Conference (NeoplAT): Primary and Secondary Causality: Medieval Theories at the Crossroads between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism
NeoplAT ERC Project Conference:
Primary and Secondary Causality: Medieval Theories at the Crossroads between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism
Vienna, 16-17 February 2023
The purpose of this conference is to study medieval theories of primary and secondary causality as they issue from the encounter between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. Aristotle develops a “horizontal model” of the relation among the causes. None of the four Aristotelian causes is absolutely superior to the other, rather all are interdependent; for example, the end is the reason why the efficient acts, and the efficient produces the end; matter is only in act due to the form, and the form exists only in matter. Neoplatonism conceives of a “vertical model” between the primary and the secondary cause. There is dependency and collaboration, but not interdependency. The primary cause (that is, the superior and anterior cause) can act without the secondary (posterior) cause, for example in the constitution of immaterial and material things by the superior intelligences, but the opposite is not the case. Nevertheless, without a secondary cause, the effect of the primary cause is less determined. In the Latin West, these two models came into contact mainly because of the Latin translations of the Book of Causes and the Elements of Theology, but also due to the reception of Boethius, Isaac Israeli, Avicenna, al-Ghazālī, and others.
According to the Neoplatonic vertical model, the primacy of one cause over another is both ontological and operational. It is ontological, since one cause is superior – and hence first or primary – insofar as it is simpler; it is operational, because the superior cause acts before (as to nature, not time), more substantially and more nobly than other causes which are less simple, and hence inferior, secondary, and posterior. According to this model, the gradual differentiation of the causes is necessary, and it is thus that each cause contributes, according to its proper order, to the structuring of the universe. By contrast, according to the Aristotelian horizontal model, the proximate cause contributes more to the effect than the remote cause. Moreover, this model does not presuppose a gradual differentiation; yet it does not exclude it.
The openness of the horizontal model to the conception of hierarchical causes allowed medieval thinkers to relate the two conceptual traditions to another. They did so with extraordinary theoretical ingenuity, both in order to harmonize the two models (under the pressure of the false attribution of the Book of Causes to Aristotle) and in order to contrast them with another (once, due to the translation of the Elements of Theology, the Book of Causes was no longer attributed to Aristotle). The medieval reception of the two models happens in various contexts: the discussions about essential vs. incidental causal chains, mediated vs. immediate creation, occasionalism vs. the contribution of secondary causes, providence, the plurality of substantial forms, and many others.
Despite its doctrinal richness, the encounter between these two models in medieval thought has not been studied. This conference will provide the occasion to do so, both according to its origins and to its long-term reception, in order to achieve a better understanding of a philosophical tradition that grew out of this encounter.
