to-be’ sensu stricto:
That there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible
without ever being [in the process of] being generated or destroyed, is
obvious. For otherwise all things will be of necessity, since that which is
generated or destroyed must have a cause which is not accidentally its
cause.213
That is, if every happening has a determinant per se cause, then everything happens of
necessity; but there are some happenings which occur per accidens; and though these are
“generable and destructible,” insofar as they lack a specific per se cause, they are outside
the eternal cycle of generation and corruption. Yet, these uncaused coincidences
nonetheless produce effects which initiate new causal chains, thus serving as per se
“principles and causes” of further downstream effects within the cycle, including telic
effects.214 The man who discovered the treasure uses it to buy land in order to start a
vineyard, and this has further effects propogating downstream, perhaps laying the
foundation for new coincidences. Simplicius explains: “the dominance of Luck controls
the sublunary part of the universe, which is the realm of the nature of the possible, which,
being disorderly in itself, Luck controls, organizes and guides along with the other
primary causes.”215
It is precisely this notion of chance that forms the crux of Aristotle’s rejection of
determinism raisonné, for it entails that we cannot—even as a theoretical matter—trace
the determination of every present event along the chain-of-causes back to eternity. Thus
events need not be regarded as all along inevitable:
213
Met.1027a29-32
See Williams 1986, 181. Hintikka notes Aristotle’s claim that chance is not “strictly speaking (i.e.
without qualification) a cause of anything,” but he dismisses it as merely a façon de parler. He is correct to
do so for the qualifier ‘without qualification’ makes all the difference. It only stands to reason that chance,
as a per accidens cause, could never produce any effect ‘without qualification.’ (Met.1025a25)
215
in Ph.360,18-30
214
43 …there are not causes and principles of the accidental, or the same kind as
there are of what is in its own right; for if there were, everything would be
of necessity. If A is when B is, and B is when C is, and if C exists not by
chance but of necessity, that of which C was cause will exist of necessity,
down to the last mention of the things caused…Therefore all things will
occur of necessity, and chance and the possibility of a thing’s either
occurring or not occurring are removed entirely from the range of
events.216
Here Aristotle clearly allows that chance accidents have causes (albeit not of “the same
kind”), and even that these causes necessitate their effects; he only denies that the chain
of necessitation must needs extend to eternity.217 Thus, in the explanation of certain
events, the causal “process goes back to a certain starting-point, but this no longer points
to something further.”218
In allowing causal ‘new beginnings’ to bubble up by chance, Aristotle disrupts at
root the otherwise inviolable web of causality later assumed by the Stoics and neoPlatonists. Marcus Aurelius declared: “Whatever befalls thee was set in train for thee
from everlasting, and the interplication of causes was from eternity weaving into one
fabric thy existence and the coincidence of this event.”219 Plotinus concurred: “If all
things have a cause for their happening it is easy to apprehend the causes which are
immediately relevant to each happening and to trace it back to them.”220 Yet, for
Aristotle, all things do not have a cause, or at least a determinant one, and from this point
of departure he is able to accept the determinism of the efficient cause in particular, but
deny the universal Stoic/neo-Platonic conclusion that “what comes after is always
216
Met.1065a6-9. Cf. Harry Ide, “Aristotle Metaphysics VI 2-3 and Coincidences” Ancient Philosophy 13
(1993), 352.
217
See SCG, 3.94.2. According to Hintikka, Aristotle’s focus on the starting point rather than the links in
the causal chain is due to his commitment to causal determinism: “he seems to have been so much
impressed by connections between earlier and later states of affairs…that he tended to think of them as
having deterministic implications.” (1977, 103-104)
218
Met.1027b12. Cf. Frede 1985, 207-208.
219
Meditationes, x.5. Cf. Met.1027a32-1027b6.
