The Space of Reasons 2007-10-22

Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 2)

In my previous post, Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 1), I presented an argument against Reid's "same shop" argument. In this post, I will say why I think the previous argument fails and point towards a more effective strategy for combating the Shop Argument. As we noted earlier, Reid accepts the first three premises aforementioned argument. Moreover, premise 4 follows from premises 2 and 3. However, premise 5 does not follow from premises 1 and 4. Premise 5 confuses the claim of premise 4, that sensory receptions and rational judgements have different efficient causes (a thesis Reid would accept), with the thesis that the sensory faculty and the rational faculty have different efficient causes (a thesis Reid would reject). Although we are the efficient cause of our rational judgements, we are not (by Reid’s lights) the efficient cause of ...

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