What is a proper cause?

[atassina]

What is a proper cause distinct from just any cause?

 

[polytropos]

What is the context you are referring to?

If I had to guess, I would assume that a proper cause is a cause that tends to produce a certain effect (its final cause) by nature. A cause in general could be a proper cause, or it could be an “accidental cause.”

So a tree grows by nature; it is the proper cause of the extension of its branches. But the extension of its branches, say, over time blocks the sunlight from reaching a patch of grass, which then dies. It is the accidental cause of the death of the grass, since that effect is not something that obtains by the nature of the tree, not something that the tree is directed towards.

 

[atassina]

Science is understanding effects in terms of their proper causes. What is a proper cause?

 

[Skeptic92]

What is a proper cause distinct from just any cause?

Formal, Final, Material, or Efficient?

 

[inocente]

Science is understanding effects in terms of their proper causes. What is a proper cause?

I’ve never seen it used in science. It’s a term in law and there’s a definition in a Catholic dictionary: “The specific cause required to produce a particular effect. Thus, God is the proper cause of the world’s existence; a human being is the proper cause of intelligible speech.” - catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35842

 

[polytropos]

I’ve never seen it used in science.

The term is foreign to contemporary science, to be sure, but that isn’t to say that the concept isn’t applied. One might analyze the proper causes involved in, for example, the reproduction of a cell, while mutations would be “accidental effects,” effects which are not properly caused by the activity of a healthy cell. Science is about finding regularities in the way the world behaves. A distinction between proper and “accidental” causes seems to be conceptually present.

 

[inocente]

The term is foreign to contemporary science, to be sure, but that isn’t to say that the concept isn’t applied. One might analyze the proper causes involved in, for example, the reproduction of a cell, while mutations would be “accidental effects,” effects which are not properly caused by the activity of a healthy cell. Science is about finding regularities in the way the world behaves. A distinction between proper and “accidental” causes seems to be conceptually present.

In law it seems to be “the policeman had proper cause to search” or “the constitution gives congress proper cause to enact laws”. So it’s about an act being property enabled. That might be the religious usage too - only God has authority to create the world. That concept wouldn’t then apply in science, since any outcome at all could be said to be properly caused by the laws of nature, making the “properly” redundant. But I don’t know, just guessing.

 

[polytropos]

In law it seems to be “the policeman had proper cause to search” or “the constitution gives congress proper cause to enact laws”. So it’s about an act being property enabled.

This is a different sense of “proper,” which has a history in metaphysics (ie. a “property” is a “proper accident”).

That might be the religious usage too - only God has authority to create the world.

It’s not just that God has authority to create the world, but that God is the only being who could create the world. (Whereas someone without the “proper cause” in your sense could still illegally conduct a search, no one could “illegally” create the world.)

I don’t think this usage is essentially religious, nor essentially legal/moral, though.

That concept wouldn’t then apply in science, since any outcome at all could be said to be properly caused by the laws of nature, making the “properly” redundant. But I don’t know, just guessing.

Here I think one is working with a different (though analogous) concept of causation. A “proper cause” is another substance, whereas the laws of nature are generalizations about how substances tend to interact, ceteris paribus. So we are speaking loosely when we say that gravity causes an apple to fall to the earth. The earth causes an apple to fall to the earth/

There is another sense in which your point here could be taken, namely that whatever happens happens according to some law, which is grounded in the natures of the participating substances in some respect, so it will be “proper” that the effect occur. I don’t think we should take this interpretation unless we could understand science as entirely eliminating upper-level features of substances, but science has not done that. I think the distinction between the normal process of, say, mitosis, and fortuitous aberrations is a valuable one, from a scientific perspective.

 

[atassina]

Formal, Final, Material, or Efficient?

Skeptic92, thanks for parsing my question into the different types of causes. Since I do not know the definition of a formal, final, material or efficient cause, please explain their definitions. Thanks.

 

[Skeptic92]

Skeptic92, thanks for parsing my question into the different types of causes. Since I do not know the definition of a formal, final, material or efficient cause, please explain their definitions. Thanks.

Extrinsic Causes

Efficient

An Efficient Cause is a principle of actuality that brings into act the potency it is ordered to actualise

Final

Final Causes are the effects which an efficient cause is ordered to produce; the efficient cause is in potency in regards to its Final Cause

Intrinsic Causes

Material

Material Causes are the principle of potency, or change, intrinsic to a substance. The body for instance in a human being

Formal

Formal Causes are an intrinsic principle of actuality to a substance. For instance the soul in a human being

 

[atassina]

Understood. Thanks.

 

[grannymh]

Science is understanding effects in terms of their proper causes. What is a proper cause?

Going by the definition – Science is understanding effects in terms of their proper cause.

The proper realm of science is the material/physical universe. The first rule in the scientific method is to observe what occurs in nature without prejudice. There are questions to be answered. For example. How and when does “something” occur in nature? Why does “something” occur in nature. In the beginning, there are lots of possible answers. Scientists analyze and test these answers. Eventually, a conclusion or explanation is formed about the “something” which occurs in nature.

