Exemplar Causes

 Exemplar causes (also sometimes known traditionally as ideas*  or original forms) are commonly defined in various ways -- as forms such that effects imitate them out of the intention of agents determining their own ends, as pre-existing substantifying reasons of existing things, as that which an artisan regards in effecting what he determines to be, as that which is the standard of truth and propriety for what is made, as that to which an effect is assimilated and conformed. It is an important kind of cause, and it is not difficult to find cases of it. For instance, in building something one may follow a blueprint; a novelist writes the actual version of the novel he has pre-thought; a teacher may set a standard example that is imitated by students. But what kind of cause is it?

The standard Aristotelian view, of course, is that there four proper causes: efficient (in Aristotle himself the somewhat narrower motive cause), material, formal, final. There are good reasons to think that the exemplar cause is not any of these. It is very obviously not a material cause. It also cannot be a formal cause, because both matter and form are intrinsic or constituent causes, and the exemplar is very definitely separate from the exemplate that derives from it. Thus one might try to make it out to be an efficient cause or a final cause, but in fact the exemplar cause does not have the same relation to the exemplate that the efficient has to the effect or that the final cause has to that which tends to it.

One might hold, then, that it is a fifth cause, and in practice it is often treated as such. However, there is good reason to think that there are exactly four proper causes. In addition, while it can't be an efficient, formal, or final cause, the exemplar cause is suspiciously similar to all three. Indeed, we see this in some of its descriptions: the exemplar is the form which the effects imitate from the intention of agents determining their own ends.

The four proper causes are those to which all causes can be traced back. But there are many other kinds of causes. There is nothing that requires us to say that every kind of causation traces back to only one kind of proper cause, as if these were summa genera of causation. Other causes can arise from the various ways these four interact in the real world. Their causation will, in principle, be explicable in terms of the four proper causes, but this may be quite complex, and it does not mean that the derivative causes are not causes in their own right, only that they are not the most basic building-blocks of causation. When they are causes in their own right, rather than just causal systems, they will have an overall action like that of one of the proper causes (because they will be organized by a particular relationship to a result), but this will arise from the interaction of various proper causes.

Perhaps the most popular, and I think, correct, view of exemplar causes is that they are extrinsic formal causes. Exemplar causes, as I said, cannot be proper formal causes because exemplars are not intrinsic forms. Nonetheless, they function a lot like formal causes. The reason this is possible is that the final cause, as cause of causes, can make it so that something's proper form comes to be in a way that depends on the form of another thing. So in exemplar causation we have two formal causes (that of the exemplar and the exemplate) and the existence of the one is made dependent on the other by the final cause; then the exemplar's form, although separate from the thing, works in a way as if it were the formal cause of the thing.

Exemplar causes are not the only kinds of extrinsic formal cause. I can think of at least two other major ones. Objective causes (which play a role in thought and in signs) are one; they differ from exemplar causes in that exemplar causes explain existence in some way, whereas objective causes complete cognitive and appetitive powers, and are causes of cognitive and appetitive actions being what they are. Another is a kind of causality that doesn't have a convenient name; perhaps we can call it a 'formant cause'. St. Albert noted in his study of mineral formation that 'place' was a cause that couldn't be neglected, and worked like an external form. That is, the boundaries of the surrounding medium contribute to how minerals grow and transform. Molds, like cookie-cutters or the kinds of molds used in arts and crafts and factories, are another sort of cause in this way; they affect the form of something by imposing a direct boundary during its formation. Exemplar causes, on the other hand, are causes of a thing as existing.

Suarez famously did not like this classification of exemplar causes as extrinsic formal causes; as he put it, the efficient cause also has a form on which the form of the effect depends. Thus he held that it was just a species of efficient cause. this is certainly not correct, because unless the efficient cause is itself the exemplar cause, the exemplar cause does not act, but is that according to which something is conformed. Part of the reason, too, that Suarez can get away with this is that he rejects the idea that extrinsic exemplar causes are really exemplar causes, so for him, exemplar causes are always internal to a mind. A view in which a live model is not an exemplar for the painting, or that a blueprint is not an exemplar cause for a machine built according to it, seems a very defective view. And it makes much more sense for us to take these 'external exemplar causes' to be to the 'internal exemplar causes' in something like the way that instrumental signs are to formal signs in objective causes, or instruments are to principal efficient causes. That is, they are 'exemplate exemplars' like instruments are moved movers.

It is true, of course, that an efficient cause always has a form, and that the effect depends on the action of the efficient cause, and the the efficient cause acts because of its form. And this is indeed just what efficient causation is. But the exemplar cause is, as the descriptions of it say, not the form out of which the agent acts but the form with respect to which the effect is formed. These can sometimes be the same, when the agent is also the exemplar, but they aren't necessarily so, and even when they are the same, the agent's being an agent and its being an exemplar are distinct. Some neoscholastic authors attempted to get around this by arguing that the exemplar is a 'moral efficient cause', and presumably an assisting one rather than a principal one, but this seems digging the hole deeper.

