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    If we experience a cause bringing about more than one eff... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    If we experience a cause bringing about more than one effect, the cause was not simple but comprised of parts.

    Causation
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A simple cause can have only one simple effect.
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    • 2.Multiple effects from a single apparent cause would otherwise be unexplainable.
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    • 3.Different parts of a compound cause can each contribute to the causation of different effects.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Spinoza's Ethics establishes that God, as absolutely simple and indivisible, necessarily produces infinitely many modes across infinitely many attributes from a single undivided nature.
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    • 2.If causal simplicity precluded multiple effects, Spinoza's monism would be incoherent, yet it stands as one of the most rigorously argued systems in the rationalist tradition.
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    • 3.The inference from 'multiple effects' to 'composite cause' conflates ontological complexity with causal multiplicity, a distinction Aquinas draws in Summa Theologiae I.3.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes demonstrates that a single, unified formal cause can simultaneously determine multiple distinct material effects.
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    • 2.The unity of a cause is defined by its causal power, not by the absence of internal structure, as Leibniz himself acknowledged in the Monadology regarding God's simple will producing plural effects.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesCausation

    Related

    A simple cause can have only one simple effect.Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes demonstrates that a single, unified form...Different parts of a compound cause can each contribute to the causation of diff...If causal simplicity precluded multiple effects, Spinoza's monism would be incoh...
    +4 moreShow less
    Multiple effects from a single apparent cause would otherwise be unexplainable.Spinoza's Ethics establishes that God, as absolutely simple and indivisible, nec...The inference from 'multiple effects' to 'composite cause' conflates ontological...The unity of a cause is defined by its causal power, not by the absence of inter...

    Similar

    Different parts of a compound cause can each contribute to the causati...82%Hume defines a cause as something that is constantly conjoined with it...81%If a simple cause produced more than one effect, the difference betwee...81%Real causes necessarily produce their effects.80%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: sufficient-reason
    View source passageHide passage
    Spinoza holds not only that the existence of things must be explained, but also that the coherence, or incoherence, of their essences (what others would call their possibility) must be explained (E1p33s1). Similarly, the essences of things must also have a cause (E1p25). In general, many commentators have thought that Spinoza relies, either explicitly or implicitly on the PSR to motivate many of his most important and innovative doctrines, such as the Identity of Indiscernibles (E1p4. Although s
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit