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
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Second causes are not real causes because real causes necessitate their effects and second causes do not.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Real causes necessarily produce their effects.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.The existence of color, resistance, thought, or any other dependent thing at one moment does not necessarily entail that the like will exist at the next moment.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Second causes do not necessitate their effects.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hume's constant conjunction analysis shows that so-called 'necessary connections' between second causes and effects are mere psychological habits, not ontological necessities.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If causal necessity is not observable between any two distinct events in nature, then second causes lack the very feature that would make them genuinely causal.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Only a being whose nature is identical with existence itself—whose essence entails existence—can produce effects with true metaphysical necessity, as Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity implies.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Malebranche's occasionalism demonstrates that finite substances have no intrinsic active power, since power requires an infallible and unconditional connection between volition and outcome.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Second causes, being contingent and dependent, can always be interrupted or overridden, meaning their putative effects remain genuinely contingent rather than necessitated.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.A cause whose effect can fail without logical contradiction is, by the Leibnizian standard of sufficient reason, merely an occasion rather than a true productive cause.
      ?

      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.
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42