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Chapter 7 - Why Aristotle Needs Accidental Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2025

Tyler Huismann
Tyler Huismann
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
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Summary

I consider two claims about the texture of Aristotle’s natural world: first, that substances have indefinitely many accidents; second, that effects have indefinitely many accidental causes. Aristotle takes the first claim to explain the second, but the conceptual connections between them are not obvious. I show all that is required to connect one to the other, and in doing so work out the logic of accidental causation.

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Aristotle on Accidental Causation , pp. 176 - 195
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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