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Aristotle on Accidental Causation
: I offer a new analysis of Aristotle’s concept of an accidental cause.
Using passages from Metaphysics and E,aswellasPhysics II, I argue that
accidental causes are causally inert. After defending this reading against some
objections, I draw some conclusions about Aristotle’s basic understanding of
causation.
: Aristotle, ancient philosophy, causation, commensurateness, accidental
Well, I said, is there really nothing that can rightly be called chance
or accident? Or could it be there is something that these words are
appropriate for, even if it is hidden from the common folk? She said:
it is in his Physics that my Aristotle has dened it, in a demonstration
both brief and near to the truth. (Boethius : V..)
If Aristotle’s distinction between accidental and non-accidental properties is central
to his ontology as a whole, it is a wonder that more attention is not paid to his
distinction between accidental and non-accidental causes.Tobesure,thetexts
where one nds Aristotle mentioning the distinction are the focus of much research,
but there is something incredibly important about the distinction itself that is not
brought out by focusing on the usual topics that readers associate with accidental
causes, topics such as Aristotle’s afrmation or denial of some form of determinism
or what his phrase ‘always or for the most part’ means or what luck and chance
are. This is a pity, for, as I will argue, this distinction is vital in understanding
Aristotle’s theory of causation. For Aristotle, the distinction illustrates a crucial
feature of causes.
This paper attempts to remedy the situation. In section , I argue that on
the basis of passages in Physics II and Metaphysics and E, Aristotle took
accidental causes to be causally inert. That is, Aristotle is an eliminativist regarding
accidental causation. In section , I consider some objections to this view and
use those objections to rene the eliminativist account. In section , I consider
the implications of Aristotle’s eliminativism, the most important of which is that
It is my great pleasure to thank especially Dom Bailey, whose incisive comments and encouragement made this
paper immeasurably better at every stage of its drafting. I also thank Mitzi Lee, Robert Pasnau, Sydney Penner,
Brian Reese, Tad Schmaltz, Rachel Singpurwalla, Nathanael Stein, C. C. W. Taylor, Damon Watson, and the
anonymous referees at JAPA for their written feedback at various stages, as well as audiences at the Society
for Ancient Greek Philosophy meeting and the Central Division APA meeting.
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.33 Published online by Cambridge University Press
he identies causes in a very austere but precise manner. For him, causes must be
commensurate with their effects, in a sense to be explained below.
1. Pickwickian Causes
Aristotle frequently talks of two items being accidentally conjoined, and his
examples of these accidental unities are familiar: seated Socrates, cultured Corsicus,
etc.
These items also appear in his discussions of causation, where they cause
certain effects and are the effects of certain causes, and it is when these various
accidental unities enter into causal interactions that accidental causation arises. The
unities involved in causation include both combinations like Socrates and being
seated, and combinations like the simultaneous presence in the marketplace of a
debtor and his creditor. Given these different types of unities, accidental causation
has various subspecies depending on what type of accidental unity plays a causal
role—for example, certain subspecies are dubbed ‘luck’ and ‘chance’ based on what
kind of accidental unity is involved—but my primary concern here is accidental
causation in the broadest sense, and I will consider multiple types of accidental
unities entering into causal interactions.
One well-known passage that deals with accidental causation speaks of
Polyclitus’ sculpting:
[T] And some causes are accidental, or in its genera; thus the cause of
a statue is in one way a sculptor and in another Polyclitus, in that
being Polyclitus is accidentally conjoined to the sculptor. (Physics
II., a-, trans. Charlton [], with minor alterations)
Interpretively, I do two things in order to impose uniformity on the texts I consider
here. First, some translators render κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς variously as ‘coincidental’,
‘incidental’, and ‘accidental’—I use ‘accidental’ throughout, and this is not meant
to rule out some subtlety implied by the variable terminology of others. Second,
while Aristotle typically uses κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς to pick out accidental causes, he
varies terminology in speaking of those causes contrasted with accidental causes:
sometimes he uses καθ’ αὑτ ὸ and sometimes οἰκε´ιως . I translate both as ‘proper’
These sorts of conjunctions, dubbed ‘kooky objects’ by Matthews (), have been the focus of much
research; see Brower (), Cohen (), Matthews (, ), and Peramatzis (). It should be noted
that there is disagreement regarding the status of kooky objects—see, e.g., Shields (: –)—and those
who disagree likely would prefer to explain the basics of accidental causation in a manner different from my
exposition in this section. I do not think that my argument presupposes either option, but for the sake of economy,
I write as if Matthews has the right reading—the exposition can be translated into the dissenting view easily
enough.