In the realm of science, if one is looking for a proper cause, one is looking for a proper material/physical explanation as to why something exists or why something happens. This explanation can be a theory, hypothesis, or a natural law found in nature.

This is pure speculation on my part. It seems to me that “effects” can be anything in nature. We do gain understanding when we explore (looking for an explanation) what caused the “effects” to occur in nature.

 

[atassina]

I agree. That is why science is understanding effects in terms of their proper cause. Sciences like philosophy, theology, botany, medicine all fall under the above definition. Therefore, debates about God are scientific debates and not just religious opinion or superstition.

Going by the definition – Science is understanding effects in terms of their proper cause.

The proper realm of science is the material/physical universe. The first rule in the scientific method is to observe what occurs in nature without prejudice. There are questions to be answered. For example. How and when does “something” occur in nature? Why does “something” occur in nature. In the beginning, there are lots of possible answers. Scientists analyze and test these answers. Eventually, a conclusion or explanation is formed about the “something” which occurs in nature.

In the realm of science, if one is looking for a proper cause, one is looking for a proper material/physical explanation as to why something exists or why something happens. This explanation can be a theory, hypothesis, or a natural law found in nature.

This is pure speculation on my part. It seems to me that “effects” can be anything in nature. We do gain understanding when we explore (looking for an explanation) what caused the “effects” to occur in nature.

 

[atassina]

please give me an apt example of an efficient cause.

Extrinsic Causes

Efficient

An Efficient Cause is a principle of actuality that brings into act the potency it is ordered to actualise

Final

Final Causes are the effects which an efficient cause is ordered to produce; the efficient cause is in potency in regards to its Final Cause

Intrinsic Causes

Material

Material Causes are the principle of potency, or change, intrinsic to a substance. The body for instance in a human being

Formal

Formal Causes are an intrinsic principle of actuality to a substance. For instance the soul in a human being

 

[grannymh]

I agree. That is why science is understanding effects in terms of their proper cause. Sciences like philosophy, theology, botany, medicine all fall under the above definition. Therefore, debates about God are scientific debates and not just religious opinion or superstition.

Would you please expand on the comment that debates about God are scientific? I can see some reasons for that statement, but I prefer to first hear your reasons.

In the meantime, these are some basic observations about science itself.

When we substitute the word Knowledge for Sciences – so that it reads “Knowledge is understanding effects in terms of their proper cause” – then we can say that philosophy, theology, botany, medicine all fall under that definition. When we use the word Science, then we have to recognize that there are two realms which invite inquiry. There is the material/physical realm of the scientists and the separate spiritual realm of Catholicism. There are only a few times in which these two realms intersect.

The science material/physical realm uses visible nature as its authority. The spiritual realm uses Divine Revelation as the final authority. Catholicism teaches that Divine Revelation has established the Catholic Church as the visible authority on planet earth.

 

[atassina]

Thank you for the respectful and balanced inquiry. This is always a good sign to me.

If I know that chalk will write on a rock but ball point pen will not, how is that science? I know both effects, but I don’t know the cause of why there is this difference. Therefore, I do not perceive pure knowledge as science. Knowing an effect does not explain the cause.

Theology is not simply divine revelation. Rather it is a both/and science. Theology uses pure reason (the natural law), personal/communal revelation and divine revelation.

I hope this is satisfactory. If not so, I’ll explicate further.

 

[Skeptic92]

please give me an apt example of an efficient cause.

I’ll give you two examples; according to a causal series ordered per se, and according to a causal series ordered per accidens.

Efficient Cause in an accidentally ordered series;

As a Father begets a son, the Father is an efficient cause of his sons existence.

Efficient Cause in an essentially ordered series. This can also be called an “Efficient-formal” cause; as Formal and Efficient causation is reciprocal, please see Etienne Gilson Being and Some Philosophers for an extended treatment of this.

The cells of your body, and the nuclei of these cells are Efficient Causes of your being as the substance that you are. In the sense that they are Efficient-Formal Causes; it is this causal series which Aquinas’ first three ways relies on. Not the previous causal series; you will notice that this form of causation the cause and effect are simultaneous. This is why Aquinas’ arguments work whether the universe began in a finite-past time or a infinite past-time.

 

[atassina]

pleas explain accident in accidentally ordered. thx

 

[Skeptic92]

pleas explain accident in accidentally ordered. thx

In an accidentally ordered series, the following members do not depend upon the previous members existence to exercise their own causal power. In my example, the son can beget his own child whether or not his Father is still in existence. In contrast; an essentially ordered sequence all later members depend upon the existence of the previous members to exercise their causal power. If the cells of your body ceased to exist, you would cease to exist. In this sense all intermediate causes in the chain are “instrumental” causes, as they rely upon the first member of the series to exercise their causal power.

For the fans of Latin, an accidentally oredered series is called a ‘per accidens’ series, whilst an essentially ordered series is called a ‘per se’ ordered series.

 

[atassina]

i can no other gift make but thanks and thanks. this is gold. how can i learn it at the source?