I’d like to discover what differences people would find between “that which determines X” and “that which causes X”. — javra

You can either refer to a fantasy world where A does indeed cause (or determine) B.
Or otherwise if you want to refer to the 'real world' you will have to rely on statistics (and perhaps the inferred probability associated with those statistics.)

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. Sorry this is such a trite example. :worry:

You can either refer to a fantasy world where A does indeed cause (or determine) B.
Or otherwise if you want to refer to the 'real world' you will have to rely on statistics (and perhaps the inferred probability associated with those statistics.) — A Seagull

To be clear, in your view causation doesn’t exist? Or are you alluding to probabilistic causation? If the former, why maintain this? If the latter, I’m so far finding the same semantic difficulties between cause and determinant with probabilistic causation.

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. — jgill

Right, good example. So when you determine the image via X, Y, and Z, how do you not cause the properties of the image via these same means? And when the running program causes the image to appear, is not the image’s appearance determined by the running program?

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, makes the two different.

If “to determine” signifies “to fix the form or character of”, how is a determinant not a cause, or a cause not a determinant?

Or otherwise if you want to refer to the 'real world' you will have to rely on statistics (and perhaps the inferred probability associated with those statistics.) — A Seagull

Then you need to ask why events in a dynamic world can be determined statistically. The fact that statistics exists, and is useful for something, must indicate something more meaningful than statistics exist and is useful. Why does it exist and why is it useful? What does it mean to be useful? The truer the map the more useful it is.

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. Sorry this is such a trite example. :worry: — jgill

This doesn't sound like a very useful program that only displays one image - the one you determined. Computer programs are useful when they can be applied to create various images for different people based on the input from different users. The programmer doesn't necessarily know what images the program will generate because they are aren't aware of all the different kinds of input from different users. We can try to guess, but we can't account for every instance, which is why programs can have bugs.

So when you determine the image via X, Y, and Z, how do you not cause the properties of the image via these same means? And when the running program causes the image to appear, is not the image’s appearance determined by the running program?

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, makes the two different. — javra

It seems to me that the difference is simply temporal. Both events are required to occur in sequence, one before the other - writing a program and then running the program on a computer - for the image to appear on the screen. You can't run a program that hasn't been written.

It seems to me that the difference is simply temporal. Both events are required to occur in sequence, one before the other - writing a program and then running the program on a computer - for the image to appear on the screen. You can't run a program that hasn't been written. — Harry Hindu

I agree that in both examples the processes are temporal. So, if I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that (efficient) causation is necessarily temporal whereas determinacy in general is not. Hence, material, formal, and teleological determinacy can each occur in simultaneity relative to that which determines and that which is thereby determined – whereas efficient determinacy, what we today most often interpret as causation, is always temporal. If so, I agree with this as well.

Going by this, it currently seems to me that it would be more accordant with modern English use to specify causation as being a peculiar subspecies of determinacy: namely, that one subspecies of determinacy which is necessarily temporal.

So, then, we have multiple possible types of determinacy with only one such type being properly termed causation. In which case, as one example, we ought not say "material cause" but, instead, "material determinant". Or, as another example, we ought not use the phrase "teleological causes" but "teleological determinants".

I agree that in both examples the processes are temporal. So, if I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that (efficient) causation is necessarily temporal whereas determinacy in general is not. Hence, material, formal, and teleological determinacy can each occur in simultaneity relative to that which determines and that which is thereby determined – whereas efficient determinacy, what we today most often interpret as causation, is always temporal. If so, I agree with this as well. — javra

What you call determinancy I see as snapshot views at different sizes relative to the process we are talking about. Think about determinancy as spatial causation and efficient as temporal causation.

Any view is from somewhere in space-time like being outside or inside the process you are observing and the frequency of change you are observing relative to the frequency in which your sensory information processor can process information about what you are observing.

Our minds stretch out these causal relationships in both space and time relative to our own position in space-time.

