Re: Why four categories of causation?

[Howard Pattee <***>]

I don't think Rosen attempted to classify all causes into
"Aristotle's four" until Anticipatory Systems. I think he found
it a good metaphor, but in my opinion he overemphasized the four in later
work to the exclusion of his theory of hierachies. Rosen's earlier papers
on hierarchies emphasize the point that Tim made, ".  .  .
to say that any system can be analyzed according to some particular mode
of analysis would not entail that such an analysis is an exhaustive
one." In fact Rosen says that one mode of analysis, i.e., one model,
is necessarily inadequate for hierarchical (complex) systems (Rosen in
Hierarchical Structures, Whyte, Wilson & Wilson, eds., Elsevier,
1969, p. 179). 

I would argue that the concept of causality is only one, largely
anthropomorphic, interpretation of a model and consequently we find it
easy to imagine a hierarchy of causes corresponding to a hierarchy of
models. Rosen says a hierarchically organized system is engaged
simultaneously in more than one activity such that the same kind of
system description is not appropriate for all levels of activity. It
follows that one set of causes will not be appropriate for all levels of
activity.

For example, the causal metaphors at the particle level of a Newtonian
systems 
will not be the same as the thermodynamic or quantum causal metaphors.
Similarly, the molecular level causes  (as in LI, p. 413: phenotype
= material cause, genome = formal cause, synthesis = efficient cause)
will not be the same as the causal interpretations at the cell level,
organ level, organism levels, cognitive levels, or artifact
levels.

There are many other interpretations of causation. Since causality
implies a direction to time (cause must precede effect) and since
Newtonian and quantum mechanics are time symmetric (reversible) most
physicist reject the metaphor of causality as misleading or at least
unexplanatory at the microscopic level. 

Many philosophers have agreed. Bishop Berkeley thought it obvious that
causality has meaning only with respect to more complex systems where the
concept of human power and control also make sense. When a plane crashes,
everyone wants to know the cause. Of course the obvious cause was
gravity, or not flying high enough, or taking off in the first place.
What they really mean is, what behavior under human control could
have been done differently such that the desired end result was
possible.

Evolution based on heritable mutations (random noise) and natural
selection (which is itself a bad phrase since nothing is literally
selected) also pose a problem for Aristotelian causes. There are just too
many levels and types of causes. Maybe Aristotle would have called
evolution a final cause.

Howard