220
Enneads III.1.1.25-28
44 enslaved to what is before.”221 Moreover, because any present chain of causes may
intersect with others by chance and thereby create ‘new beginnings,’ so too we cannot
project a continuous-chain or light-cone into the future and thereby foresee all future
events that will come-to-be from the state of the present. Thus, the most outstanding
feature of Aristotle’s analysis of chance is its intrinsic denial of any epistemology of
future contingents.222 Alexander presents the dilemma starkly: “if foreknowledge about
these things before they [occur] does away with what is contingent in them, it is clear
that, if [contingence] were to be preserved, foreknowledge concerning them would be
impossible.”223
This view is very different from Democritus, Diodorus, or the Stoics, all of whom
regarded chance as ontologically vacuous and our ignorance of future happenings (indeed
our fantasy of ‘contingence’ itself) to reside entirely in us.224 For Aristotle and his scions,
the matter is entirely reversed: chance and contingence is an ontological fact from which
our own ignorance follows. This point Boethius makes explicitly:
[Chance] is indeed in the very nature of things, so that it is not our
ignorance from which this is derived in such a way that some things would
seem to be by chance because they were unknown to us; instead, they
would be unknown by us because those things that happen by chance in
nature would retain no constancy of necessity or of providence.225
Boethius’ point harkens to Carneades’ aforementioned reasoning concerning the
insuperable ignorance real contingency entails: a deficit following not from the
limitations of our finite intellect, but rather from a limitation imposed on us by the
metaphysics of causation itself: “not even Apollo could tell any future events except
221
Enneads III.1.4,35
Dudley 2012, 278
223
De fato(a), iii.200,20-23
224
Stoic.rep. 1045c
225
in Int.194,18-23
222
45 those whose causes were so held together by nature that they must necessarily
happen.”226 In such a case even infinite knowledge would make no difference—even the
gods must remain ignorant of the future.227
This upshot proved unacceptable not only to Abrahamic monotheists and their
omniscient Deity,228 but also to Graeco-Roman pagans whose culture took divination
with grave seriousness.229 Cicero declared that “the average man had no doubt about
divination, and…no philosopher of any sort of reputation has had any different view;”230
and he was clear on the causality thereof: “auguries…auspices, omens, and all other
signs…are not the causes of what follows: they merely foretell what will occur.”231 The
implication was not lost on the Stoics, who reasoned: “the predictions of the prophets
could not be true unless all things were fast bound by fate”232—the obvious reductio
being that, barring universal causal determinism, divination was a hoax.233 Moreover, if
pagan divination was a hoax not because of the falsity of the pagan gods, but because of
ontology itself, then Christian prophecy was likewise implicated. Plotinus followed the
Stoics in requiring causality to be universal, thereby binding Providence to Fate, the
causal web, and the Deity itself—a synthesis that was adopted into Christian theology
and thereby dominated metaphysics for the next nine centuries.
5. Conclusion
226
De fato(a), xiv. 32
Cf. C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sander Pierce (Harvard UP, 1965) v. 58ff.
228
See Peter Lombard, Sent. I.38.1; Hobbes, English Works (London, 1839), I.485.
229
De div.i.86
230
See Crito 44a; Prob. 957a1ff.
231
De div.i.29-30
232
Praep. evang., iv. 3. Cf. Nemesius, De nat. hom., §36,106.23; SVF, 2.139-144.
233
This was a central Stoic argument for determinism. Chrysippus wrote a treatise on divination and
“collected a vast number” of accurate predictions, as did Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus. (De
div.i.37-39, i.84) See Bobzien 1998, 93ff.
227
46 At this late juncture two questions remain outstanding. First: Does Aristotle’s notion of
chance succeed in the task of preventing everything from coming-to-be of necessity?
While I have offered a sympathetic interpretation of his account and regard it as a unique
position in the history of metaphysics, the ultimate answer must be: No. Aristotle
accepted the causal determinism endemic to ancient thought, but, in inheriting the telic
cosmology of Socrates,234 came to understand the system of natural causality from a
fundamentally distinct standpoint. The Stoics were also deeply committed to Providence,
but regarded it as inextricably entwined with efficient causality—and accepted the
determinism this union entailed.235 They were correct to do so. Insofar as Aristotle’s
‘chance’ is uncaused in terms of final causality but not efficient causality, then clearly,
when considering the order of causation as a whole, the shibboleth nihil fit sine causa
remains in full force.
In reference to the man who encounters his debtor at the market,236 Simplicius
admits openly:
We all say that this happens by luck or as a result of chance; even so, the
fact that he goes wishing to shop is the efficient cause of what happens
too; for it is because of that that he meets his debtor and gets his money.
