Thomas Aquinas, The Unmoved Mover

[grannymh]

It doesn’t really, but Hume thought it did. Hume’s Enquiry begins with how we know cause and effect. He posits that we have knowledge of causal relations because we have observed them. Water is cooled to zero degrees Celsius, it freezes. A cue ball strikes another billiard ball at a certain angle, it goes into the corner pocket. We understand all of these things through induction, which means that induction must be justified before we can know causal relations.

However, when we say we know that a certain cause (cooling water to a certain temperature) will result in a certain effect (ice), what we are really saying is that in the past we have observed one event (X) follow another event (Y). We may have observed this hundreds or thousands of times. Conceivably though, the next time (Y) happens it may be that (X) does not follow. In fact, the only reason we believe that (X) will follow (Y) is because we’ve seen it happen “lots of times” in the past. But Hume pointed out that isn’t justification for our belief that it will happen again in the future. Something more must be assumed, and that something more is the uniformity of nature.

More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future.

Coming at this from a different direction. The induction method can be justified if one is examining specific evidence and looking for a conclusion. On the other hand, the deduction method starts with an hypothesis and looks for evidence which supports the hypothesis.
Is this the way the two methods should be explained?

It seems to me that Hume is not looking at hot water and ice as evidence which would be the base for the induction method. ??? I am not sure why he is concerned about future predictions unless he is using the deduction method to prove his hypothesis of doubt.

The question which pops up – Is philosophy meant to predict future events or is it meant to explain current existence? Or is philosophy a combination of both?

I am beginning to think that doubts about causality may be one of the reasons that intellectual inquiry wants to deal only with the material/physical world.
If philosophy leads to doubts, why bother?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

granny

**The original sense of creation can only be attributed to God, because creation is used in reference to creating of out nothing. **

Agreed. Creation is not the same as causality. Causality refers to things acting upon other things in the order of nature.

But the Creation is not of the same order. The Creator therefore is exempt from the principle of causality. That is, when Bertrand Russell and others complain that if everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause, they simply don’t understand the difference between causality and creation.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

warpspeed

**If we are to accept the inductions that form the various natural laws. Then why should we be any less sure in our inductions of causality? The point being that the epistemological weakness of induction gives us no special cause to doubt causality. **

 

[Charlemagne_II]

This is from Hume.

“Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.”

Here Hume is tying induction to the deterministic laws of nature. There can be no exceptions to these laws. Miracles are not possible. But this conclusion is a consequence of Hume’s skepticism, or rather … atheism.

 

[grannymh]

granny

**The original sense of creation can only be attributed to God, because creation is used in reference to creating of out nothing. **

Agreed. Creation is not the same as causality. Causality refers to things acting upon other things in the order of nature.

But the Creation is not of the same order. The Creator therefore is exempt from the principle of causality. That is, when Bertrand Russell and others complain that if everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause, they simply don’t understand the difference between causality and creation.

Would it be better to say that the Creator is not of the same order as in plants, animals, humans, angels, God? If I remeber that correctly.

Did St.Thomas establish God as being in a separate order?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

granny

**Did St.Thomas establish God as being in a separate order? **

Wasn’t it the other way around?

Clearly the Creator cannot be subject to His creation, though aspects of His creation may emanate from his very essence: such as that we are made in His image and likeness. He would certainly not create anything contrary to His supreme will, even if what He created, originally good, departed from His will.

If you are looking for a quote from Thomas Aquinas, will this do?

SUMMA THEOLOGICA FIRST PART: THE CREATION

*Article 4. Whether God is the final cause of all things?

I answer that, Every agent acts for an end: otherwise one thing would not follow more than another from the action of the agent, unless it were by chance. Now the end of the agent and of the patient considered as such is the same, but in a different way respectively. For the impression which the agent intends to produce, and which the patient intends to receive, are one and the same. Some things, however, are both agent and patient at the same time: these are imperfect agents, and to these it belongs to intend, even while acting, the acquisition of something. But it does not belong to the First Agent, Who is agent only, to act for the acquisition of some end; He intends only to communicate His perfection, which is His goodness; while every creature intends to acquire its own perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things. *

 

[tdgesq]

Coming at this from a different direction. The induction method can be justified if one is examining specific evidence and looking for a conclusion. On the other hand, the deduction method starts with an hypothesis and looks for evidence which supports the hypothesis.
Is this the way the two methods should be explained?

