ARNOLD BRECHT'S POLITICAL THEORY REVISITED Political ...

172 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER
purpose, and to act for that purpose. Even some inanimate matter,
like crystals, seems to develop toward a goal." These considerations
present us with "a grave problem" of explanation.
Brecht outlines the explanatory alternatives as follows. If we are
to explain "life" in teleological terms, then we are confronted with
two alternative possibilities: "either the future is the cause of the
past"; or "a `goal' or `purpose' is incorporated in things" (83). The
first of these alternatives is dictated by his initial definition of
"cause" and "effect" as "the conventional name for the interrelation
between two successive events where the occurrence of the earlier is
regarded as a condition for that of the latter" (74) and is prefigured
by the questions with which he begins his discussion of entelechy:
"Can the order of cause and effect be reversed? Can the end effect its
own cause? Can the future shape the past to suit it?" (82) This
possibility appears to be disposed of by Brecht's previous comment
that "[w]e are dealing here only with life on our little planet, where
cosmic relativity does not interfere with our common-sense concept
of time, and time flows in only one direction" (82).
The second teleological alternative is dealt with equally briefly.
Brecht gives little idea of the richness and force of this ancient conception
of "causality" 30 and he does not notice its potential as at
least a partial remedy for the shallowness or insufficiency of the
modern conception and its narrow concern with compelling or
mechanical necessities. He simply points out that if we conclude that
goals or purposes are "incorporated" in things, "that would
logically 31 require" either "that there is, or was, someone who conceived
the goal or purpose and did incorporate it" or that what is
meant is ("some type of pantheistic thinking") "that the thing itself
30. " Cause" is the usual translation of the ancient Greek term aitia, which means
something like "condition of existence." Aristotle, in his classic formulation,
distinguishes four different types of such conditions or "causes": (1) material-e.g., the
lumber, etc., for a house; (2) efficient-e.g., the carpenter who builds the house-i.e.,
applies the compelling necessity to the lumber (material) to convert it into what comes
to be (the house); (3) formal-e.g., the architectural plan or ordering or organizing
principle which shapes the material (via the instrumentality of the carpenters) and
makes it a house rather than merely a pile of lumber; and (4) final-i.e., the end or
purpose of the thing-e.g., a dwelling place for human life-which explains why the
house has the form which it has. The being or existence of the house is insufficiently
"explained" unless an account is given of all four types of "causes," and not merely its
efficient or material and efficient causes, as modern "science" narrowly provides.
31. Note the apparent fusion of the logical order and the order of nature here.