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 The First must be able to produce at least one first effect without an instrument or material substrate

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

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.A being that acts through intermediaries in all cases may still be the ultimate sufficient cause, requiring no instrument-free production to ground its primacy.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Al-Farabi's inference from 'cooperates with instruments sometimes' to 'must act without instruments at least once' commits a non-sequitur, since necessary dependence on mediation is consistent with being the first in an ordered causal series.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Neoplatonic emanationism, as in Plotinus's Enneads, holds that the One produces the Intellect necessarily and without deliberation, yet this necessity precludes the kind of free, unmediated agency the argument presupposes.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.If the First's causal power is constitutively relational—defined only through its effects on pre-existing eternal matter, as in Aristotelian hylomorphism—then instrument-free production is metaphysically impossible without undermining the First's own nature.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.The argument wrongly assumes that inability to produce without a substrate entails total causal impotence, but a being can be the highest causal principle within a necessarily co-eternal material order, as Aristotle's unmoved mover suggests.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The First cooperates with external instruments and material substrata in producing some of its effects
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If the First could not produce any effect without an instrument or substratum, it would not be able to produce anything at all
      ?

      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.