The difference between purposive and causal explanations
Hello Rabbi.
I recently read column 692 on the site, which deals with teleological explanations in physics versus causal explanations. The column itself was great, but throughout the entire reading there was a question in the back of my mind that bothered me.
Is there really a difference between the type of explanations that can take a causal form versus explanations that can take a purposive form?
While I admit that there is a difference in the essence of purposive and causal explanations, I am not convinced that it is not possible to actually convert one from the other. Let me explain:
The law of attraction is usually explained causally: there is a “force” and it is the “cause” of the “attraction” that exists between a pair of bodies.
But can’t we also describe it this way: “Every body strives to get closer to every other body,” meaning every body has a “purpose” to get closer to every other body?
(In passing, I will mention that I was unable to perform this process for explanations that were purposive from the start. I assume this stems from my ignorance of purposive explanations, but it raises the possibility that the conversion does indeed always only work in one direction.)
With gratitude and hope for building and salvation. Michael Menachem.
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Could the Rabbi please expand a little, or at least phrase it differently. I didn't exactly understand what he meant.
(To create an ironic distance from the words, I will note that as I write this I expect the response to be “no”, but I hope otherwise)
I don't understand what is not understood. You claim that the difference between causal and purposive is only semantic-formulational. That is, any purposive explanation can be described in causal language and vice versa. It is just a change in formulation, like a translation from one language to another. And I claim that this is not the case. I claim that there are explanations that are essentially purposive and no formulation will change this, and the same applies to causal explanations. I only added that the fact that a causal theory can be translated into purposive (as in Lagrange's mechanics or Fermat's principle in optics) is an immaterial mathematical fact. It should not be concluded from this that everything is a matter of language.
Thank you very much.
Although the rabbi says that it is not clear to him what was not understood, the second explanation is still much clearer to me.
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