| There has not yet been a book-length examination of the significant medieval developments in doctrines of natural final causality at the University of Paris. The current study finds that, during this time, natural final causes cease to be recognized as unique metaphysical principles of causality. They are reduced to natural efficient causes that exhibit determined activities. The critique is subtle, however, because even though natural final causality is all but eliminated as a metaphysically unique cause of natural activity, natural directionality is never in doubt.;The Parisian conversation on natural final causality evidences an appropriation and critique of Aristotelian natural philosophy, aided by Avicenna's and Averroes' interpretation of him. The dissertation begins by noting Aristotle's doctrine. He holds that natural final causality is recognizable in natural substances. Final causality has its own unique causal role in natural activities. He recognizes that natural agents also act for the sake of a first final cause, but provides a limited description of the way the first final cause causes.;Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus essentially maintain the Aristotelian doctrine on the recognizability and causality of the natural final cause from Aristotle. However, Scotus plants the seed for a reduction of final causality to efficient causality through his distinction between nature (a determined cause) and will (a free rational cause). While Aristotle argues that natural final causality is evident through the causal similarities between natural and rational agency, Scotus' distinction denies that a nature and a will are similar causal principles.;William of Ockham appropriates Scotus' distinction between nature and will, criticizing Aristotle's argumentation. For Ockham, final causality is proper to rational (free) causes and, for this reason, cannot be found in natural causes. Natural agents have a determined, internal, efficient principle of direction. To attribute final causality to natural agents is to confuse the rational and the natural.;John Buridan maintains Ockham's affirmation that natural direction should be explained as the determination of natural efficient causality. However, he holds that any efficient cause that causes for the sake of itself can be called a final cause. While he reintroduces discussion of final causality in nature, he notes that many of the results we experience from natural causes may not be the proper results that the natural agents were directed to bring about. This limits our ability to discuss natural final causes outside of acknowledging that natural agents have them. |