Similarly in other cases of what happens by luck it is always possible to
find some determined cause rather than luck.237
Aristotle almost admitted as much himself;238 and insofar as he regarded an efficient
cause to necessitate its effect, anything that comes-to-be on that order must also come-tobe of necessity. Among the ancients, Plotinus understood this implication the best: even
if one rejects the necessitarian Fate of Diodorus and Zeno, nonetheless:
234
Xenophon, Memorabilia, i.4,2-18; iv.3,3-12.
Bobzien 1998, 45f.
236
Ph.196b33-197a7
237
in Ph.328,34-329,1
238
Ph.196a1-5. Cf. Hankinson 1998, 137.
235
47 …anyone who speaks of the mutual interweaving of causes and the chain
of causation…and the fact that consequents always follow antecedents and
go back to them, since they come-to-be because of them and would not
have done so without them…will obviously bring in fate by another
way.239
Moreover, in allowing fate to re-enter on the order of efficient causality, Aristotle was no
longer in a position to oppose determinism raisonné. Concerning the man digging a hole
for a plant, Plotinus points out: “If he found treasure, we must say something from the All
cooperated…for all things without exception are connected with each other.”240 If
everything that comes-to-be does so (without exception) from a determining (if not
determinant) efficient cause, then clearly the order of such causes must necessarily be one
of continuous systematic connection. Thus, while Aristotle can still presume to speak of
‘chance’ in reference to one modality of causation but not another, Plotinus is
undoubtedly correct: “when all the causes are included, everything happens with
complete necessity.”241
This leaves the second, final question: What then of Hume? Hume’s critique of
causation proceeds from the assumption that cause and effect are conceived in terms of
necessary connection,242 and concludes by arguing that we lack any empirical or rational
justification for this conception.243 Hume’s critique is thus entirely epistemological,
forgoing any discussion of the true nature of causality and instead considering only the
soundness and validity of our idea thereof. Hume isolated ‘necessary connexion’ as the
essence of this idea precisely to the extent that the entire sweep of metaphysics prior to
him had as well. It is therefore entirely anachronistic to dismiss the substance of his
239
Enneads III.1.2.30-36
Enneads II.3.14.17-20
241
Enneads III.1.9.3-4
242
Treatise, 1.4.5
243
Treatise 1.3.1-9
240
48 critique as a petito principii. Yet, does Hume fair any better than Aristotle when all is
said and done?
The ultimate answer here must again be: No. The ancient commitment to causal
determinism was inspired not so much by the certitude that a particular effect must follow
from a particular cause, but by the related but distinct certitude that every effect must
needs a cause simply. While Hume’s critique of necessary connection and elaboration of
the problem of induction have made him famous, virtually all of the arguments he
deployed in this regard had been advanced by earlier figures.244 Rather, Hume’s crowning
achievement was his peerless extension of this critique to the greatest heresy of all: cause
and effect lack a necessary connection betwixt them insofar as they are logically distinct,
which means that both are capable of independent existence, which means that the
ultimate maxim of metaphysics, “whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of
existence,” is logically groundless.245
In demonstrating that there is not the least contradiction in a causeless
happening/existence, Hume laid bare the metaphysics of causation, exposing its deepest
totem as a baseless prejudice. In doing so he vindicated Epicurus and his ‘swerve’ after
two millennia of opprobrium—yet, like Epicurus, he too recoiled from the monster he
had born. Epicurus had endeavored to protect human freedom with a bit of metaphysical
special-pleading kept sequestered from physics proper. Hume cared not for such things
but wished to cast metaphysics into the flames once and for all by exposing its deepest
244
See: Tahafut al-Falasifah, 185; Ockham, Opera philosophica (Franciscan Institute, 1967–1988),
I,241.15-21; Autrecourt, The Universal Treatise (Marquette UP, 1971), 237; La Forge, Oeuvres
philosophiques (Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), 143; Cordemoy, Oeuvres philosophiques (Presses
Universitaires de France, 1968), 137; Geulincx, Opera philosophica (Martin Nijhoff, 1891-1893), III,209;
Malebranche, Oeuvres complètes (Vrin, 1958-1969), III,228. Cf. Steven Nadler, “No Necessary
Connection” Monist 79 (1996): 448-466.
245
Treatise 1.3.3. Cf. Anscombe, “Whatever Has a Beginning of Existence Must Have a Cause” Analysis
34 (1974): 145-155; Henry Allison, Custom and Reason in Hume (Oxford UP, 2008), 93-111.
