Hi! Returning with a confusion towards this specific definition we concluded on: how does this explain efficient causes? Would the parent not be considered the efficient cause of the child? Or the craftsman an efficient cause of their works? And we know these clearly don’t fall under the stricter consideration of cause and effect, so would we say efficient cause is something different altogether?

The enactivists I am aware of tend to be harsh critics of Kantian representationalism. It gets offered up as a way to avoid Kant's problems, not a way to recreate them. The article you're citing mentions phenomenology as a means of dissolving the very Kantian dualism you are claiming this approach represents. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Phenomenology
Kant is a dualist when he makes a phenomenal-noumenal distinction, between Appearance and the Thing-in-itself.

Kant's approach seems similar to that of Phenomenology, where we have knowledge of Appearance but not of Things-in-themselves.

From SEP - Phenomenology

Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience..................... When Descartes, Hume, and Kant characterized states of perception, thought, and imagination, they were practising phenomenology.

In this sense, Phenomenology is supporting rather than dissolving Kant's "Transcendental Idealism".

Enactivism
Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment (Wikipedia - Enactivism)

The key phrase is "dynamic interaction between".

Enactivism is not the position that cognition arises from direct contact between an organism and its environment.

For Enactivism, there is an indirect contact between an organism and its environment mediated by a dynamic interaction.

For Kant also, cognition is mediated by Appearance, which stands between cognition and Things-in-themselves.

However this isn't the place to address that as we are veering OT for this thread — Pantagruel

The OP asks whether 1 causes 2.

The first thing to work out is where 1 and 2 exist, in the mind or in a world outside the mind.

The answer as to whether 1 causes 2 depends on where 1 and 2 exist.

To be able to answer this question, I am sure that topics such as Phenomenalism and Enactivism, Kant and Collingwood, are relevant.

My belief is that 1 and 2 only exist in the mind.

My belief is that 1 and 2 only exist in the mind — RussellA

Does this itself establish that mental constructs cannot exert causal force? Isn't that the essence of deductive logic, where premises necessitate a conclusion? Isn't this arguably a form of "mental causation" ?

In this sense, Phenomenology is supporting rather than dissolving Kant's "Transcendental Idealism"

It can. It often doesn't. Just for two examples, there is Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person and G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Both disagree with Kant's dualism. For Hegel, Kant is a dogmatist, and it is his dogmatic assumptions that leave him with his dualism problem. He just presupposes that perceptions are of objects and goes from there. For Hegel, this is less than fully critical. For the much of the classical tradition, they are going to reject the idea that knowledge of would involve representation/correspondence as opposed to identity. For Sokolowski, indirect realism and representationalism is entirely misguided, a confusion of sorts.

Anyhow, most of the phenomenology I am familiar with attempts to rebut Kant, not support him. It would be a mistake to assume the phenomenology necessarily entails something like how Kant thinks of the difference between phenomena and noumena (even is Husserl himself arguably works himself back in this direction in his later work). Eric Perl, for instance, speaks to the use of phenomenology in the pre-modern tradition (terms like "intentionality" come from Scholasticism), and how the pre-moderns do not accept anything like the British Empiricist/Kantian dualism as a starting supposition (and I agree with Hegel that this is very much something started with). Indeed, both Plotinus and Aquinas consider it and reject it.

I think the word you're looking for is 'pre-requisite', not cause. I can have a 1 and a 1 next to each other and never think of the idea of '2'. The idea of 2 is saying, "I can group 1 and 1 into another type of 1'. 1 does not therefore cause 2 to come into being, its a prerequisite for its being.

Hi! Returning with a confusion towards this specific definition we concluded on: how does this explain efficient causes? Would the parent not be considered the efficient cause of the child? Or the craftsman an efficient cause of their works? And we know these clearly don’t fall under the stricter consideration of cause and effect, so would we say efficient cause is something different altogether? — Pretty

I feel efficient cause is an antiquated ancient concept, which has logical problems. Sure, we can say that parent is a sufficient cause for the child, but I am not sure if there is philosophical or logical point in doing so.

It is like saying, there was a postman when the rain started coming down today, therefore does it mean the rain is the sufficient cause for the postman? Or I was waiting for the bus to go to the town, and a taxi passed me by. Does it mean I was the sufficient cause for the taxi passing me?

It just happened once out of random events, and it was a unique event which has little chance to be repeated (in the case of the parent giving birth to the child X, it will never be repeated. Because no parent can give a birth to the same child twice in their life.)

Therefore, it is like the antiquated concept PSR. It doesn't make logical sense to say the sufficient cause was the relationship between the parent and child.

Hm, I’m not sure. It seems like there really is a clear connection between the actions of the parent and the birth of the child, much more so than the examples you gave. To me it seems there are two ways we can think of it, one more concretely and the other more abstractly. In the former, Edith, a unique person (Parent Y) is the parent of Tim, another unique person (Child X). In the latter, a generic concept of parent regards itself once again as the parent of a child, a generic concept of a child that has once again come from this generic parent.

