| Description |
1 online resource (305 p.) |
| Contents |
Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations and Editions Cited of Aristotle's Works -- Introduction -- I.1. The Basic Problem -- I.2. Outline -- I.3. Themes, Consequences, Comparisons, and Absences -- PART I: CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE -- 1. Reading (and Animating) Physics II 3 -- 1.1. The Problem of Physics II 3 -- 1.2. Physics II 3 in the Context of Book II -- 2. Background 1: Critiques of the Predecessors -- 2.1. Epistemological and Scientific Critiques -- 2.2. Metaphysical Critiques -- 2.3. Summary -- 3. Background 2: Science and Dialectic |
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3.1. Being "in Virtue of Oneself" and in Other Ways -- 3.2. Physics II 2 and the Autonomy of Natural Science -- 3.3. Posterior Analytics II 11 and the Simple Schema of Causes -- 3.4. Summary -- 4. Physics II 3 in Argumentative Context -- 4.1. Highlights -- 4.2. Implications for Theory and Method -- 4.3. Causal Pluralism -- 4.4. Strengths, Weaknesses, and Open Questions -- PART II: METAPHYSICS -- 5. The Realist Challenge -- 5.1. Metaphysical Pluralism -- 5.2. Clarifying the Question -- 6. Causes, Kinds, and Transformations -- 6.1. From Privileged Entities to Intrinsic Causes |
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6.2. Essentialism and Kinds of Natural Change -- 6.3. Pre-.theoretical and Theoretical Accounts of Change -- 6.4. Real Definitions of Transeunt Interactions -- 6.5. Summary -- 7. Causal Kinds and Causal Profiles -- 7.1. Real Definitions and Causal Profiles -- 7.2. The Varieties of Causal Profile -- 7.3. Connections and Correspondences to Other Distinctions -- 7.4. Causal Profiles at Work: Gluttonous Birds -- 7.5. Implications for Puzzles about Aristotelian Causality -- 7.6. Summary -- 8. Discreteness in Agent-Patient Relations -- 8.1. The Realist Question |
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8.2. "Ways of Being Causes" in Physics II 3 -- 8.3. Transeunt-.Causal Change in Physics III 3 -- 8.4. Varieties of Discreteness -- 8.5. Discreteness Applied -- 8.6. Aristotle and Modern "Neo-.mechanism" -- 8.7. Summary, Comparisons, and Open Questions -- PART III: EPISTEMOLOGY -- 9. Coming to Know Causes -- 9.1. Basic Questions about Grasping Causes -- 9.2. Causes and the Two Images -- 9.3. A Problem of Induction -- 9.4. Stages of Inquiry and Their Associated States or Capacities -- 10. Causality and Epistemic Asymmetries -- 10.1. Manifest Causes and Basic Asymmetries |
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10.2. The Priority of Transeunt-.Causal Efficient Causality -- 10.3. Grasping Transeunt-.Causal Interactions -- 10.4. Understanding Origin-.Dominant Causal Profiles -- 10.5. Summary -- 11. The Non-Secret Connexion -- 11.1. Is Some Causality Just as It Appears? -- 11.2. The Special Importance and Epistemic Status of Crafts -- 11.3. The Nature of Blood -- 11.4. Summary: Causal Explanation and Aristotle's Empiricism -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- Subject Index |
| Summary |
We spend a lot of time looking for explanations and arguing about them, especially causal explanations, of phenomena large and small. But what makes for good causal explanations, and how do we tell them apart from bad ones? This book aims to think through these philosophical issues by re-examining Aristotle's theory of causal explanation, which is one of the oldest and most influential. Nathanael Stein drops many common assumptions and brings together ideas that are normally discussed in isolation, with the aim of answering the philosophical questions that have perplexed Aristotle's readers |
| Notes |
Description based upon print version of record |
| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780197660874 |
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0197660878 |
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