In the late medieval and Baroque periods, the exemplar cause and the final cause shared a similar fate; accounts of them increasingly relegated them to being things in the mind. Suarez in fact draws this conclusion explicitly for exemplar causes: he claims that they are only found in intellectual agents. But they are not merely things in the mind, although minds have very special and (for us) very important kinds of them (namely, purposes for final causes and design-plans for exemplar causes). 

-----

* Our use of the 'idea' to mean (roughly) something definite in the mind is due in great measure to Descartes, who is explicit that he is adapting the traditional notion of 'idea' to his own use. It is very indirect, but Descartes's usage is actually influenced by Suarez's restriction of the exemplar cause, noted below.

And Summer Seas Afoam like Foaming Wine

 Exotique
by Clark Ashton Smith 

Thy mouth is like a crimson orchid-flower
Whence perfume and whence poison rise unseen
To moons aswim in iris or in green,
Or mix with morning in an eastern bower. 

Thou shouldst have known, in amaranthine isles,
The sunsets hued like fire of frankincense,
And noontides fraught with far-borne redolence,
The mingled spicery of purple miles. 

Thy breasts, where blood and molten marble flow,
Thy warm white limbs, thy loins of tropic snow--
These, these, by which desire is grown divine, 

Were made for dreams in mystic palaces,
For love and sleep and slow voluptuousness,
And summer seas afoam like foaming wine.

Life

 In the natural realm, biological living beings act in view of five ends: nutrition, organic growth, self-defense, self-repair, reproduction. The analogies to spiritual life are present in the development of the Church's nourishment from the Word of God, sacred Tradition, and the sacraments (nutrition), doctrinal consideration of the truth (growth), her doctrinal activities of self-definition (self-defense), her movements of reform (self-repair and vital development), and the spiritual fecundity of charity (spiritual fruitfulness). In a wide range of historical contingent circumnstances these processes of a unified life can take on a wide range of expressions (much like a biological individual or species can develop in a wide array of ways in diverse environmental conditions, through time). However, the mystery is that there is only one Church in and through all the conditions of history, and her doctrinal self-expression and self-communication remains one through all time and through all conditions. It is this mystery of organic continuity amidst change that the Church seeks to denote when she speaks of the mystery of the development of doctrine, as an integral dimension of the ongoing life and vital flourishing of the Catholic Church. 

[Thomas Joseph White, OP, Principles of Catholic Theology; Book 1, On the Nature of Theology, The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2023) pp. 80-81.]

It Was Six Men of Indostan

 The Blind Men and an Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe 

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind. 

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!" 

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!" 

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!" 

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!" 

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said:"E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!" 

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!" 

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong! 

Moral: So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Evening Note for Sunday, October 18

 Thought for the Evening: The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin

In 1987, Stephen R. Lawhead published Taliesin, the first book in The Pendragon Cycle, closely followed by Merlin in 1988 and Arthur in 1989. Later he followed this up with Pendragon (1994), Grail (1997), and the rather different Avalon (1999), and more recently has added Aurelia (2025), which is the only one in the cycle I haven't read. The first trilogy is truly excellent; growing up, I read them a lot. The style of them was particular interesting -- Lawhead interwove the myth of Atlantis, various stylized versions of Celtic myths, Arthurian legend, and a sort of vaguely Celticized Evangelical Christianity into something that was quite fresh and new.

I was interested, then, to watch the recent streaming series, The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, which is based on Taliesin and Merlin. I can recommend it quite highly. It is imperfect. It really does not do justice to the excellent story of Taliesin, rushing through it, but its recent success on Amazon Prime makes it reasonably likely there will be a second season, and one hopes that they can at least get more of it in flashbacks. Taliesin is not a household name the way Merlin is, so it's not surprising that they put the focus on Merlin. Still, they would have done better, perhaps, to have given Taliesin a bit more time, even if putting the emphasis on the second book. The rushing doesn't do any favors to the more complicated story in Merlin, either; putting two books into seven episodes is asking a lot of seven episodes. Nonetheless, while parts might be a bit puzzling to people who have never read the books, as an adaptation works quite well.

The series does occasionally show its very limited budget. Of course, since we're talking television, the very limited budget is said to be about $50 million. Nonetheless, I kept comparing it to The Rings of Power, whose first season cost that amount for each episode, and yet, with very occasional exceptions, The Pendragon Cycle looks better. The limited budget required them to find places to shoot, make sets with which the actors had to interact, and actually do something with the outdoors. It all seems quite right, in ways that the undoubtedly more expensive backgrounds of The Rings of Power never have. We also get more action -- sometimes stylized, to be sure, but there are actually things going on that give interest to the scenes.

