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Inverse View
It is not the case that Aristotle's distinction between per se necessity and per accidens outcomes grounds a concept of contingency in the accidental concurrence of causal chains.
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Reasons For
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1.
The per se/per accidens boundary is conceptually unstable: what counts as 'essential' versus 'incidental' depends on chosen descriptions, not objective facts.
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2.
If accidental concurrences arise from independent per se chains, contingency is illusory—the outcome was determined once all component causes were fixed.
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3.
Modern causation theory (event causation, causal networks) explains coincidence without invoking Aristotle's metaphysical distinction between necessity types.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Per se necessity captures essential causal relations (e.g., heat melting wax), while per accidens describes incidental concurrences (doctor healing as patient).
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2.
Aristotle's framework explains how two independent causal chains (doctor's knowledge, patient's presence) intersect by accident, generating genuine contingency.
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3.
This distinction preserves both determinism in essential causes and openness in accidental outcomes, avoiding fatalism while maintaining causal order.
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