A world abuzz in activity

I sometimes think that the phrase "causal power" doesn't quite convey what the causal powers theorist means or should mean. When I hear the phrase, it makes me think of a mere potentiality, a disposition which needs separate activation. But this is a mistaken image.

A causal power should be seen as active. It is a striving, a conatus. I lie on a bed typing this post. The elasticity of the springs strives to lift me up. The gravitation attraction between my body and the earth strives to press me down. There is not much motion, as the forces have balanced out, but both forces are constantly active. If gravity suddenly disappeared, the bed's springs would eject my upward, and if the springs suddenly disappeared, I would slump down.

The world is abuzz in activity. It trembles with action. Objects strive in various directions in their causal powers, pulling hither and yon (cf. Amjum and Mumford).

Aristotle talks of two levels of potentiality. I am in first potentiality for speaking German—I would have to learn it in order to speak it—and in second potentiality for speaking English—I can do it whenever I wish to. Second potentiality is also first actuality—the general human potential for speaking languages is realized in me in respect of English. And then there is second actuality—I am now in second actuality for writing in English. So we have a three point scale of actuality:

1. first potentiality
2. second potentiality = first actuality
3. second actuality.

Having a causal power, a conatus or a striving is something intermediate between the first and second actuality. When unopposed, the causal power causes second actuality—actual action. When opposed, we just have a tense striving, a pull.

The world, both physical and mental, is a world of tension. Forces push against forces, reasons push against reasons. Or, more precisely, substances with forces or reasons push against the same or other substances with opposed forces or reasons.

Sometimes an image helps develop good metaphysics. That's all the above is: an image.

Powers and strivings

Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of causation is centered around the notion of powers. I wonder, though, whether the term "power" isn't too passive to convey the notion. In my sexual ethics work, I have used the term "striving".

One's image of a power may be something like a match: it has the power to start a fire, but it is not doing anything until the triggering condition—heat from friction—is applied. On the other hand, one's imagine of a striving may be something like a bow pulled back, with the tension and compression in the bow's limbs actively exerting a force that is closely balanced by the tension in the archer's muscles. The striving in the bow is something active, as can be seen by the way the archer gets tired the longer the string is held back, and only needs the archer's resistance to end in order for it to be released. Or one's image of striving may be the archer slowly and effortfully (but perhaps with an appearance of effortlessness) pulling back the string.

It is clear that metaphysically the cases of the archer pulling back the string and the archer holding the string are alike. The only difference is that in the case of holding the strivings of the limbs and the archer are balanced while in the case of pulling back the strivings are imbalanced. I think that in the end the case of the match is also metaphysically alike. In my One Body book, I say in this connection that an army in readineness is not an idle army. Likewise, the match in readiness is not an idle match. The powers of the molecules in the match are in balance, holding each other back, actively striving against each other like the archer against the bow.

Even in God there is a constant striving. God intrinsically is pure act, says Aquinas, and the eternal Trinitarian relations of procession emphasize this. It is crucial not to think of the Trinitarian relations as something historical, in the way that human parenthood in non-ideal cases can be, but rather as continuing—the Father did not once and for all generate the Son at the beginning of time, but in the timeless eternity of God's dynamism always is begetting him, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds as the active love between the Father and the Son. And on the economic side, Leibniz talks of the divine ideas of the various worlds that God can create as competing with one another for God to actualize them. We shouldn't overemphasize that competitiveness, but some emphasis is helpful here. (And this competitiveness in the end fits better into an incommensurability picture of creation than Leibniz's optimalism.)

To a large degree everything I said here is metaphor. But good choice of metaphor guides good philosophizing.