In adapting the books, perhaps the biggest problem that has to be solved is the music. Taliesin is the greatest bard in the history of the island of Britain, with Merlin having some of the same talent. Music is central to what they do. The books can cheat on this -- we don't need the music, we don't even get the song, we just get prose versions of the stories that were told. The series, I think, probably solves the best way it can without requiring extraordinary musical genius -- the bards sing, but the magic is carried by the reactions. In one scene, Taliesin is singing at a banquet before a strange court, where his people have come as refugees. The song is nothing special in itself, but it's just a platform; what happens is that Taliesin's people start singing along, and King Avallach, to whom they have come begging, who comes from a civilization so advanced that in comparison to it these people are primitive savages, looks around and (in an excellent bit of subtle acting by Daniel Fathers) realizes that this is exactly what his dying people need. That is a good, solid way to do the magic of music on screen.

Because there are so many characters, being pulled in from two different books, the actors don't always have a full time to shine, but I liked most of what I saw. (Pelleas seems unfortunately a bit of a non-entity, but I think this is more of a not-enough-time-for-development problem, rather than an acting problem.) That Atlanteans are all rather magnetic -- which makes it further disappointing that we don't get more of them in their own right -- Rose Reid as Charis, Daniel Fathers as Avallach, and Emree Franklin as Morgian. (Since Morgian is the primary antagonist of Merlin, and the one person of whom Merlin is truly afraid, I expect we will get more of her if the series gets a second season.) The three key characters for the parts of the story that make it into the series are Charis, Taliesin (played by James Arden), and Merlin (played by Tom Sharp), and all three of them work quite well. I also liked Myles Clohessey's interpretation of Uther as suspicious and grouchy but extremely practical.

If you liked the books, you'll mostly like the series. If you haven't read the books, it is worthwhile, as well, although the series will occasionally require you to connect dots that it does not itself explicitly connect because it is only seven episodes long. However, it's no worse than you'd likely get in a movie version, and the series in any case more than makes up for it in other ways.

Various Links of Interest

* Christian B. Wagner, On the Use of Typology in Apologetics

* E. J. Hutchinson, A Review of The Odyssey, Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn, at "New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry"

* Brian Kemple, Semiotics, at the Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology

* Victor Tamburini, Saying (Nothing) and Conversational Implicatures (PDF)

* James Chastek, Predogstination, A fragment., at "Just Thomism"

* Dan Hitchens, The Making of Roger Scruton, at "First Things"

* Josh Hawthorne, How and Where AI Intelligence Actually Comes From, at "Thinking Out Loud"

* Bill Vallicella, Semantic Engines, Consciousness, Intentionality, and Understanding, at "Maverick Philosopher"

* Brett Mullins looks at the first issue of Mind.

* Nik Prassas, Is Brideshead Revisited the 20th Century's Greatest Novel? at "The Republic of Letters"

* Francisco Fernflores, The Equivalence of Mass and Energy, at the SEP

Currently Reading

Clark Ashton Smith, Zothique: The Final Cycle
Thomas Joseph White, OP, Principles of Catholic Theology: Book 1, On the Nature of Theology
Bernard Lonergan, Verbum
Lara Alcock, How to Think about Abstract Algebra

In Audiobook

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (as read by Rob Inglis)
Jim Butcher, Changes (as read by James Marsters)

St. Ignatius of Antioch

 Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr. From his letter to the Ephesians (chapters 13-15):

Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, both in heaven and earth, is brought to an end. 

None of these things is hid from you, if ye perfectly possess that faith and love towards Christ Jesus which are the beginning and the end of life. For the beginning is faith, and the end is love. Now these two, being inseparably connected together, are of God, while all other things which are requisite for a holy life follow after them. No man [truly] making a profession of faith sinneth; nor does he that possesses love hate any one. The tree is made manifest by its fruit; so those that profess themselves to be Christians shall be recognised by their conduct. For there is not now a demand for mere profession, but that a man be found continuing in the power of faith to the end. 

It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian], than to talk and not to be one. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also acts. There is then one Teacher, who spake and it was done; while even those things which He did in silence are worthy of the Father. He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear even His very silence, that he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks, and be recognised by his silence. There is nothing which is hid from God, but our very secrets are near to Him. Let us therefore do all things as those who have Him dwelling in us, that we may be His temples, and He may be in us as our God, which indeed He is, and will manifest Himself before our faces. Wherefore we justly love Him.

A Wizard Wind Goes Crying Eerily

The Eldritch Dark
by Clark Ashton Smith 

Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty,
A wizard wind goes crying eerily,
And on the wold misshapen shadows crawl,
Miming the trees, whose voices climb and fall,
Imploring, in Sabbatic ecstacy,
The sky where vapor-mounted phantoms flee
From the scythed moon impendent over all. 

Twin veils of covering cloud and silence, thrown
Across the movement and the sound of things,
Make blank the night, till in the broken west
The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....
The night grows whole again....The shadows rest,
Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.