Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory

by Richard Sorabji

Overview

A discussion of Aristotle's thought on determinism and culpability, Necessity, Cause, and Blame also reveals Richard Sorabji's own philosophical commitments. He makes the original argument here that Aristotle separates the notions of necessity and cause, rejecting both the idea that all events are necessarily determined as well as the idea that a non-necessitated event must also be non-caused. In support of this argument, Sorabji engages in a wide-ranging discussion of explanation, time, free will, essence, and purpose in nature. He also provides historical perspective, arguing that these problems remain intimately bound up with modern controversies.

'Original and important ... The book relates Aristotle's discussions to both the contemporary debates on determinism and causation and the ancient ones. It is especially detailed on Stoic arguments about necessity ... and on the social and legal background to Aristotle's thought.' Choice

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780715615492
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/26/2015
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Sir Richard Sorabji is Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford, and Emeritus Professor, King's College, London, UK. He is the world's leading scholar on the commentators on Aristotle and founder and co-editor of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, published by Bloomsbury. He is also the author of the three sourcebooks on the ancient commentators: The Philosophy of the Comentators, 200-600 AD, vols 1-3.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Abbreviations
Part I: Necessity and Cause
1. Do Coincidences have Causes?
2. Is Cause related to Necessitation or to Explanation?
3. Necessitation and Law in Ancient Accounts of Cause and Explanation
4. Stoic Embarrassment over Necessity
Part II: Necessity and Time
5. Tomorrow's Sea Battle: an argument from past truth
6. Other Arguments from the Necessity of the Past
7. Other Arguments from Foreknowledge
8. Deterministic and Indeterministic Accounts of Possibility
Part III: Necessity and Purpose in Nature
9. Necessity in Nature
10. Purpose in Nature
11. Ancient and Modern Theories of Natural Selection: their relation to purpose
Part IV: Necessity and the Essences of Kinds
12. Analytic or de re?
13. Why Necessary rather than Contingent?
(Appendix: Kinds of Necessity)
Part V: Necessity and Blame
14. Cause and Necessity in Human Action
15. The Relation of Determinism to Involuntariness: Aristotle's alleged nescience
16. Involuntariness and Equity: Aristotle's alleged parsimony
17. Voluntariness, Temptation, Negligence: a succession of attempts at analysis
18. Aristotle's Contribution to Legal Theory
(Appendix: Tragic Error)
Bibliography
Index