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Full Idea
God can make unnumerable things whose cause escapes me, and for this reason alone the entire class of causes which people customarily derive from a thing's "end", I judge to be utterly useless in physics.
Gist of Idea
Many causes are quite baffling, so it is absurd to deduce causes from final purposes
Source
René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §4.55)
Book Ref
Descartes,René: 'Discourse on Method/The Meditations', ed/tr. Sutcliffe,F.E. [Penguin 1968], p.135
A Reaction
anti-Aristotle
| 631 | For Anaxagoras the Good Mind has no opposite, and causes all movement, for a higher reason [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| 5995 | Diogenes of Apollonia offered the first teleological account of cosmology [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Robinson,TM] |
| 275 | Creation is not for you; you exist for the sake of creation [Plato] |
| 394 | An unworn sandal is in vain, but nothing in nature is in vain [Aristotle] |
| 396 | There has to be some goal, and not just movement to infinity [Aristotle] |
| 626 | Everything is arranged around a single purpose [Aristotle] |
| 5089 | Nature has purpose, and aims at what is better. Is it coincidence that crops grow when it rains? [Aristotle] |
| 2809 | If nature makes everything for a purpose, then plants and animals must have been made for man [Aristotle] |
| 20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
| 23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
| 2280 | Many causes are quite baffling, so it is absurd to deduce causes from final purposes [Descartes] |
| 23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
| 15963 | Science has been partly motivated by the belief that the universe is run by God's laws [Alexander,P] |