Introducing Formal Causation

Ludger Jansen and Petter Sandstad

Part I: Scholastic Approaches to Formal Causation

Form, Intention, Information: From Scholastic Logic to Artificial Intelligence

Gyula Klima

Formal Causation: Accidental and Substantial

David S. Oderberg

Part II: Contemporary Approaches to Formal Causation

A Non-hylomorphic Account of Formal Causation

Petter Sandstad and Ludger Jansen

Formal Causes for Powers Theorists

Giacomo Giannini and Stephen Mumford

Away with Dispositional Essences in Trope Theory

Jani Hakkarainen and Markku Keinänen

Functional Powers

Michele Paolini Paoletti

Part III: Formal Causation and Dependence

An Aristotelian Approach to Existential Dependence

Benjamin Schnieder and Jonas Werner

Finean Feature Dependence and the Aristotelian Alternative

Wolfgang Sattler

A Problem for Natural-Kind Essentialism and Formal Causes

José Tomás Alvarado and Matthew Tugby

Part IV: Formal Causation in Biology and Cognitive Sciences

Form as Cause and the Formal Cause: Aristotle’s Answer

James G. Lennox

Form, Cause, and Explanation in Biology: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective

Christopher J. Austin

Formal Explanation and Mechanisms of Conceptual Representation

Sandeep Prasada

About the Author

Ludger Jansen teaches philosophy at the Centre for Philosophy of Science at the University of Münster and at the University of Rostock, where he was head of the project “Formal Causation in Aristotle and Analytic Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science” funded by the German Research Foundation. He is the author of Gruppen und Institutionen (2017) and Tun und Können (2015); and co-editor with Barry Smith of Biomedizinische Ontologie (2008) and with Christoph Jedan of Philosophische Anthropologie in der Antike (2010).

Petter Sandstad is a doctoral student at the University of Rostock working on Aristotelian formal causation, and was a researcher on the project “Formal Causation in Aristotle and Analytic Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science” funded by the German Research Foundation. He has published papers on Socrates and Aristotle, as well as on contemporary metaphysics.

Reviews

'This volume collects cutting-edge work on topics of robust current interest in metaphysics, such as essentialism and hylomorphism, under the thematic heading of formal causation. Does formal causation belong in the toolbox of contemporary metaphysics? The volume might well be seen in the years to come as bringing the topic of formal causation to the forefront of discussions of kinds, essences, and hylomorphism.' – Phil Corkum, University of Alberta, Canada

Table of Contents

About the Author

Reviews