Aristotle's Four Causes of Action.
Aristotle's typical procedure is to identify four causes of natural changes. Intentional action, a natural change, has standardly been treated as an exception: most think that Aristotle has the standard causalist account, according to which an intentional action is a bodily movement efficiently caus...
| Published in: | Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 97; no. 2; pp. 213 - 228 |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jun2019
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| Summary: | Aristotle's typical procedure is to identify four causes of natural changes. Intentional action, a natural change, has standardly been treated as an exception: most think that Aristotle has the standard causalist account, according to which an intentional action is a bodily movement efficiently caused by an attitude of the appropriate sort. I show that action is not an exception to Aristotle's typical procedure: he has the resources to specify four causes of action, and thus to articulate a powerful theory of action unlike any other on offer. |
|---|