Abstract
Mario Bunge’s Causality and Modern Science is arguably one of the best treatments of the causal realist tradition ever to have been written, one that defends the place of causality as a category in the conceptual framework of modern science. And yet in the current revival of causal realism in contemporary metaphysics, there is very little awareness of Bunge’s work. This paper seeks to remedy this, by highlighting one particular criticism Bunge levels at the Aristotelian view of causation, and illustrating its relevance for contemporary powers-based accounts. Roughly, the Aristotelian view depicts interactions between objects as involving a unidirectional exertion of influence of one object upon another. This idea of unidirectional action is central to the Aristotelian distinction between active and passive powers, and its corresponding distinction between active and passive objects. As Bunge points out, modern physics does not recognise the existence of any unidirectional actions at all; all influence comes in the form of reciprocal action, or interaction. If this is right, all notions deriving from or influenced by the idea of unidirectional actions—such as the concept of mutual manifestation and reciprocal disposition partners—risk being false by the same measure. Bunge drew the conclusion that the Aristotelian view is ontologically inadequate, but still advocated its use as the most useful approximation available in science. He considered, but ultimately rejected the possibility of a modified view of causation built on reciprocal action, because, in his view, it couldn’t account for the productivity of causation. Bunge’s critique of this particular aspect of the Aristotelian view cannot be overlooked in contemporary metaphysics, but it is possible to construe a modified view of causation that takes the reciprocity of interactions seriously without loss of productivity.
This paper is based on research in the project “Scientific Essentialism: Modernising the Aristotelian View”, funded 2015–2018 by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, Grant-ID: P14-0822:1.
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Notes
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First published 1959 as Causality: The Place of the Causal Principle in Modern Science, but references in this paper are to the 1979 edition.
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The fact that all interactions are perfectly reciprocal is universally acknowledged in the sciences, and is impressed on students very early in their education. To verify, consult any undergraduate textbook in physics, such as Resnick et al. (2002).
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Ann Whittle has recently argued in favour of what she calls substance causation (2016), to which Andrei Buckareff has replied arguing in favour of powers causation (2017). Unfortunately, neither of them relate to Hobbes or Locke. I think their arguments reveal to some extent an assumption that there has to be a choice between the two, while Locke and Hobbes seem to advocate a view in which it is the unity of object/power that is the active ingredient of causation.
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Ingthorsson, R.D. (2019). Mario Bunge and the Current Revival of Causal Realism. In: Matthews, M.R. (eds) Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16673-1_12
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