Human Agency and Cause from Aristotle to Alexander
FAIN: FEL-262889-19
Rachana Kamtekar
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the notion of moral agency in ancient philosophy.
In "Human Agency and Cause from Aristotle to Alexander," addressed to students of philosophy and ancient Greece and Rome, I aim to show that aside from the Stoics, philosophers from Aristotle to Alexander are not determinists, and for that reason are unlikely to be compatibilists; and that the responsibility the Stoics take to be compatible with determinism is causal, justifying only forward-looking punishment. Despite my disagreements with the scholarship of the last decades, my approach is deeply indebted to its focus on ancient accounts of voluntary action in terms of ancient questions, which are not the same as ours.
Associated Products
Experience and preconception in Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism (Article)
Title: Experience and preconception in Epicurus' Refutation of Determinism
Author: Rachana Kamtekar
Abstract: Abstract: Among Epicurus’ On Nature 25 arguments against determinism, the view that everything comes to be by accidental necessity (kata to automaton anangkên), is a previously-unnoticed semantic argument. Epicurus argues that since our preconception (prolêpsis) of causal responsibility (aitia), or of being causally responsible (aitios), originates in our experience (pathos) of acting through ourselves (di’ hêmôn autôn), the thesis of determinism is self-refuting. This is because the thesis of determinism requires use of the preconception of causal responsibility, which would not be available to the determinist if it were true that everything that happens, including our actions and experiences, is caused by necessity from our original constitution and environment. In the wake of this argument, Epicurus challenges the determinist to show that we should not consider our own agency to belong to the preconception of causal responsibility, and to explain the difference between our experiences of voluntary and compelled action.
Keywords: cause, responsibility, agency, preconception, experience, Epicurus, Democritus, determinism
Year: 2022
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Two Concepts of Cause in Antiphon's Second Tetralogy (Article)
Title: Two Concepts of Cause in Antiphon's Second Tetralogy
Author: Shaun Nichols
Author: Rachana Kamtekar
Abstract: We propose that a new approach to characterizing intuitive causal judgments mooted in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science, according to which we have two concepts of cause, cause as producer of its effects and cause as necessary condition on which effects depend, can extend our understanding of ancient discussions involving causation. To that end, we investigate the use of causal notions in Antiphon’s Second Tetralogy, a 5th century text consisting of arguments from prosecution and defense in a fictional legal case concerning unintentional homicide. We argue that while the prosecution maintains that causal responsibility, conceived in terms of production, is sufficient for legal responsibility, the defense undermines this judgment by arguing, first, that the javelin-throwing youth is a patient rather than agent of a mistake/missing-the-target and second, that the boy’s death depends on his action of running into the path of the javelin, so that identifying the cause or the agent responsible requires evaluating the contrasts implicit in any causal claim. Appreciating Antiphon’s deft deployment of the two different concepts of cause allows us to see that neither Antiphon, nor his speakers, nor the Athenian law confuse the distinction between causal and evaluative responsibility, contrary to what previous commentators have maintained.
Keywords: cause, production, dependence, responsibility, law, doing, undergoing
Year: 2022
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Phronesis
Publisher: Brill