Have an example.

An element of this set: {1,2,3}

Specify the condition "is an element of this set which is not equal to 1 or 2"

Determines the set {3}.

So there are determinations which are not causes. Though mathematicians will say things like "it causes the only element left to be three".

Think of formal and final causes as the snapshot views we have of the spatial-temporal causal process. Think of it like digitizing an analog process, where the formal and final causes are the bits we focus on in an (infinite) relationship in space-time. The form and purpose are all snapshot views of an instant in the relationship. The material and efficient causes are the actual relationships independent of our snapshots (formal and final) in time and space.

Think of formal and final causation as how we conceive of the other two causes. There is no final cause except as a concept, as every effect becomes it own cause, its just a matter of which effect we want to focus on and call the end result - or the purpose. Just as the form is not really the end of the road of any causal process. Forms change with time, and any form that you settle with is only an arbitrary finishing line that you have determined in your mind, but causal processes don't stop when you are satisfied with some "end product". Bronze statues can tarnish or be melted.

So there are determinations which are not causes. Though mathematicians will say things like "it causes the only element left to be three". — fdrake

Thank you for the example.

If meaning is use, and if the determinant can be stated via common language use to be a cause but can likewise be stated via same to not be a cause, the issue of whether it is proper for the determinant that is being referenced to be termed “a cause” still remains muddled, at least to me.

To try to better explain the equivocations I find in the term “cause”:

In Aristotelian terms, the scenario you’ve presented could be explained via formal causation: The singular form of {3} is being fixed, else established, via the property offered of “not equal to 1 or 2 in the set: {1,2,3}” – such that while the property offered is contemporaneous with the determined 3 (the two are not temporally separated) there would not be this determination in absence of the offered property. This is fully in line with counterfactual definitions of causation: X causes Y iff, where X to not be or occur, Y would not be or occur. This, then, makes this exemplified determinacy causal when going by the counterfactual definition of causation – at least, again, when causation is interpreted in Aristotelian terms. But then, as I believe you implicitly express, this is not an efficient causation wherein causes temporally precede their effects and, therefore, is not what we today commonly deed to be a causal process.

The same counterfactual definition can be applied to material causation: e.g., a wooden sphere would not have the particular buoyancy it does (its buoyancy being the given effect Y) if it were not made of the given wood (this being the material cause X to the particular buoyancy as effect Y); hence, X causes Y because were X to not be or occur Y would not be or occur; yet, as with formal causation, here X and Y are contemporaneous – and so cannot be deemed causal in the sense of efficient causation where X temporally precedes Y. Notwithstanding, it can be easily said that the sphere’s buoyancy is caused by the wood form which it is composed: the wood causes the buoyancy.

Likewise for teleological causation. An intention X causes choice Y in so far as Y would not have been or occurred as a choice in the absence of intention X. Yet the intention, the goal – which is the striven for future which occurs in the present – occurs contemporaneously with the choice that is being taken. The process is not an efficient causation. Nevertheless, although a bit more awkward to our ear, we can express that, “His desire to be win first place in the upcoming race caused him to choose practicing over the party he was invited to.”

If one defines causation as a process wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect, then formal, material, and teleological causes cannot be properly termed “causes” – for in the latter three cases that which determines is contemporaneous with that which is thereby determined. Yet – especially for someone like myself who finds value in Aristotle’s four determinants, or causes (or, at today more commonly translated, explanations) – whether or not this prescription is adequate becomes murky on account of common language use sometimes expressing these same three determinacies as causal processes.

That said, because I can only construe all causes to be determinants (of effects) – may I be corrected if counterexamples exist! – and because some determinants are often concluded to not be causes – as is illustrated in your post – I so far remain inclined to think it best to specify causes as one subtype of determinants. Namely, that subtype of determinacy wherein that which determines is temporally prior to that which is being determined.

So the short version of all this: I so far agree.