Strictly speaking from the science of logic, deduction requires that a conclusion necessarily follows from the truth of the premises. We can take the truth of the premises out of the equation entirely by using symbolic logic:

If P then Q;
P;
Therefore, Q.

This is modus ponens, Q is a necessary conclusion from the premises.

Inductive reasoning only requires that the conclusion likely follows from the truth of the premises, but not necessarily. So: All swans observed are white; therefore, all swans are white. The conclusion does not necessarily follow even if the premise is true.

These two methods are not mutually exclusive, by which I mean the premises of a deductive argument may be based upon inductive reasoning. This happens all the time. The form of the argument will be valid even if the premises and the conclusion are false.

You are using the terms in a broader way that are sometimes used in the specialized sciences. Deduction is the process of forming a hypothesis and then using a series of observations to confirm or deny the hypothesis. Induction starts with a series of observations that establish a pattern to form a conclusion.

It seems to me that Hume is not looking at hot water and ice as evidence which would be the base for the induction method. ??? I am not sure why he is concerned about future predictions unless he is using the deduction method to prove his hypothesis of doubt.

He uses billiard balls and other examples, but he isn’t using it in the same sense as the broad method treated above. He is instead looking to see if the conclusions reached about causation are arrived at purely from induction or not. If they are, then these conclusions are potentially false as are all other conclusions derived from induction. More importantly though, he denies that induction is justified in predicting any future caused event. This, he claims, would presuppose that nature will remain uniform based upon an uncertain (inductive) method that we have observed in the past that, even so, only shows us that one event precedes another without actually explaining the causal connection.

The question which pops up – Is philosophy meant to predict future events or is it meant to explain current existence? Or is philosophy a combination of both?

This is a bigger question than I am probably able to address. Logic is the basis for mathematics and the scientific method. Both of these are used in the applied sciences every day to explain current state of affairs as well as predict events ie. whether a bridge can withstand a certain load and stresses at a certain time.

I am beginning to think that doubts about causality may be one of the reasons that intellectual inquiry wants to deal only with the material/physical world.
If philosophy leads to doubts, why bother?

Philosophers can be wrong. So can scientists. That we use induction with success is a reason to believe that Hume went wrong somewhere. In my opinion the error lies in the notion that naturalistic induction is the only way to justify induction and the uniformity of nature.

 

[JDaniel]

jd, betterave has a good point here. You are on different pages. The four causes work as well for demonstrative inferences as well as speculative inferences ( those in which St. Thomas would probably agree with me), come from the possible intellect. they are distinct beings, you can’t get an ought from an is. You can’t get an up from a down, matters of faith are separate creatures from matters of material fact. Meanness is meanness and niceness is niceness, they are separate entities. Yet we use them legislatively, making a world where we hopefully protect and serve each other.

Charles:

Were you trying to confuse the already confused?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Apparently, Hume is one of the philosophers I spaced out. Even so, how would the induction method destroy causality?

Actually, Granny, I don’t blame you! And, by the way, the idea was originally Berkeley’s anyway, (Berkeley and) Hume claimed that there is no knowledge in man except sense knowledge and thus denied that man had the supersensory power of knowing that we call intelligence. Such a view would, of course, deny that causes can be known. Hume was what we might call a sensist. So, the dialectical inductions we use to arrive at conclusions that there are causes, since causes can’t be seen, per se, are without much weight. Thus, causes can’t be known.

But, causes, remember are not “things.” Causes are dependencies. One thing is dependent upon another. The occurrence of an egg is dependent upon a bird of some kind. Alfred North Whitehead used the expository of a flashlight being shined into a person’s eyes, causing them to blink. Hume would not accept that there was an underlying, invisible cause at work (or, at least that’s what he postulated; whether or not he really believed it is open to debate.)

It is through induction that we relate the occurrence of an egg and knowing that it was deposited by some bird (unless it had a leathery shell). Hume pointed out that we can’t be sure that such a causal relationship existed. We can only know the there was an orderly succession of some sort.