There is a good deal of literature dealing with accidental causes in Aristotle, especially in connection with
luck and chance. The following contain helpful discussions: Allen (), Annas (), Charles (, ),
Charlton (), Denyer (), Dudley (), Everson (), Fine (), Frede (, ), Freeland
(), Hankinson (, ), Heinaman (), Ide (), Irwin (), Johnson (), Judson (),
Kelsey (), Kirwan (), Lennox (), Leunissen (), Lorenz (), Meyer (, ), Rossi
(), and Sorabji ().
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.33 Published online by Cambridge University Press
hereafter. Now, given that accidental causation arises when some accidental unity
plays a causal role, some parts of the unity are proper causes, and some are
accidental causes. This is just what we nd in [T]: Polyclitus and the sculptor
are accidentally conjoined, and in one way the cause of the statue is Polyclitus, but
in another way the sculptor, rather than Polyclitus, is the cause of the statue.
In order to elaborate more clearly the difference between proper and accidental
causes, consider the following two sentences that concern the situation laid out in
[T]:
() The sculptor is an efcient cause of the statue.
() Polyclitus is an efcient cause of the statue.
Now, I formulate () and () without explicitly mentioning accidental or proper
causes, opting instead to formulate them in terms of efcient causation. I do this
for two reasons. First, it is all too easy to say that Aristotle takes Polyclitus to be an
accidental cause of the statue and the sculptor to be the proper cause of the statue,
for that is what we nd in [T]. If we are to elaborate Aristotle’s theory of accidental
causation any further, () and () cannot be formulated merely in terms of accidental
and proper causes. Second, in [T], the type of causation at stake is efcient. This
is no idle point, since the distinction between accidental and proper causes cuts
across the more familiar fourfold distinction in causes; see, for instance, Physics II.,
a–, where Aristotle claims that, along with the distinctions between actual
and potential and general and singular causes, the distinction between accidental
and proper causes is applicable to each of the four causes. Now, in many passages,
Aristotle explains efcient causation in terms of the activity of professionals such
as sculptors, doctors, or builders—they are his preferred examples of efcient
causation.
So I take it that [T] clearly concerns efcient causation. As we will
see below, there are several useful accounts of accidental causation throughout
Aristotle’s works that concern efcient causation, accounts that help us get a grip
on () and ().
Of course, given that () is about professionals efciently causing what is
characteristic for them to make, Aristotle is clearly committed to it. I see no other
way of understanding his repeated use of such examples for explaining efcient
causation. On the other hand, we have good evidence that () is something he
would deny. In some of his extended treatments of accidental causation, he claims
that items accidentally conjoined either to proper causes or to proper effects do
not factor into causal interactions. More specically, he makes the following twin
claims: (i) relative to proper effects, accidental causes efciently cause nothing at
all; and (ii) relative to proper causes, accidental effects are not efciently caused at
all.
If this is Aristotle’s considered view, it is simply false that in the [T] example
E.g.: Topics II., a–; V., b–a; Physics II., bff.; II., b–; De generatione
et corruptione II., bff.; Metaphysics A., aff.; B., b–; Z., b–; ., b–;
and ., aff.
Mueller (: ) might put forward a similar tack, in saying that ‘The reason why people’s desires, and
not luck, explain their meeting is that their desires brought about the meeting, and luck did not’. This remark is
a throwaway, though, and the idea that, for Aristotle, luck lacks causal efcacy is neither claried nor defended.
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.33 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Polyclitus is an efcient cause of the statue, for Polyclitus is an accidental cause
relative to a proper effect. For the rest of this section, I will focus on the texts that
support (i) and (ii).
I begin with a passage from Metaphysics E that evinces (ii), the idea that
accidental effects are not efciently caused by proper causes:
[T] For one who makes a house does not produce (ποιεῖ) all the things
which coincide in the house that is coming to be, for they are
indenite. There is nothing to prevent the house he has produced
being pleasing to some, harmful to others, benecial to others, and
different from everything that is; but the art of house-building
is not producti ve of any of those things.(E., b–, my
emphasis; trans. Kirwan [], with minor alterations)
In order to understand [T], we must recall two points. First, not only do accidental
unities factor into causal interactions as causes but also as effects. A house, say,
gures in an accidental conjunction: houses have some features contingently and
thereby accidentally. Insofar as a house is a thing that provides shelter, it could have
or fail to have any number of aesthetic qualities and still be a house, such that its
sublime (or revolting) look is accidentally conjoined with it. Second, when Aristotle
considers what it is that a builder produces, this is a way of considering what the
effect of an efcient cause is, for ποιεῖν is one of his favored words for efcient
causing. In Physics II., b, he gives a general characterization of efcient
causes, saying that ‘in general, [the primary source of change is] that which makes
something (τ ὸ ποιοῦν)’. The notion of ‘making’ or ‘producing’ is thus fundamental
to his theory of efcient causation. So if there is any sense in which a builder is an
efcient cause of the house, there must be a sense in which he made it.
