Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Unpublished Writings 1872-74' and 'The Rationalists'

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3 ideas

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 3. Final causes
We do not know the nature of one single causality [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: We do not know the nature of one single causality.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [121])
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
For rationalists, it is necessary that effects be deducible from their causes [Cottingham]
     Full Idea: The rationalist view of causation takes it that to make effects intelligible, it must be shown that they are in principle deducible from their causes.
     From: John Cottingham (The Rationalists [1988], p.92)
     A reaction: This has intuitive appeal, but deduction is only possible with further premises, such as the laws of physics. The effects of human behaviour look a bit tricky, even if we cause them.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
Laws of nature are merely complex networks of relations [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: All laws of nature are only relations between x, y and z. We define laws of nature as relations to an x, y, and z, each of which in turn, is known to us only in relation to other x's, y's and z's.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [235])
     A reaction: This could be interpreted in Armstrong's terms, as only identifying the x's, y's and z's by their universals, and then seeing laws as how those universal relate. I suspect, though, that Nietzsche has a Humean regularity pattern in mind.