I’ve just realized something.
The cause you are missing, and the question pertinent to Freud, is whether there is a formal cause.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
My point is that psychology in actual fact only looks at “what conditions” and not “what determines”, hence the efficient cause.
On the subject of Freud, I reread not long ago his book “The future of an illusion”, not quoted very often today, although it was a reference a few decades ago. In this book, Doctor Freud speaks of culture and civilization, and everything is set upside down by principle, like in the mind of marxists or positivists. Moreover, it’s rather tedious reading.
I am summarizing it for those of you who want to read something else…:-)
Here goes…The guy tells you that if you took the bus, it’s because you were forced to unbeknownst to yourself, because buses are an invention of a minority with vested interests who manipulate the majority of us, and because you would never have gone yourself that day to see your mother, and therefore you don’t like your mother, it’s Greyhound that makes you believe so, and you, like an idiot, you buy this because you have no guts, nor the lucidity to oppose yourself to a taboo and tell your old woman that you can’t stand her.
I’m not joking, the dialectic of the Doctor is the following for everything he examines:
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It is culturally very badly seen to tell your mother that you don’t enjoy her company,
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If you do tell her, you oppose yourself to a taboo imposed by the Christian civilization in which you live,
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Therefore you don’t like your mother, because society wouldn’t have to impose it on you.
It’s amazing we bought into such a prank! And it still goes on today…
The prank isn’t there…
Let’s agree on the meaning of one or two words.
If you agree, let’s call “what determines” all or part of what doesn’t change in a person, and “what conditions” all or part of what changes in a person, or again the historical context in which a person evolves, i.e. the social environment, cultural, etc.
For example for you between the ages of 10 and 30, there is a change and an evolution which conditions you, both in your person and in your environment, and yet what determines you doesn’t change, that is to say you are still you. Between you physically whole today and you amputated of an arm, there is an obvious change which lies in your physical conditioning, and yet not in what determines you, because you are still you.
Freud’s prank, like any dialectic, is articulated in three parts. First he negates “what determines†(in particular freewill, thus eminently love in as much as it is a free act par excellence) substituting to it “what conditions†(the primacy of negation is capital in a dialectic). Then he negates a second time, this time “what conditions” since he is now in full relativeness and beyond anything that “determines”. Finally he gives the coup de grâce to “that which determines” by substituting a sort of liberation of the human person by nothingness, since he has replaced the “heart” of the being by a negation, relativeness and finally nothingness.
Thus it is not as much a given culture or a given context or a given conditioning that Freud undermines, but what is most determinant in a person. It is the anti metaphysical viewpoint, for what remains is substance, the Greek ousia, the soul from the perspective of a philosophy of the living.
When you understand the difference between the “efficient” cause, and a “formal” cause - seeing that you are using Aristolean terms here, you may realize a bit more of what Freud is attempting to do.
Dunamis
right back to ya… 
Does Newton’s Law of Gravitation describe the formal cause, or the efficient cause of an apple falling?
Dunamis
Hi Harvey
What you are describing is the basic appeal of esoteric Christianity for me. It is the psychology of “being”. Normally we consider being in relation to existence and non-existence, but I’ve become open to the idea that being is relative and the relative quality of “being” is determined by how close it is to the final or first cause.
Take for example, the life of a forest and the lives of its trees. Life within the forest as it occurs within the trees has one level of interacting efficient cause. Yet the life of trees is within the life of the forest and the forest taken as a functioning whole is subject to a different quality of influences.
I would agree then that efficient cause for each level of being exists within final cause. The pieces within a kaleidoscope change position through bumping into each other. So from a lower perspective you can say that one piece is the cause of the movement of the other. From a higher perspective, the greater cause is of course our turning it and a still greater cause is what provokes our use of the kaleidoscope.to begin with from collective mankind being considered as part of a higher cause. This movement backwards towards collective wholeness continues towards the final cause or absolute wholeness.
Dunamis, I would have discussed this with you had you had a more constructive attitude, because I can also try to pinpoint potential faults or omissions in other peoples texts, without consideration of anything else…hence my passing the buck back to you…As to your question, I have passed Philosophy 101… 
But don’t let me stop you in expanding on causes and Freud if you wish…
As we are not here to see who shines the most, but to share knowledge, I do nonetheless wish to say a word or two about Aristotle’s causes in the light of his philosophy…
The great discovery of Aristotle is to have seen that intelligence is made to seek and find what is true. Now what is interesting is the why of reality, and Aristotle hence seeks through induction what are the first causes of what he experiments, that is to say he seeks in reality what is not accidental or temporary. In truth, each reality that we experiment implies a change, and one must distinguish, not separate, or worse still oppose, all the possible changes in the unity of being of such or such reality. When I was a little rabbit I was me and today I am still me even though I am 6 feet tall. My conditioning has hence greatly evolved…what makes me still me? Nothing which has changed since radically I am still me! That’s what Aristotle looked for and what we must look for. When we have distinguished being and change we discover the different ways of interrogating and of distinguishing the proper principles. We can interrogate by “asking what is it?â€, so as to understand the particular determination of such or such reality, and that is often the first question we ask ourselves in front of an artistic reality or a reality created by man. Then we pursue by seeking what such work is made of, then on which model it is made, then who is the author, where it comes from, and finally in view of what it has been created. From the analysis of a reality we find ourselves faced with a number of questions that we can categorize in five big families: what is it, what is it made of, on which model is it made of, where does it come from, and in view of what is it. The analysis of the work of art is at the start of all of the analysis of Aristotle, and he has been much criticized for this, but his critics often didn’t understand that his approach was an analogical one. The work of art is closer to human sensibility than nature, and thus closer to our psychological conditioning. It is therefore normal, even cunning, to start with our manner of analyzing a human work of art to highlight the essential creases of our intelligence, creases which constitute the manner in which we analyze and seek the proper principles of reality. Well then in front of a piece of work we interest ourselves first in what determines in the order of intelligibility: it’s a bicycle or a computer or a table Thus we look at the form, then matter, then the author or agent (i.e. the efficient cause or the origin), then the purpose or end (in view of what the work was made) and finally the exemplar cause (on what model it was created). We can put these five interrogations in parallel to our five senses: what it is (sight or the formal cause), in what it is made (touch or the material cause); where it comes from (hearing or the efficient cause), in view of what it is (smell or the final cause), on which model it is (taste or the exemplar cause). These five questions are then extended to nature and to man. One must therefore extend this interrogation of the “why†of man, following the formal cause of what is. I know reality in its descriptive form, for example “Harvey is a manrabbitâ€, but I want to discover in me (or someone else) what is first. That is the true appetite of intelligence, for the principle is what is first and that beyond which one cannot go. We must progressively understand that the question “what is it?†seeks what is the first determination in the order of perfection and of quality…
PS Comments welcome but I should only be back this weekend for a couple of posts and then I should call it quits (even though I enjoy this it is somewhat munching away on my work and family schedule)
Harvey,
I would have discussed this with you had you had a more constructive attitude,
You mean if I agreed with you more readily, or was willing to dismiss Freud as if he was a babbling idiot, unlike whatever clearminded fellows you follow. I understand.
