Skip to content
Carmelics
TopicsThinkersChangesContributorsLoading account…

    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

    Navigate

    • Topics
    • Search
    • Recent Changes
    • Contribute
    • How It Works
    • Glossary
    • Thinkers
    • Contributors
    • About
    • Statistics
    • Terms
    • Privacy

    Database

    Statements
    —
    Perspectives
    —
    Topics
    —

    Press ? for keyboard shortcuts

    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

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

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.The inference from 'multiple effects' to 'composite cause' conflates ontological complexity with causal multiplicity, a distinction Aquinas draws in Summa Theologiae I.3.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason for 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 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.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.A simple cause can have only one simple effect.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Multiple effects from a single apparent cause would otherwise be unexplainable.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Different parts of a compound cause can each contribute to the causation of different effects.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Next step

    Based on where you are in your exploration

    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.