'A staff moves a stone, and is moved by a hand, which is moved by a man.' Aristotle,
Physics, 256a.
"If we consider only inanimate natural objects, we may say that causation,
if it occurs, is a relation between events or states of affairs.
The dam's breaking was an event that was caused by a set of other events-the
dam being weak, the flood being strong, and so on. But if a man is responsible
for a particular deed, then, if what I have said is true, there is some event,
or set of events, that is caused, not by other events or states of
affairs, but by the agent, whatever he may be.
I
shall borrow a pair of medieval terms, using them, perhaps, in a way that is
slightly different from that for which they were originally intended. I shall
say that when one event or state of affairs (or set of events or states of affairs)
causes some other event of state of affairs, then we have an instance of transeunt
causation. And I shall say that when an agent, as distinguished from
an event, causes an event or state of affairs, then we have an instance of immanent
causation.
The
nature of what is intended by the expression 'immanent causation' may be illustrated
by this sentence from Aristotle's Physics: 'Thus, a staff moves a stone,
and is moved by a hand, which is moved by a man.' (VII, 5, 256a, 6-8) If the
man was responsible, then we have in this illustration a number of instances
of causation-most of them transeunt but at least one of them immanent. What
the staff did to the stone was an instance of transeunt causation, and thus
we may describe it as a relation between events: 'the motion of the staff caused
the motion of the stone.' And similarly for what the hand did to the staff:
'the motion of the hand caused the motion of the staff'. And, as we know from
physiology, there are still other events which caused the motion of the hand.
Hence we need not introduce the agent at this particular point, as Aristotle
does-we need not, though we may. We may say that
the hand was moved by the man, but we may also say that the motion of the hand
was caused by the motion of certain muscles; and we may say that the motion
of the muscles was caused by certain events that took place within the brain.
But some event, and presumably one of those that took place within the brain,
was caused by the agent and not by any other events." (Chisholm, "Human
Freedom and the Self" 26)
"The first is that of a self or person-for example, a man-who is not merely
a collection of things or events, but a substance and a self-moving being. For
on this view it is a man himself, and not merely some part of him or something
within him, that is the cause of his own activity." (Taylor, Metaphysics)
"Some such causal chains, on this view, have beginnings, and they begin
with agents themselves." (Taylor, Metaphysics)
Chisholm on agent-causation: "Thus Aristotle said that
the activity of the prime mover is nothing in addition to the motion that it
produces, and Suarez said that 'the action is in reality nothing but the effect
as it flows from the agent.' ("Human Freedom and the Self" 27)
Chisholm's justification for endorsing the concept of agent-causation:
"[T]he notion of immanent causation, or causation by an agent, is in fact
more clear than that of transeunt causation, or causation by an event, and that
it is only by understanding our own causal efficacy, as agents, that we can
grasp the concept of cause at all. Hume may be said to have shown that we do
not derive the concept of cause from what we perceive of external things. How,
then, do we derive it? The most plausible suggestion, it seems to me, is that
of Reid, once again: namely that 'the conception of an efficient cause may very
probably be derived from the experience we have had . . . of our own power to
produce certain effects'. If we did not understand the concept of immanent causation,
we would not understand that of transeunt causation." ("Human Freedom
and the Self" 28)