Philosophical Dictionary: Cause-Cixous (original) (raw)

cause / effect {Ger. Ursache / Wirkung}}

Distinction between the events involved in a causal relationship, where the occurrence of one (the cause) is supposed to bring about or produce an occurrence of the other (the effect). Although the correct analysis of causation is a matter of great dispute,Hume offered asignificant criticism of our inclination to infer a necessary connection from mere regularity, andMill proposed a set ofmethods for recognizing the presence of causal relationships. Contemporary philosophers often suppose that a causal relationship is best expressed in thecounterfactual statement that if the cause had not occured, then the effect would not have occured either.

| | Recommended Reading: Judea Pearl, Causality: Models, Reasoning,and Inference (Cambridge, 2000); Wesley C. Salmon, Causality and Explanation (Oxford, 1997); and Evan Fales, Causation and Universals (Routledge, 1990). | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Also see Rudy Garns,EB,SEP oncausal processes,medieval theories of causation,counterfactual theories of causation,causal determinism,probabilistic theories of causation,the metaphysics of causation,backwards causation,causation and manipulability, andcausation in the law, andCE.

causes, the four {Gk. αιτια [aitia]}

• the material cause is the stuff from which the thing is made;
• the formal cause is the pattern or structure it has;
• the efficient cause is the agent that imposed this form on that matter; and
• the final cause is the purpose for the thing.

Thus, for example, the material cause of this chair is the wood out of which it is made, the formal cause is the shape into which it was fashioned, the efficient cause was the carpenter by whom the chair was made, and the final cause is the sitting for the sake of which it was designed. In the case of living beings, Aristotle supposed, the soul is the formal, efficient, and final cause; the body is only the material cause.

Recommended Reading: Aristotle, The Physics: Books I-IV, tr. by Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford (Harvard, 1986) andAristotle's Physics: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Lindsay Judson (Clarendon, 1995).

Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

English philosopher and playwright. Cavendish criticized the natural philosophy of bothHobbes andDescartes in Philosophical Letters (1664), and that ofBoyle in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666). Her own view, developed fully in The Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668), wasmaterialist but not mechanistic, supposing that all matter is imbued withsoul. In A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life (1656) Cavendish commented upon the place of women in seventeenth-century society.

Recommended Reading: Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World and Other Writings, ed. by Kate Lilley (Penguin, 1994) Anna Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind (Kentucky, 1998)

Also see ELC.

"Celarent"

Name given by medieval logicians to any categorical syllogism whose standard form may be designated as EAE-1.

Example: No cold-blooded animals are furry pets, even though all reptiles are cold-blooded animals; therefore, no reptiles are furry pets.

This is one of only fifteen forms of syllogism that are always valid.

Also see SEP andEB.

"Cesare"

Name given by medieval logicians to a categorical syllogism whose standard form is EAE-2.

Example: Since no truly peaceful nations are places where basic human rights are inadequately defended, while all countries torn by ethnic strife are places where basic human rights are inadequately defended, it follows that no countries torn by ethnic strife are truly peaceful nations.

This is one of the fifteen forms of valid syllogism.

Also see EB.

chain of being

Belief that existing things can be hierarchically ordered, from least to greatest, in an unbroken series from inanimate particles of matter to the deity.A. O. Lovejoy traced this concrete application of theprinciple of plenitude from ancient Greek thought throughneoplatonism to its influence on early twentieth-centuryidealism.

Recommended Reading: Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Harvard, 1970).

Also see EB andPeter Suber.

Charron, Pierre (1541-1603)

French theologian. Although De la Sagesse (Of Wisdom) (1601) expressed many themes from theStoic tradition, Charron shared withMontaigne a profoundskepticism about general knowledge of god and the world.

Also see EB.

Chisholm, Roderick M. (1916-1999)

American philosopher who applied the phenomenological methods ofBrentano and Meinong to the central issues of epistemology in theanalytic tradition in such books as Perceiving: A Philosophical Study (1957), Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (1960), Person and Object: A Metaphysical Study (1976), andBrentano and Intrinsic Value (1986).

Recommended Reading: Roderick M. Chisholm, A Realistic Theory of Categories: An Essay on Ontology (Cambridge, 1996);The Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1997); andAnalysis and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of R. M. Chisholm, ed. by Keith Lehrer (Kluwer, 1975).

