Jewish Averroism in Provence and Spain

1. 8/10/2012 Golden Age of Jewish Philosophy 1 Jewish Averroism in Provence and Spain Charles Manekin

2. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 2 The Determinism Debate in 14th Cent Jewish Philosophy The participants in the debate: Abner of Burgos Isaac Polgar Moses of Narbonne Extant texts: Treatise on Predestination (in Spanish) Support of Religion Treatise on Choice

3. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 3 But First � the Aristotelian Position of Isaac Albalag Consider an event such as Reuben�s accidentally wounding his eye at a certain time by lifting his finger upward. Neither the time nor the occurrence of the event can be predicted. For the time and the occurrence of [its] causes and effects do not maintain an order, and the occurrence of the effects does not follow necessarily from the occurrence of the causes. The occurrence of the final effect certainly does not result necessarily from the occurrence of the first cause.

4. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 4 But First � the Aristotelian Position of Isaac Albalag For the wounding of the eye does not result necessarily from the raising of the finger, nor is the finger�s encounter with the eye a necessary event when the finger is raised. True, the wounding of the eye follows necessarily from the finger encountering it, and that encounter follows necessarily from the finger�s being led in a direct line towards the eye. Nevertheless, the finger�s following that line rather than any other line upward can only have been brought about by an accidental cause.

5. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 5 But First � the Aristotelian Position of Isaac Albalag Moreover, it is common knowledge that the volitional cause hinges solely upon the power of the chooser. And even if his choice has a necessitating cause, this cause may perhaps proceed from an accidental cause or an imaginative cause that has no external existence, as when Reuben stumbles on a stone that has fallen from the roof as a result of the movement of a mouse who thinks that there is bread before him or a cat behind him. For certainly the appearance of this image to the mouse does not have a cause that acts in a necessary manner.

6. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 6 But First � the Aristotelian Position of Isaac Albalag What I mean is that there is nothing in the nature of the cause that necessitates this image in the mouse, or in the nature of the image that it necessarily occurs in this way. Therefore, knowledge of the first necessitating causes is not sufficient to ascertain the nature of the effects, and not everything possible has causes that ascend to it one after another as essential causes and effects do.

7. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 7 Why Aristotelian? Aristotle distinguishes between essential causes, accidental causes, and volitional causes Essential causes are tied to the natures of things. The movement of the spheres is an essential cause of heat. The effect follows necessarily from those causes. Accidental causes don�t happen always or for the most part; they are not tied to nature. I run into you in Dupont Circle. Nothing necessary about that.

8. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 8 Volitional causes Volitional cause hinges solely upon the power of the chooser. A mouse sees a stone and imagines it to be bread. He goes towards it, knocks the stone off a roof, and you stumble on it. Your stumbling is not necessitated, for there is no necessity in the mouse imagining the stone as bread.

9. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 9 Back to the Determinism Debate The Secret of Recompense by Abner of Burgos claims God�s eternal knowledge causally necessitates the temporal existence of individual substances and accidents Human volitions are also necessitated but nevertheless they are volitions Reward and punishment are natural consequences

10. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 10 More determinist claims God knows the future in the same way an omniscient meteorologist knows the weather � except that God�s knowledge is causal. Although everything is causally determined, we should not tell this to the multitude because they would mistake determinism for fatalism.

11. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 11 Isaac�s Indeterminist Claims Determinism destroys the nature of the possible, because on the one hand we say that this wax may be fashioned into the shape of a candle, but then you say that it must be so fashioned. Some things are determined to happen (like the rising of the sun); some are not.

12. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 12 More Claims Against Determinism If all is determined then effort is futile (lazy man argument) If all is determined then God unjustly rewards and punishes. If all is determined then there is no point in being commanded to do things or not to do things.

13. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 13 Abner�s Response Possibility is compatible with determinism Eternal vs. temporal possibility. Volition (Voluntariness) is compatible with determinism. In fact, volition is compatible with external compulsion.

14. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 14 Abner�s Response Determinism is compatible with effort. Distinction between fatalism and determinism. Determinism is compatible with the giving of the law and observing the law. Determinism is compatible with God�s justice

15. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 15 Abner�s argument for the last claim Human transactions are governed by the principle of reciprocity; humans requite good for good and evil for evil � that is why intentionality is valued. But neither evil nor good can be done to God, who is above this. He promulates laws (of nature) which produce happiness when obeyed.

16. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 16 Moses of Narbonne First I say: For Aristotle showed there that some things are of the nature of the possible, and of these some exist accidentally and by chance; that inasmuch as there are existents that occur for the most part, it follows that there will be some that occur rarely; and that not everything that is generated from something bears a necessary relation to it. He explained and confirmed these points at length, but the gist is that we are acquainted with many things of which we are the cause. If we wish to do them, we do them; if we wish not to actualize them, they will not come into existence.

17. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 17 Moses of Narbonne Now if everything is necessitated, then the person who makes an endeavor for something will be equal to the one who makes an endeavor to annul it, and all future things will be necessary. This opposes all that is sensibly perceived and intellectually cognized.

18. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 18 Moses of Narbonne We need to realize that although the positions of the heavenly bodies bestow the mixtures, they [merely] prepare, move, and aid one of the alternative [states-of-affairs], but they do not compel us in our actions. For then man would not possess choice, which is one of the essential differences that distinguishes living things under certain conditions. Now though the causes stretch back to the movement of the sphere, this does not imply predestination. For while the existence of the cause follows from the existence of the effect, the existence of the effect does not follow from the existence of the cause, save in form and end.

19. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 19 Moses of Narbonne In general, even if all movements go back ultimately to the first movement this does not indicate that everything is decreed. For since there is a subsequently originated thing it follows that there is an antecedent, and this proceeds back to the prime mover. But what is subsequent does not follow of necessity from the antecedent, for this originated thing does not follow of necessity from the first thing moved..

20. 8/10/2012 Modern Philosophy PHIL320 20 Moses of Narbonne A cause may intevene among them that obstructs an agent that belongs to the causes that are intermediate between the first cause and this originated thing. Or perhaps an accidental cause intervened that is the cause of the origination of this thing, and the essential causes that obstruct its origination missed their mark. For not all causes are necessary nor is their activity necessary. Chance figures among them, for ill and for good, the latter being called good fortune.