Foreign Phrases Flashcards
je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse
I have no need of that hypothesis. Laplace’s reply to Napoleon after accounting for the stability of the solar system
Causa Sui
Causa sui (Latin pronunciation: [kawsa sʊi], meaning “cause of itself” in Latin) denotes something which is generated within itself. This concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Becker, where it relates to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves. In Freud and Becker’s case, the concept was often used as an immortality vessel, where something could create meaning or continue to create meaning beyond its own life.
In traditional Western theism, even though God cannot be created by any other force or being, he cannot be defined self-caused (causa sui) or uncaused, because this concept implies the Spinozian pantheistic idea of becoming, which contrasts with the belief of scholastic theology that God is incapable of changing.
