I defend a new reading of Spinoza's account of causation that reconciles the strengths of the mechanist and formal cause interpretations by locating instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws inside individual natures; natures are efficacious because that's where the laws are. God's necessity, for instance, follows from certain logical principles contained within God's nature. Causes between finite particulars likewise stem entirely from finite natures. They do so, I argue, because finite instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws are inscribed within those natures. In each of these instances, effects follow from natures on account of laws contained within them.

中文翻译：

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斯宾诺莎的形式机制

我为斯宾诺莎因果关系解释的新解读辩护，该解释通过在个体自然中定位自然固定和不变定律的实例，调和了机械论和形式原因解释的优势；自然是有效的，因为那是法律所在。例如，上帝的必然性来自于包含在上帝本性中的某些逻辑原则。有限细节之间的原因同样完全源于有限的本性。我认为，他们这样做是因为自然界固定不变的规律的有限实例铭刻在这些自然界中。在这些情况中的每一种情况下，由于其中包含的规律，自然产生了影响。