> On Oct 21, 2016, at 11:55 AM, John F Sowa <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > But the modern word has become specialized to the single sense of efficient > cause.
I’d add that we have to distinguish the idea of efficient causation as determinate from what came to be seen through a more probabilistic lens. At the time of Peirce things were changing, perhaps in response to Darwinism. However Newtonian determinism still ruled most people’s thought processes. So variation was usually seen in epistemological terms rather that ontological. Peirce was an early break with that given his notion of swerve that he picked up from the Epicureans. One thing I’ve not seen well discussed is how to consider the term causality given those ontological issues. (Obviously it’s discussed in the 20th century due to quantum theory but I’m here thinking of Peirce) > In a discussion of the historical sense of the four aitiai or causae, > it's better to call them four modes of explanation. Peirce would > certainly have understood the difference. Peirce undoubtedly was familiar with Hume’s critiques of causation. Do you think Peirce saw causality primarily in epistemological senses? Or is this, as you suggest later, contingent upon the context of the quote in question?
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