Continuing with the terminology you've used:

I placed this thread in General philosophy rather than Metaphysics due to an initial intention to not engage in debate pro or contra the significance of specific Aristotelian causes. All the same, I find a lot more significance to formal and final causes than what you’ve outlined.

As an example of formal causation: I don’t subscribe to a temporal causation between brain and consciousness. I do subscribe to a somewhat complex formal causation between the two which, as such, occurs in simultaneity between causes and effects. Complex because it encompasses both bottom-up processes and top-down processes. Yet both these process types occur in simultaneity. We might disagree in this, but maybe you can via this example understand why formal causation is to me of great significance.

As to the metaphysical significance of teleological causation, this would depend on the metaphysical significance one ascribes to conscious and mind in general – and, thereby, to cognitive actions. While there as sub- and unconscious cognitive acts of whose intentions we consciously have little if any awareness of, I maintain that mind is in significant part teleological, end-product driven. Because no efficient causations could be apprehended in the absence of minds, I then find teleological causation to be of great significance in its own right.

I’m happy to further this, but. more in line with my reason for starting this thread, do you have any qualms in terming Aristotle’s four modes of explanation four types of causes? Or would you rather that the term “causes” is reserved for only those causes/determinants that are temporally prior to their effects?

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. — jgill

This doesn't sound like a very useful program that only displays one image - the one you determined. Computer programs are useful when they can be applied to create various images for different people based on the input from different users. The programmer doesn't necessarily know what images the program will generate because they are aren't aware of all the different kinds of input from different users. We can try to guess, but we can't account for every instance, which is why programs can have bugs. — Harry Hindu

What does "useful" have to do with this example? In fact, the programs I write have a number of different input parameters that I alter frequently to obtain new imagery. I don't design these programs for anyone but myself. But I am so happy you attempt to educate me, explaining why programs may have bugs. I feel so stupid. :yikes:

Why does it exist and why is it useful? — Harry Hindu

Statistics is a means by which large quantities of data can be succinctly summarised.

do you have any qualms in terming Aristotle’s four modes of explanation four types of causes? Or would you rather that the term “causes” is reserved for only those causes/determinants that are temporally prior to their effects? — javra

My qualm isn't about the scribbles we use, but what the scribbles refer to.

I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing when it comes to formal causes. It may be because I find it difficult to grasp some of the distinctions Aristotle is trying to make between his "four" causes given what we presently know. I find a lot of old philosophers' ideas as antiquated given that they would probably say something different if they lived today.

I think of formal causation as the form something takes as a result of the actions of it's constituents. It's not a temporal relationship, I agree. It's a spatial one. It's a matter of which view of the thing you are talking about you are taking. The microscopic view, the macroscopic view, the god's eye view.... The view has an effect on what forms we are talking about, yet we are still talking about the same thing from different views. Brains look different at the macroscopic level than they do at the microscopic level, but we're still talking about your brain when talking about your neurons.

As for the relationship between your brain and your mental states,

Brains are static objects inside skulls. It is only when you zoom your view down to the level of neurons do you see activity that can be used to mapped with active mental states.

I think of the world as processes all the way down, and objects (forms and purpose) are how the mind objectifies (models) these processes. Like a map, the symbols aren't temporally related to the terrain. So I also agree with you that there isn't a temporal relationship between mental processes and neural activity. It's more like a spatial representation, like the map.

I see temporal causation as a change of view in time as opposed to a change of view in space. The effect is the final cause in the sense that some part of the process has been objectified as the END of a process that doesn't end, just as the form is the objectification of the process from a particular view in space. In effect, there are no effects, or final causes, it's causes all the way down, as each present state determines subsequent states which are then determinants for following states. The effect is merely a mental snapshot of an arbitrary finish-line of changing states.

I guess what I'm saying is that formal and final causes only exist as mental constructs of an ongoing process. They are not some feature of the world outside of your mind. However, the processes themselves do exist outside of your mind.