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Aquinas follows the distinction found in Aristotle's Physics 8.5, and developed by Simplicius, Maimonides, and Avicenna that a causal chain may be either accidental (Socrates' father caused Socrates, Socrates' grandfather caused Socrates' father, but Socrates' grandfather only accidentally caused Socrates) or essential (a stick is moving a ...
An accidentally ordered causal series cannot exist without an essentially ordered series. Each member in an accidentally ordered series (except a possible first) exists via causal activity of a prior member. That causal activity is exercised by virtue of a certain form. Therefore, that form is required by each member to effect causation.
In Christian theology, the key philosopher influenced by Aristotle was undoubtedly Thomas Aquinas. There had been earlier Aristotelian influences within Christianity (notably Anselm), but Aquinas (who, incidentally, found his Aristotelian influence via Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides) incorporated extensive Aristotelian ideas throughout his ...
The origins of the cosmological argument can be traced to classical antiquity, rooted in the concept of the prime mover, introduced by Aristotle.In the 6th century, Syriac Christian theologian John Philoponus (c. 490–c. 570) proposed the first known version of the argument based on the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress, postulating that time itself must have had a beginning.
Causal efficacy cannot 'propagate' faster than light. Otherwise, reference coordinate systems could be constructed (using the Lorentz transform of special relativity) in which an observer would see an effect precede its cause (i.e. the postulate of causality would be violated). Causal notions appear in the context of the flow of mass-energy.
Important trichotomies discussed by Aquinas include the causal principles (agent, patient, act), the potencies for the intellect (imagination, cogitative power, and memory and reminiscence), and the acts of the intellect (concept, judgment, reasoning), with all of those rooted in Aristotle; also the transcendentals of being (unity, truth, goodness) and the requisites of the beautiful ...
The work was originally written circa 1256–1259, during Aquinas's first period in Paris. [2] [3] It is one of the few of Aquinas's works for which the original dictation (for questions 2 to 22) still exists. [3] This determination was made by A. Dondaine of the Leonine Commission in 1956, and is generally accepted by scholars. [4]
The question does not include the timing of when anything came to exist. Some have suggested the possibility of an infinite regress, where, if an entity cannot come from nothing and this concept is mutually exclusive from something, there must have always been something that caused the previous effect, with this causal chain (either deterministic or probabilistic) extending infinitely back in ...