Does that help?

God bless,
jd

 

[grannymh]

Actually, Granny, I don’t blame you! And, by the way, the idea was originally Berkeley’s anyway, (Berkeley and) Hume claimed that there is no knowledge in man except sense knowledge and thus denied that man had the supersensory power of knowing that we call intelligence. Such a view would, of course, deny that causes can be known. Hume was what we might call a sensist. So, the dialectical inductions we use to arrive at conclusions that there are causes, since causes can’t be seen, per se, are without much weight. Thus, causes can’t be known.

But, causes, remember are not “things.” Causes are dependencies. One thing is dependent upon another. The occurrence of an egg is dependent upon a bird of some kind. Alfred North Whitehead used the expository of a flashlight being shined into a person’s eyes, causing them to blink. Hume would not accept that there was an underlying, invisible cause at work (or, at least that’s what he postulated; whether or not he really believed it is open to debate.)

It is through induction that we relate the occurrence of an egg and knowing that it was deposited by some bird (unless it had a leathery shell). Hume pointed out that we can’t be sure that such a causal relationship existed. We can only know the there was an orderly succession of some sort.

Does that help?

God bless,
jd

Yes.
All I can say is that human nature as created by God has been under greater attack than I originally imagined. No wonder Catholics are confused about Adam and Eve. I started out looking for a way to defend Adam’s reality from analyzing scientific methods and materials. It seemed like all I had to do was find a scientist willing to test my various hypotheses. Looks as if there is double the work from the philosophical position. Not to mention the theological attack–though I don’t know how strong that is.

Plus snow is forecasted for tonight.

Blessings,
granny
:snowing:

 

[JDaniel]

What do all the examples of intermediate movers consist of?
And are there various restrictions or limitations inherent in these intermediate movers?

I am interested in Thomas Aquinas, but I am a direct descendant of the other Thomas, the one who is an Apostle. I need to put my hand on these intermediate movers.

Granny:

One key thing that must be remembered is that St. Thomas was not thinking about composite things, such as a cat. He was thinking about things that do not consist of parts outside of parts. Animals are capable of self-locomotion. But, a bowling ball is not going to move without an external agent.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned, St. Thomas perhaps would not have known that the bowling ball might disintegrate given enough time. But, that doesn’t invalidate his logic. When we now build things, like bowling balls, we understand that we are constructing them as composites. Their quantum parts lose adherence; the material holding the composite material together loses that property over time. It ages. Which is motion related to the structural parts of the thing. A diamond, at a mohs hardness of 10, would take immensely longer to decay in this fashion.

The movements of the quantum components of apparently non-composite composites were begun at the big bang. 16.75 billion years ago: certainly not infinity ago.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

**More specifically, the belief that nature will remain uniform in the area of causality lacks justification in Hume’s view. This leaves him questioning whether there is such a thing as causality to begin with. There are only events occurring before other events, and even that relationship is uncertain to hold in the future. **

Does he give an example of a law of a causal relationship in nature being violated? Only if he can do that is it possible to say that causal events are ultimately uncertain.

For example, if he can cite that some water will not freeze when it reaches a certain temperature, then he can say that the causal law is uncertain.

I don’t recall him giving such an example. He should have. Do you have such an example handy?

Even if the expected causal outcome did not occur, that would not eliminate the law of causality. It would only suggest that another cause is preventing water from freezing even when it reaches such a temperature. Don’t know how that would be possible.

Charlemagne:

Actually, he did not. He was, as I pointed out, a sensist. If one could not apprehend something with one or more of the five senses, it’s existence was probationary, at best.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

See it indeed:
The idea of creation thus outlined is intrinsically consistent. Given a personal First Cause possessing infinite power and wisdom, creative productivity would a priori be necessarily one of His perfections, i.e. absolute independence of the external limitations imposed by a material subject whereon to exert His efficiency. Besides, the fecundity which organic creatures possess, and which, in the present supposition, would be derived from that First Cause, must be found typically and eminently in its source. But creative productivity is just the transcendent exemplar of organic fecundity. Therefore, a priori, we should look for it in the First Cause. How the creature is produced, how something comes from nothing, is of course quite unimaginable by us, and extremely difficult to conceive. But this is scarcely less true of any other mode of production. The intimate nexus between cause and effect is in every case hard to understand
Thus creation is clearly a kind of causality.