From here, I see ways that proper causality can be asserted for both. The latter is a little easier to start with — a parent is only understood *as* a parent, when the child is actually in some way existent. Edith, who we are trying to consider as simply a parent, still lived and existed many years without being a parent to Tim. The parent in her though, did not exist until the child was born. In this way, we can say that a parent, qua parent, is universally the cause of the child, qua child, insofar as they cannot exist separate from each other. If our parent, as Edith, took another year to have a child and instead conceived Gregory (Child X1), then it doesn’t change that as simply a parent, the parent did not exist until the child was conceived, and this law held for all parents insofar as parenthood held any share of reality. Furthermore, if we *were* to go back in time and remove the circumstances that brought about the existence of the parenthood in a person, it would also necessarily and without any further steps remove the existence of childhood in the other person, probably by their complete removal of existence altogether. If we were to prevent parenthood in the first parent, and thus fully prevent parenthood as a real thing, then childhood too would be removed to the same degree. But we can see that this abstract level causality is actually eternal in some sense, because although the parent corporeally exists before the child does, as abstract concepts of parent and child they only ever come about at the same exact time, and yet the parent has a clear priority to the child that thus can’t be explained by means of time. Another way to say it is that the definition of parent has causality in its essence — it cannot itself exist without having some degree of the child in existence as well.

In the latter, where Edith gives birth to Tim, which *does* exist over time, we can clear things up if we work from the ground up and observe Tim as an effect. Is it not true that, as a thing existing in the rational universe, Tim’s existence must have come about by result of a determinate cause? And isn’t it true that this cause must exist in some way as well? And if we consider again, Tim not as a generic child, but as Child X, it is clear that the only way his existence could be necessitated is by his conception at the very time and circumstance that he *was* conceived, in which Edith, his father, and the enveloping world are involved. To imagine Tim, not simply as a child named Tim but as *Tim concretely himself*, yet further being able to truly exist without substantial difference by means of any other circumstance, would obviously be absurd. Tim could not exist but by the very specific reality he was conceived in. And so, being necessary parts to the creation of Tim, it should be true that his parents are not simply people *named* Edith and his fathers name, but *actually are Edith as Parent Y, and the father as concretely the same person*. And thus it should be understood that it was *always the case* that if a person identical to Tim should be properly conceived, he could *only be properly conceived as coming about by the circumstances in which Edith is his mother*. And we can’t stop here, because we should also assert, though it may be obvious now, that *Edith as her concrete self could also not exist as we properly understand her, without being precisely the person who caused the creation of Tim*. So if we were to imagine an Edith who waited a year to instead birth Gregory, then although the causality parenthood itself to childhood itself doesn’t change as we previously established, the *concrete Edith as Parent Y should now be understood as Edith Y1, if she instead conceives Gregory and not Tim*. It is a substantially different Edith, if we are properly considering Edith as a concrete individual.

But what if Edith conceives both children? Well, we would need to understand two concretely different Ediths as well. The Edith who birthed Tim is not fully identical to the one who birthed Gregory. She has different cells, a different egg, and for all we know she might even have slightly different genes than she did a year previous. If we really want to conceive of Edith as a concrete individual, as an illuminative instantiation of our investigation, we have to understand her properly as someone *in time*, and thus it is more appropriate to say that while it is Edith as Parent Y who gives birth to Tim as Child X, it is rather a slightly different Edith as Parent Y1 who gives birth to Gregory as child X1. So, just as Tim’s existence necessitated a concretely specific Edith, Gregory’s existence necessitated a concretely specific Edith *who nonetheless should be understood as some way distinct from the other concrete instantiation of Edith*. And so Tim, in every instance that we properly imagine him, comes about only from a very specific circumstance that involves Edith Y, and the same follows for Gregory with Edith Y1. We cannot understand Child X without the existence of Parent Y, but we also can’t imagine Parent Y properly without the existence of Child X. Edith, properly understood as the parent of Tim, could not follow her precise path in life *unless* Tim’s existence had nudged her path in a certain direction, and so would be a concretely different Edith without him. And the same follows for her with Gregory.

So this is how I would establish the universality of efficient causes. I feel like most graspings of it fail to account for time properly — although it is constantly in flux, its instants seem obviously brought about by necessity of the, sometimes immediate, past. What is, is only temporarily. And what will be, will only be potentially. But what has been, will always have been, and *must* have been, for the rest of history. This is the universality hiding right under our noses in the ever-changing current of time.

I feel efficient cause is an antiquated ancient concept, which has logical problems. Sure, we can say that parent is a sufficient cause for the child, but I am not sure if there is philosophical or logical point in doing so.

You seem to be mixing together sufficient and efficient cause here. There is a pretty big difference between the Aristotelian Four Causes and Humean constant conjunction and counterfactual analysis, although the two notions can be used in concert. I am not sure about "antiquated." Both concepts are employed in the sciences all the time, e.g. do-calculus, etc. Any student in the natural or social sciences has to take statistics and they will be taught again and again that "correlation does not equal causation."