49 principles as hollow presumptions. However, when his critique began to burn down into
the presumptions of Newtonian physics, Hume aborted it and extinguished the flames
with celerity. Thus, shortly after overturning the deepest maxim of metaphysics, Hume
turned to consider “the probability of chances”…and with one hand undid the incredible
labor of the other. He notes: “tis commonly allow’d by philosophers, that what the vulgar
call chance is nothing but a secret and conceal’d cause.”246 Hume offers no resistance to
this assessment, but admits “tho’ chance and causation be directly contrary, yet ’tis
impossible for us to conceive this combination of chances, which is requisite to render
one hazard superior to another, without supposing a mixture of causes among the
chances, and a conjunction of necessity in some particulars.”247
That is to say, although chance signifies nothing more than a negation of cause,
Hume concurs with Aristotle and al-Farabi that any “ratio in the variation,” any usitative
happening “more likely and frequent” than its opposite, requires a cause to make it so.
Probability is itself grounded on the supposition of an equality of chances, and thus:
Where nothing limits the chances, every notion, that the most extravagant
fancy can form, is upon a footing of equality; nor can there be any
circumstance to give one the advantage above another. Thus unless we
allow, that there are some causes to make the dice fall, and preserve their
form in their fall, and lie upon some one of their sides, we can form no
calculation concerning the laws of hazard.248
The extent to which Hume undermines his own achievement in so brief a passage is
astonishing. Boethius admitted of nature: “I could never imagine…that anything so
regular was moved at random or by chance.”249 In making the same concession to Lady
Philosophy, Hume not only violates his coruscating analysis of the problem of
246
Treatise, 1.3.12
Treatise, 1.3.11; cf. Cicero, De div.i.23.
248
Ibid. Concerning ancient views on the equal probability of chances, see Sambursky 1956, 46.
249
Consolatio, i.6
247
50 induction,250 but turns his back on the deep ontological indeterminancy he had just
vindicated—the possibility that things may exist, occur, and reoccur at whatever degree
of rarity or regularity, not due to the imposition of any cause, but merely as a brute fact.
Even Plato allowed that, prior to the imposition of the demiurge, the chaotic
prima materia occasionally assumed some semblance of “proportionality” and order
purely “by chance.”251 In turning his back on such a possibility, Hume tacitly accepts the
principle of sufficient reason. Emilie du Châtelet had endeavored to reconcile
Newtonianism with Leibniz’s principle, reasoning: “if there can be effects without
sufficient reason, all might have been produced by accident, that is to say, by nothing.”252
Such a possibility is abhorrent to empirical science since, for example, in weighing two
balls on a balance, “I would be unable to state that the weight of the balls is identical at
the very instant when I find that it is identical; since a change could happen for no reason
at all, [and] happen in one and not the other.”253 Though Hume pretends to accept
Châtelet’s reductio (“all might have been produced by accident”) as an article of
metaphysics, he blinks when it comes to physics, and thereby concurs with no less a
determinist than Chrysippus. Plutarch relates:
Chrysippus in many places cites as evidence dice and scales and many of
the things that cannot fall or incline now one way and now another
without the occurrence of some cause…it being his contention that the
uncaused is altogether non-existent and…that these movements which
250
That is to say, if all observed regularities owe their regularity to some particular cause, then the
observation of regularities is informative of real causation. If this is so then we would seem to have a strong
if not sufficient reason for believing that such regularities will continue to hold under the determination of
the same causes. We cannot, of course, know with certainty that at some point in the future these causes
may evaporate or invert in their effects, but this dearth of absolute certainty is now all that remains of the
problem of induction. The grand circularity that Hume brilliantly exposed underlying induction is
predicated on the assumption that we have no idea from whence such regularities arise. If this is not so but
rather regularities “of necessity” point to facts beyond themselves, then the circularity disappears.
251
Tim.69b
252
Institutions de physique, §8
253
Ibid.
51 some people imagine and call adventitious [have] obscure causes.254
Thus, while they may have paid lip-service to their metaphysical possibility, in terms of
physics, the real existence of chance and uncaused coming-to-be as a brute fact of reality
itself remained something neither Hume, nor Aristotle, nor anyone of their cohort could
accept. All remained trapped in the sticky tendrils of the determinism they presumed to
overcome.
254
Stoic.rep. 1045c; SVF 2.339-344. Cf. Bobzien 1998, 38ff.
52