Also see SEP,EB,Pradeep A. Dhillon, andAndrew Chrucky.

Chomsky, Noam Avram (1928- )

American linguist and philosopher, author ofSyntatactic Structures (1957),Cartesian Linguistics (A chapter in the history of rationalist thought) (1966),Language and Mind (1968), andKnowledge of Language (1986). In opposition to prevalent behaviorism, Chomsky'spsycholinguistic approach holds that competence in the use of language reveals innate possession of universal generative grammatical structures that cannot be acquired simply byempirical evidence. Chomsky has also been an outspoken and thoughtful critic of American foreign policy since the 1960s in such books asAmerican Power and the New Mandarins (1969),Necessary Illusions (1989), andDeterring Democracy (1992).

| | Recommended Reading:The Chomsky Reader, ed. by James Peck (Pantheon, 1987). | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Also see EB,DPM,Andy Blunden,ELC, andMIT.

Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.E.)

Primary author of the stoic philosophy. Although none of his many writings survived antiquity, Chrysippus reportedly made significant contributions to the development oflogic and ethics. He is generally credited with invention of thepropositional calculus and eloquent expression of the doctrine ofeternal return.

Recommended Reading: J. B. Gould, The Philosophy of Chrysippus (Brill, 1997); Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Oxford, 1992); and A. A. Long, Stoic Studies (Cambridge, 1996) .

Also see IEP,EB, andELC.

Church, Alonzo (1903- )

American logician and mathematician; author ofIntroduction to Mathematical Logic (1956). Building on the work of Gödel, Church showed that there can be no systematicdecision procedure for the theorems of sophisticated formal systems like arithmetic, since such systems characteristically involve non-recursive formulae for which there is no computable algorithm.

Recommended Reading: Alonzo Church, A Bibliography of Symbolic Logic (1666-1935) (Association of Symbolic Logic, 1985).

Also see SEP,EB,DPM,ELC, andMMT.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.E.)

Roman politician whose philosophical writings primarily translated the work of Greek philosophers into his own polished Latin. Thus, De re publica andDe legibus(Of the State and Of the Laws) owe much to dialogues ofPlato on political structure. Cicero also relied heavily upon theStoics for much of his philosophy of nature andethics, exemplified nicely inTusculanae disputationes (Disputations at Tusculum) and "The Dream of Scipio." The influence of Aristotle is evident inDe officiis (On Duties) andLaelius, sive de Amicitia(Essay on Friendship) (44 B.C.E.).

| | Recommended Reading: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Selected Works, tr. by Michael Grant (Viking, 1960);Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve Papers, ed. by Jonathan Powell (Oxford, 1999); and Neal Wood, Cicero's Social and Political Thought: An Introduction (California, 1991). | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Also see IEP,EB, andELC.

circularity

Reasoning that improperly assumes the truth of what is at issue. A circular argument implicitly employs its own conclusion as a premise. A circular definition defines an expression in terms of itself. The problem is that circular reasoning—however accurate—is bound to be uninformative.

Also see EB andPeter Suber.

Cixous, Hélène (1937- )

Algerian-French philosopher and literary critic. Employing Derrida's methods ofdeconstruction inEntré l'Écriture (Coming to Writing) (1986) andLe Jeune Née (The Newly Born Woman) (1975), Cixous proposed the creation of literary works by écriture féminine, "writing the body" in order to undermine the influence of masculine language. Since the feminine is always regarded as other and inferior in the dichotomies fostered by logocentric patriarchy, Cixous maintains that women can elude male domination only by rejecting the binary oppositions inherent in symbolic language. By celebrating historically-repressed differences, she believes, victims of repression forge the new identities upon which a genuinely post-colonial and post-patriarchal society might be founded.

| | Recommended Reading:The Hélène Cixous Reader, ed. by Susan Sellers and Jacques Derrida (Routledge, 1994); Verena Andermatt Conley, Hélène Cixous: Writing the Feminine (Nebraska, 1991);The Body and the Text: Hélène Cixous, Reading and Teaching, ed. by Helen Wilcox, Keith McWatters, Ann Thompson, and Linda R. Williams (St. Martin's, 1991); andHélène Cixous (Toronto, 1992). | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

Also see FTW,EB,"The Laugh of the Medusa", andStanford University.