Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy

273 Pages·2009·1.17 MB·English

by  Walter Ott

CAUSATION AND LAWS OF NATURE IN EARLY
MODERN PHILOSOPHY
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Causation and Laws of
Nature in Early Modern
Philosophy
WALTER OTT
1
1
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Acknowledgments
Likeanyoneworkingonabigproject,Ihaveamassedanumberofdebts.Ihope
mylistiscomplete.
My first debt is to Steven Nadler and Donald Rutherford, whose 2004
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, ‘The Intersection
of Philosophy, Science, and Theology in the Seventeenth Century,’ at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison, pointed me in a new direction. I thank
the presenters and participants, particularly Michael LeBuffe, Mary Domski,
MichaelJacovides,andMartinStone.
ThebookowesagreatdealtofouranonymousrefereesforOxfordUniversity
Press, one of whom provided an unusually detailed set of comments. I thank
them for saving me from a number of idiocies. Dan Flage was kind enough to
comment on the entire manuscript, and I am greatly indebted to him. Bryan
Hall has been an invaluable resource, commenting on my work and sitting
in on a seminar I taught on these issues at Virginia Tech in 2005. Michael
Jacovides suffered through the early stages of my work on Locke and Boyle
on relations and provided indispensable comments. Antonia LoLordo offered
helpful criticisms of my work on Malebranche. Leslie MacAvoy helped with
my translations of Régis. In correspondence, Tad Schmaltz disabused me of
some mistakes. And my deepest thanks to Alan and Ryan Robinson for the
coverart.
Excerpts have appeared in different form in the journals: ‘Causation, Inten-
tionality,andtheCaseforOccasionalism,’ArchivfürGeschichtederPhilosophie,
90/2 (2008); ‘Régis’s Scholastic Mechanism,’ Studies in History and Phi-
losophy of Science, 39/1 (2008); and ‘Hume on Meaning,’ Hume Studies,
32/2 (2006). I am grateful to the editors of these journals for permission
to reprint this material and even more so to the referees who commented
onit.
Parts of the book were presented in various venues, and I thank the
participants and organizers of the fall 2006 meeting of the South Central
Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville;
the spring 2007 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical
Association, San Francisco; the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech col-
loquium series, 2007–8; and the 2008 Conference on Causation 1500–2000,
York,UK.
Finally, I would like to thank Peter Momtchiloff, Catherine Berry, Tessa
Eaton, and the editorial, design, and production staff at Oxford University
Press,UK.IamparticularlygratefultoLaurienBerkeley,thePress’scopy-editor,
forimportantrefinementsandcorrectionsthroughout.
W.O.
Charlottesville,Virginia
March15,2009
Contents
AbbreviationsandConventions x
Introduction 1
1. Themes 5
1.1 TheOriginandStatusofLawsofNature 5
1.2 TheOntologyofPowers 10
1.3 Necessity 12
1.4 ModelsofCausation 14
2. PlanoftheBook 16
3. TheAristotelianBackground 20
3.1 Necessity 20
3.2 TheOntologyofRelations 27
3.3 ManifestandOccultQualities 30
PART I: THE CARTESIAN PREDICAMENT
4. WhatMechanismIsn’t 35
5. TheRejectionofAristotelianism 39
6. TheNudeWax:CartesianOntology 44
7. TheLawsofNature 51
8. Force 61
9. Occasionalism 64
9.1 TheConcurrentistReading 65
9.2 TheArgumentfromLawsofNature 68
9.3 ThoroughgoingOccasionalism 70
9.4 TheProblemofMentalCausation 76
PART II: THE DIALECTIC OF OCCASIONALISM
10. MalebrancheandtheCognitiveModelofCausation 81
10.1 TheArgumentfromNonsense 82
10.2 TheArgumentfromElimination 83
10.3 TheDivineConcursusArgument 86
viii Contents
10.4 ‘LittleSouls’Revisited 90
10.5 The‘NoNecessaryConnection’Argument 92
10.6 TheEpistemicArgument 97
11. LawsandDivineVolitions 102
11.1 TheContentofDivineVolitions 102
11.2 TheProblemofEfficaciousLaws 106
12. CausationandExplanation 110
13. AScholasticMechanism 112
14. Re´gisAgainsttheOccasionalists 120
PART III: POWER AND NECESSITY
15. ‘ADeadCadaverousThing’ 135
16. RelationsandPowers 140
17. Boyle’sParadox 151
18. BoyleandtheConcurrentists 157
19. LockeonRelations 159
20. LockeonPowers:TheGeometricalModel 170
21. Locke’sMechanisms 177
22. Conclusion 187
PART IV: HUME
23. TheTwoHumes 191
24. Intentionality 197
24.1 Meaning 199
24.2 AgainstthePositivistReading 200
24.3 Signification 203
24.4 JudgmentandBelief 206
24.5 SemioticEmpiricism 208
24.6 RelativeIdeas 210
24.7 TheArgumentfromNonsense 215
25. Necessity 219
25.1 FindingHume’sTarget 219
25.2 AgainsttheCognitiveandGeometricalModels 222
25.3 TheNeighboringFields 226
25.4 ThePracticalityRequirement 228
Contents ix
26. Relations 230
26.1 TheStatusofRelations 230
26.2 TwoKindsofRelations 232
26.3 TheNatureofNecessity 235
27. TheDefinitionofCausation 238
27.1 TheProblem 238
27.2 SubjectivismorProjectivism? 240
Conclusion 247
References 251
Index 259