Published on Commens (http://www.commens.org)

Home >

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
Efficient Causation
var.
Efficient Causality
source 
mail  facebook twitter pdf print  view
1902 | Minute Logic: Chapter II. Prelogical Notions. Section I. Classification of the Sciences (Logic II) | EP 2:120; CP 1.212

Efficient causation […] is a compulsion determined by the particular condition of things, and is a compulsion acting to make that situation begin to change in a perfectly determinate way; and what the general character of the result may be in no way concerns the efficient causation.

source 
mail  facebook twitter pdf print  view
1902 | Minute Logic: Chapter II. Prelogical Notions. Section I. Classification of the Sciences (Logic II) | EP 2:124; CP 1.220

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.

Citation
‘Efficient Causation’. Term 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/term/efficient-causation/page, 27.01.2023.
See also
Final Causation | Efficient Cause