Účelové příčiny a kauzální působení z budoucnosti

My aim is to assess an argument against final causation being an irreducible metaphysical category. The argument in question is based upon the supposition that for anything to count as a cause, it must exist at the very moment of executing its causal action, which requirement can supposedly never be met by anything rightly pretending to be called a final cause. I argue that this argument is far from conclusive as there seem to be ways of blocking it - namely through adopting either a version of the eternalist ontology of temporal dimensions, or else a version of the possibilist ontology, each combined with either a version of the "Humean" approach to analysis of causal relations, or else with a version of the realist approach to causation.