because I can also try to pinpoint potential faults or omissions in other peoples texts, without consideration of anything else…hence my passing the buck back to you…As to your question, I have passed Philosophy 101…
This of course was not my question, but if you passed it, you left behind a proper understanding of what an “efficient cause” is. The reason why you “pass the buck” to me is because I suspect you don’t know the answer to my question. There is no “pure efficient cause”, as per your title.
The standard “atoms are balls bouncing around” materialism, roughly equivalent to ‘efficient causes’, relies upon descriptive “non-material” laws that condition those movements, roughly equivalent to “formal causes” if you want to stay in this terminology. The framework of your “pure efficient cause” derides Freud for investigating descriptive formal causes - only you don’t realize that this is what he was investigating. Your conception is in my view simply deficient. For instance as I recall, as Lacan was to expand upon later, the chain of signifiers that turn in “pure efficient causality”, are founded upon the “Lack”, castration, which establishes the fixing point, the Phallus, which structures all meaning.
Go ahead, pinpoint.
Dunamis
You are right Dunamis, Freud is definitively a “babbling idiot” compared to Aristotle. I like it when you understand. :0)
I’m glad you liked my text on Aristotle and the causes. :0)
You know what? I prefer you think what you thing, because metaphysics is only for those who beg, those who accept to be dominated by the being, not those who want to dominate the being. With all due respect, it would be a waste of your time.
Oh Great Dominator of Being,
because metaphysics is only for those who beg, those who accept to be dominated by the being, not those who want to dominate the being.
My position is largely that of Pragmatism, which denies the metaphysical as knowledge. Truths are invented not discovered…Realists, of which a species you seem to be, are more than any other position dominated by Being - hate to break your “Great Dominator” bubble.
Dunamis
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I am not sure I catch your precise drift. I realize though I failed to mention my last response was in reaction to a summary I read on K’s philosophy, more precisely his argument that we cannot really know things…
As far as complicating things, metaphysics seeks the first principles, which are simple (being the first in their order). It is we who are complicated… Let me elaborate on this.
Metaphysics first only has interest because we seek to know the human person in a fundamental way. We must therefore, after having discovered substance and act, which are the two metaphysical principles, see how these two principles play out in the person, which isn’t a principle, it is concrete, nothing in it is abstract!
To try to keep it simple whilst avoiding simplism, metaphysics shows that the human person has a substantial autonomy in the order of the being, which is given by its soul which is its substance. It is not the case of an animal, because for example a cow only exists by the species and the herd… it never decides to become a hermit, it has no autonomy in the order of the being… it is an individual of the herd. Well then we now have an absolute personal autonomy in the order of the being, which makes us surpass our nature, as well as the aspect of the individual in us (which is rather linked to the body) and which shows that we depend of no person and no reality other than ourselves in the order of the being.
All well and good, but having this autonomy says nothing of finality. It is rather a common mistake IMO to think that autonomy is a finality in itself. Autonomy is a sine qua non parameter of the person, but it is not its finality. One must thus, by stages, in particular through friendship, discover the existence of a first being, which is the ultimate finality, and then see that to be relative to this first being, that directly creates our soul, does not diminish in any way our substantial autonomy. On the contrary, the more this relativity increases consciously and willingly, the more our autonomy increases in parallel. It is intelligence and will which are at play, that is to say the person, the body having more to do with individuality… intelligence and will emanate from the soul. No dualism on my part, for it is obvious that the body also has to do with the person, I am just stressing that it is not first in the order of the person, the soul is.
Thus it seems to me that metaphysics seeks to look at the person not on the level of life and of our vital operations, for then we would not leave the realm of biology and psychology, but on that of the being, and it is rather delicate because for us to be is to live. Yet we cannot reduce the person to life only, we must seek it in its metaphysical foundations, which normally we start to see in a friend, who is not only a nature and an individual, but who manifests a being and an autonomy. The person seems to me to be first a metaphysical given, implying being and the autonomy of being, not only on the level of principles, but on that of the manner of existing of those principles, substance and act, concretely.