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Aristotle's distinction of four causes can be derived by combining the
distinction between natural things and processes with the distinction
between that out of which something comes to be and what it comes to
be. It follows that the matter of a thing is something that
potentially is this thing and the formal cause of this thing is what it
potentially is. Likewise, the efficient cause of a process may be
taken to be something that potentially is this process, and the final
cause may be taken to be the typical course of the process it comes to
be. Submitted as Habilitationsschrift, Leipzig 2009.
Preview of
table of contents, Introduction, and Conclusion (pdf).
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Descartes used
"conscientia", which is commonly translated as "consciousness,"
according to the traditional meaning of the Latin term that we also find
in the writings of St. Paul, Augustine, Aquinas and later scholastics. Thus
for Descartes, conscientia is not a kind of speculative
self-knowledge, inner observation or reflective awareness. Rather, it
is a kind of practical knowledge. Extract from the PhD thesis and
abstract available online. The book is published by
Alber Verlag, May 2006.
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According to Descartes, substances are correlates of
distinct ideas, that is, of ideas that may be defined without
reference to other ideas. The key concepts of psychology cannot be
distinct and therefore cannot correspond to substances. Therefore,
psychology cannot be an independent discipline.
Master thesis, Leipzig 2000.
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Papers and Abstracts
Eine Verteidigung des typologischen
Artbegriffs
(
excerpt, pdf) |
The biological species concept rests on the notion of reproduction,
which we can only apply if we know what counts as a result of
successful reproduction. Therefore, it presupposes the typological
species concept and cannot, as Ernst Mayr thinks, replace it.
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The Four Causes (abstract, pdf) |
The Aristotelian doctrine of four causes naturally arises from the
combination of the two distinctions (a) between things and changes,
and (b) between that which potentially is a certain thing or change
and what it potentially is.
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Tugenden und Absichten
(abstract, pdf) |
Intentions are not events that cause an action, but that in terms of
which we describe and action when we describe it as
intentionally. Likewise, virtues are not character traits that
reliably cause certain behaviour, but that in terms of which we
describe certain generic behaviour.
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Intention and Virtue
(pdf) |
This is not a translation of "Tugenden und Absichten," but a
presentation with similar content. Among other things, I argue that intentions are
terms in which intentional actions are properly classified and
described; and virtues are for generic
actions what intentions are particular actions.
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Substance, Reality, and Distinctness
(abstract, pdf) |
Descartes claims that God is a substance and that mind and body are
two different and separable substances. This paper provides some
background that renders these claims intelligible.
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Causation and the Unity of Events
(abstract, pdf) |
The problem of causality should be taken to be a problem about the
objective unity of events rather than a problem about the relation
between two given events. |
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Life
(pdf) |
The notion of a living being is the notion of a being that does
whatever it typically does in order to make whatever else beings of its kind
typically do possible. |
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The Experience of Acting
(abstract, pdf) |
Contrary to what Searle claims, there is no common class "experience," of which perceptions and
conscious intentions in acting are instances. |
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On Reducing
Final Causes (pdf) |
Complex teleological processes may be reducable to simple processes, but this is
not the same as a reduction of final causes to efficient causes. |
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Der Fortbestand von
Lebewesen ( abstract, pdf) |
For something to be a living being is
to engage in activities whose success is determined by criteria that
emerge exclusively from a proper account of the nature of the living
being in question.
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Korrigierbarkeit
als Merkmal des Mentalen ( pdf) |
Descartes defines the mind as something whose activities are subject
to an evaluation according to which they are, in principle, corrigible.
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The Inner Man as
Substantial Form (abstract, pdf) |
When Descartes
calls the soul of a human being an immaterial substance, he does not contradict the
Aristotelian doctrine according to which the soul of a person is the
substantial form of her body.
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Matter in Z3 (pdf) |
In Metaphysics
Z3, Aristotle suggests that matter
may be that about a composite substance or "this such" to which a
bare "this" would refer in isolation. However, since a bare "this" would
refer to nothing, Aristotle rejects this conception of matter. |
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Al-Ghazali on the Incoherence
of "Substance" (pdf) |
Forms and potentials
inhere in a receptacle that exemplifies them, whereas universals and
possibilities may inhere in a substratum that does not exemplify
them, such as the intellect. |
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Naturteleologie, reduktiv
(abstract,
pdf) |
Life is not a describable
property of things. In order to understand what life is, we must
start with our conception of the life that we know,
human life, and reduce the notion of this life to a notion of mere
life. |
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Final Causes (abstract + slides; pdf)
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Final causes are
for natural movements what formal causes are for natural
things. In this sense, efficient and final causality are two sides
of the same coin. |
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What is Formal
Ontology? (pdf draft / abstract) |
Formal ontology
does not study any object, but rather studies the most general features by means of which we may identify
objects before describing them. It does so by reflecting on judgments. |
Generic Heidegger I:
Generic Ways of Functioning (pdf) |
A close paraphrase of
Heidegger's Being and Time §18 on how we make sense of
items in the world in terms of their generic ways of
functioning. Items are related to systems of interrelated ways functioning that are
related to purposes that fit into our lives. |
Generic Heidegger II:
The Generic Subject (pdf) |
A remake of
Being and Time §27 on the impersonal "(any)one" as the
subject of our everyday being. By doing what anyone
does we impersonate the "generic agent", but we may do so authentically
as long as we take the responsibility. |
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