It is useful in medicine for example. Pseudoexfoliation glaucoma is the result of a single nucleotide polymorphism common to Nordic peoples. It leads to defective elastin proteins that "clog up the eye." The gene is, in an important sense, the cause of the disorder. For some disorders, a since mutation might be sufficient to ensure that, if a person lives long enough, they will develop the disease (obviously, it isn't sufficient entirely of itself, e.g., one doesn't develop Huntington's if one dies early in life.)

Isn't that the essence of deductive logic, where premises necessitate a conclusion? Isn't this arguably a form of "mental causation" ? — Pantagruel

Depends on what you mean by "cause".

There could be Aristotle's "Material Cause", where a table is made of wood, and the wood is the material cause of the table.

There could be Aristotle's "Efficient Cause", where a sculptor chisels away at stone to make a statue, and the sculptor is the efficient cause of the statue.

Material cause is contemporaneous and efficient cause is sequential in time.

However, today, in general language, using cause as material cause is an archaic use of the word, and what people mean today by cause is efficient cause.

Deductive logic:
P1 - All dogs have ears
P2 - golden retrievers are dogs
C1 - therefore golden retrievers have ears.

The above is an example of cause in the sense of material cause, but not a cause in the sense of efficient cause.

Therefore, in today's' terms, the above example of deductive logic is not an example of causation.

So this is how I would establish the universality of efficient causes. I feel like most graspings of it fail to account for time properly — although it is constantly in flux, its instants seem obviously brought about by necessity of the, sometimes immediate, past. What is, is only temporarily. And what will be, will only be potentially. But what has been, will always have been, and *must* have been, for the rest of history. This is the universality hiding right under our noses in the ever-changing current of time. — Pretty

You seem to be mixing together sufficient and efficient cause here. There is a pretty big difference between the Aristotelian Four Causes and Humean constant conjunction and counterfactual analysis, although the two notions can be used in concert. I am not sure about "antiquated." Both concepts are employed in the sciences all the time, e.g. do-calculus, etc. Any student in the natural or social sciences has to take statistics and they will be taught again and again that "correlation does not equal causation." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok, great analysis and explanation on Efficient cause. I must admit I learnt something from this thread. I was not familiar with the concept of Efficient cause before. I was only aware of the Humean Causal theory. I will come back for any points in your explanations and counter points, if I find any points to be clarified. Thanks. :up: :pray:

Anyhow, most of the phenomenology I am familiar with attempts to rebut Kant, not support him. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The OP is whether without 1, 2 could not exist. But exist where? In the mind or in a world outside the mind. This leads into the question of phenomenology.

When talking about phenomenology, it depends whether we are referring to the disciplinary field in philosophy or the movement in the history of philosophy (SEP - Phenomenology).

Phenomenology as a study of thought, stretching back several thousand years, may well be at variance with Kant's dualism of phenomena and noumena. However, Phenomenalism as a 20th C movement may well not be.

Phenomenology as a movement got underway in the first half of the 20th C because of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, et al. (SEP - Phenomenology)

Plotinus and Aquinus
Therefore, for Plotinus (204/205 CE to 270CE) and Aquinus (1225 - 1274), phenomenology was still a discipline studying experience and consciousness.

Sokolowski
It is perhaps not a surprise that Monsignor Robert Sokolowski (b. 1934), a Roman catholic Priest, rebuts Kant's dualism, and considers that Indirect Realism and Representationism are misguided (Wikipedia - Robert Sokolowski)

Whilst it is true that Sokolowski wrote Introduction to Phenomenology, explaining the major philosophical doctrines of phenomenology, this does not mean that he is a proponent of Phenomenology as a modern movement. I don't know whether he is or isn't, but would suppose that he isn't, and therefore cannot be held as an example of a Phenomenalist who rebuts Kant's dualism (Wikipedia - Sokolowski)

I would guess that half of those on the Forum today reject Indirect Realism in favour of Direct Realism, thereby rejecting Kant's Representationalism.

Hegel
Hegel was interested in phenomenology as the study of experience and consciousness, but was neither a Husserlian Phenomenologist nor supporter of Kant's dualism between thought and being. For Hegel, in order for a thinking subject to be able to know its object, there must be an identity between thought and being, otherwise the subject would never have access to the object (Wikipedia - Absolute Idealism)

Husserl and Phenomenology
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the principal founder of the movement of Phenomenology.

Husserl's Ideas, Volume One.(1913) is the true foundation of Phenomenology. In this book Husserl presented phenomenology with a transcendental turn. In part this means that Husserl took on the Kantian idiom of “transcendental idealism”, looking for conditions of the possibility of knowledge, or of consciousness generally, and arguably turning away from any reality beyond phenomena. (SEP - Phenomenology)

For example, when I see a tree, I don't need to concern myself with whether he tree exists or not, my experience is of the tree, not whether such a tree exists. As Husserl writes, we "bracket" the question of the existence of any world around us.

The word "phenomenology" has two uses
I am sure that Phenomenology as a movement founded by Husserl doesn't rebut Kant's dualism of phenomena and noumena, whilst I agree that phenomenology as a general discipline stretching back thousands of years, studying experience and consciousness, is more than likely to both support and oppose Kant's "transcendental idealism".