Precedence and causal regress

Use in the book

A generated thing cannot generate itself before it exists: the giving of its beginning must precede it. But the higher cause demanded for an acting fire is not merely the fire that happened earlier, since that producer may already be extinct or far away. The inquiry seeks a source adequate to the present action and the whole kind. In the matter argument, assigning productive power to matter through another power indefinitely fails to explain where such power originates; assigning it essentially would turn the alleged matter into a source of forms. Similar regress arguments require an unmixed form and an incorporeal unifier. A separate principle connects prior substance’s possibility of existing without quantity to its realization, lest a perfection remain forever empty. Ficino expressly bounds that claim to the principal order of the universe. It should not become the claim that every event anyone can imagine must occur.

Places to read

1. I.3.5–62Generation and the dilemma about matter’s productive power
2. I.3.8–92A past producer is distinguished from a sufficient superior cause
3. I.3.24–252Regress is arrested at unmixed form; realized possibility receives a cosmic-order qualification
4. I.3.30–3223Unity and the first principle cannot depend on endless further unifiers or beginnings

Translation in this edition

“Prior by nature,” “prior in dignity,” and “before” should retain their qualifiers. “At some time” in I.3.25 translates aliquando; the passage also gives the natural philosophers’ alternative that the relevant perfection already exists.

exordium / exordiri

exordium / exordiri. Printed forms: exordium.

An origin or starting point. Divisible things take their beginning from indivisible things and end in them; the phrase marks explanatory dependence rather than a demonstrated calendar date. References: I.3.16. See Precedence and causal regress.

extinguo / remotus

extinguo / remotus. Printed forms: extinctus; remotissimus.

Extinguished and very distant. The producer’s possible extinction or distance blocks treating it as the sufficient continuing higher cause of the present fire’s operation. References: I.3.9. See Precedence and causal regress.

ne / nisi

ne / nisi. Printed forms: ne; nisi.

Lest or so that not; unless or except if. Lest an endless regress occur gives a reason for requiring unmixed form, while unless a higher cause strengthens quality restricts its ability to act independently. References: I.3.21, I.3.24. See Precedence and causal regress.

orior / initium

orior / initium. Printed forms: initium; oriatur; oritur.

To originate and a beginning. Quality begins and perishes; whatever gives its beginning must precede it, so it cannot be its own sufficient origin. References: I.3.5. See Precedence and causal regress.

praecedo

praecedo. Printed forms: praecedat; praecedit.

To precede. Ficino’s argument denies that a generated thing can precede itself; this temporal impossibility supports a causal distinction. References: I.3.5. See Precedence and causal regress.

prior natura et dignitate

prior natura et dignitate. Printed forms: per naturam et dignitatem prior.

Prior by nature and dignity. Substance’s priority to quantity is used to argue for its ability to exist without quantity; this is not a date of birth. References: I.3.25. See Precedence and causal regress.

prius / posterius

prius / posterius. Printed forms: posterius; prior; prius.

Before or prior, and after or later. Children’s later equality in size is chronological, whereas substance’s priority to quantity is expressly by nature and dignity; the same vocabulary does not impose one ordering. References: I.2.12, I.3.25. See Precedence and causal regress.

progressio in infinitum

progressio in infinitum. Printed forms: in infinitum progressio.

An indefinitely continued explanatory progression. A higher material form would itself require a further higher cause, so Ficino argues that the sequence must reach an unmixed form. References: I.3.24. See Precedence and causal regress.

protendo / tumeo

protendo / tumeo. Printed forms: protendatur; tumeat.

To stretch out and swell. The argument says a thing must first be before extension and swelling; the physical verbs mark the priority of simple being to divisible expansion. References: I.3.16. See Precedence and causal regress.