Betterave:

OK. You could say that I was being nit-picky. Not long ago, there was a thread regarding how lamentable is was that creation has been so misused, in modern times. And, to that extent, I concur. Yes, it is a kind of causality, but, it is not a kind of causality as St. Thomas defines causality. I guess I’m a purist, in this matter.

On the other hand, if one looks at the relationship of the before-and-after, the invisible exigency and its effect, then it is, however loosely, a cause.

(Was that an unsuccessful extrication?)

It should have been obvious that I meant the context of the use of the word end as I was using it in this thread when you criticized me. What you wrote above provides a very different context, one which is completely irrelevant to that of my comment. Sorry.

Oh, now look who’s critical! But, I get it now. Sorry.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

If we are to accept the inductions that form the various natural laws. Then why should we be any less sure in our inductions of causality? The point being that the epistemological weakness of induction gives us no special cause to doubt causality.

Warp:

Not only that but, one has to be predisposed to a belief that man cannot know anything except that which come in to us through the windows of our senses.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

The original sense of creation can only be attributed to God, because creation is used in reference to creating of out nothing.

Granny:

This may seem like a minute point, but, God does not create out of some substance called ‘nothing’; which is what that phrase seems to imply. God creates where there was(/were) no thing(s) of any kind whatsoever before. I am not blaming you for making an error, but, I have seen the error being made, within these forums, in the past. So, I am merely taking this opportunity to reiterate. Warpspeedpetey started (a long time ago) a thread on this very topic, and it was sad to see the amount of misunderstanding about it.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Why can’t the first cause be outside of time, what law defines what is in or out of time?

-sorry to have arrived late, but better late than never…

WW:

Rossum is a stickler for the proper understanding of sequential reality and proper grammar. He would say, a thing is not a Cause until it has caused. Nor can one call a thing a Cause until after it has caused. So, how could God be a Cause before causing the universe? And, more specifically, how could a being that is outside of time have a “before?”

Good points for debate, don’t you think?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

In the science realm, the difficulty is not with the induction method per se. The difficulty is the evidence one starts with and the conclusion one ends with. Are the extrapolations of a particular conclusion warranted by the evidence? is the key question.

Granny:

And that is precisely why all good inductions are accompanied by careful dialectics. Scientists use careful dialectics to arrive at conclusions. This is the method used to narrow down the possibilities. Thus, Walter Reed narrowed down the causative agent of Yellow Fever without having to go through a billion experiments.

God bless,
jd

 

[grannymh]

Granny:

This may seem like a minute point, but, God does not create out of some substance called ‘nothing’; which is what that phrase seems to imply. God creates where there was(/were) no thing(s) of any kind whatsoever before. I am not blaming you for making an error, but, I have seen the error being made, within these forums, in the past. So, I am merely taking this opportunity to reiterate. Warpspeedpetey started (a long time ago) a thread on this very topic, and it was sad to see the amount of misunderstanding about it.

God bless,
jd

Actually, I have been reading an explanation about the Latin, but I am not sure how to say it in English.

Please correct me. If I am going to use philosophy in my project, I need to have it corrected just as I need my science corrected.

About two years ago, I was on the internet and came across the comment that Thomism was dead and was replaced. Going by what I am learning about Hume, etc.,
An understanding of Thomism is needed more than ever.

Blessings,
granny

:snowing:

 

[JDaniel]

Would it be better to say that the Creator is not of the same order as in plants, animals, humans, angels, God? If I remeber that correctly.

Did St.Thomas establish God as being in a separate order?

Granny:

Yes, He is One . . . and ONLY One. That could belie a dependency.

God bless,
jd

 

[grannymh]

Granny:

And that is precisely why all good inductions are accompanied by careful dialectics. Scientists use careful dialectics to arrive at conclusions. This is the method used to narrow down the possibilities. Thus, Walter Reed narrowed down the causative agent of Yellow Fever without having to go through a billion experiments.

God bless,
jd

From the little bit that I am reading, Aquinas uses the same method to rule out possibilities which have been presented by previous philosophers.