At the end of [T], Aristotle states that whatever is accidentally conjoined to a
proper effect is not caused by the proper cause. This is (ii), and it is a stronger claim
than the one he makes at the beginning of the passage where he states that not all
accidental effects are caused by the proper cause, for that is quite compatible with
the proper cause causing all but one of them. The stronger claim, at the end of the
passage, is much more bold—anything that is accidentally conjoined to that effect,
i.e., any one of ‘all of the things which coincide in the house that is coming to be’
is not produced or made by the house builder. That is, [T] is evidence that relative
to proper causes, accidental effects are not efciently caused.
This is a consequence so startling that one might tarry over [T] in hopes of
nding something, anything, that might absolve Aristotle of this idea. For example,
you might think that the referent of ‘those things’ at the end of [T] is not, as I take
it to be, accidents in general, but rather only the accidents mentioned explicitly
in [T]—being pleasing, being harmful, and being benecial. Put another way,
a plausible but weaker reading of [T] is that although the house builder does
Oὔτε γὰρ ὁ ποιῶν οἰκ´ιαν π οιεῖὅσα συμβα´ινει ἅμα τ ῇ οἰκ´ιᾳ γιγνομ ´ενῃ (ἄπειρα γ ´αρ ἐστιν· τ οῖςμὲν
γ ὰρ ἡδεῖαν τοῖςδὲ βλαβερὰντοῖςδ’ ὠϕ ´ελιμον οὐθ ὲνεἶναι κωλ ´υει τὴνποιηθεῖσαν, καὶἑτ ´εραν ὡςεἰπε
ῖν
π ´αντων τῶν ὄντων· ὧν οὐθενός ἐστιν ἡ οἰκοδομικὴ π οιητ ικ ´η).
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.33 Published online by Cambridge University Press
not produce pleasure or benet, she might very well produce other accidents. On
this weaker reading, [T] fails to evince (ii), but the reading also ignores what is
conversationally implied in the passage: an arbitrary selection of accidents of a
house will select items not produced by the art of house building, and because
the group of accidents mentioned in [T] is arbitrary, no accident whatsoever is
produced by the art of house-building. Moreover, the rider before the nal clause
of the passage, ‘different from everything that is’, evinces Aristotle’s concern with
accidents in general. Surely, a number of houses are pleasant to look at, confer
benets, etc. So the three accidents Aristotle explicitly mentions are not enough
to make the house in [T] different from everything that is. Likely, then, Aristotle
has more accidents in mind than merely those explicitly mentioned, and hence the
passage shows a commitment to (ii).
There may be another difculty, however, with using [T] to attribute (ii) to
Aristotle, for Aristotle there seems to go back and forth as to what it is that
produces or fails to do so. At the beginning of the passage, Aristotle identies
the house builder (ὁ ποιῶν οἰκ´ιαν) as that which does not produce the accidents
of the house. But at the end of the passage, Aristotle identies the art of house
building (οἰκοδομικὴ) as that which does not produce the accidents. Because the
claim at the end of [T] is stronger than the claim at the beginning, and because
(ii) is evinced only by the stronger claim, there may be conceptual space available
for giving Aristotle the claim that the house builder is an efcient cause of some,
though not all, of the accidents of the house, and also that the art of house building
is not an efcient cause of any accident—perhaps because the art of house-building
is not productive of anything or perhaps because there is a difference between
the dispositional property being productive and the categorical property being
produced. So, at least, one might object.
Finding this conation in [T] is not altogether surprising, for Aristotle elsewhere
does seem to vacillate between making the art the efcient cause and making the
artisan the efcient cause. For instance, he identies the art of house building as a
proper cause of houses in Physics II., b, but only a few lines later (b-
) he identies the house builder for this same role—all the while ignoring any
complications that might arise from this dual classication. Still, I am hard-pressed
to nd the maneuvering above a more persuasive depiction of Aristotle’s thought in
[T] than (ii). Finding a difference between being productive and being produced in
Aristotle is far from easy because some texts suggest that Aristotle would deny that
there is such a difference. For example, Metaphysics . begins with Aristotle’s
avowal that a capacity or power is ‘what originates a change or alteration in another
thing’ (a–). Aristotle does not say that capacities are what can change, but
that they are what does change, riding over the sort of distinction one might try to
nd within [T] between being productive and being what produces. Of course,
Aristotle’s grammar seems to show some sort of distinction, but texts such as .
make it doubtful that we should deploy it in giving a philosophical interpretation
of [T]. More likely, then, Aristotle’s use of now the house builder, now the art of
house-building, is not the introduction of a distinction between being productive
and being produced; rather, it is simply a way of denoting the proper efcient cause.
If this is how [T] works, then it is evidence for attributing (ii) to Aristotle.
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2016.33 Published online by Cambridge University Press