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Home > Quote from "Minute Logic: Chapter II. Prelogical Notions. Section I. Classification of the Sciences (Logic II)"
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Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Final Causation’ (pub. 23.07.15-16:23). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-minute-logic-chapter-ii-prelogical-notions-section-i-classification-scienc-27.
Term: 
Final Causation
Quote: 

Efficient causation is that kind of causation whereby the parts compose the whole; final causation is that kind of causation whereby the whole calls out its parts. Final causation without efficient causation is helpless; mere calling for parts is what a Hotspur, or any man, may do; but they will not come without efficient causation. Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1902). Minute Logic: Chapter II. Prelogical Notions. Section I. Classification of the Sciences (Logic II). MS [R] 427.
References: 
EP 2:124; CP 1.220
Date of Quote: 
1902
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-minute-logic-chapter-ii-prelogical-notions-section-i-classification-scienc-27