Abstract
Philosophical theories, obviously, are always answers to questions that are raised within certain historical contexts, which involve the common presuppositions of an era. A thorough insight into a particular philosophical problem therefore requires a historical perspective. In order to better understand the contemporary approaches to causation, and the problems they raise, some important historical moments in the evolution of the concept of causation will be briefly considered in this chapter.
Those who make causality one of the original uralt elements in the universe or one of the fundamental catego ries of thought, - of whom you will find that I am not one, - have one very awkward fact to explain away. It is that men's conceptions of a cause are in different stages of scientific culture entirely different and inconsistent. The great principle of causation which, we are told, it is absolutely impossible not to believe, has been one proposition at one period in history and an entirely disparate one [at] another is still a third one for the modem physicist. The only thing about it which has stood [...] is the name of it. (C.S. Peirce, RLT, 197, 1898)
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Notes
Aristotle’s critique concerns Plato’s Phaedo 95e-107b. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 9, 991 b3-9, and De Generatione et Corruptione 335b7-16, 18-24.
"e;We think we know a particular (thing) unqualifiedly [...] whenever we think we know the cause (aitia) through which the thing (pragma) is, because that is its cause, and that it does not happen that it is otherwise."e; Posterior Analytics, I 2, 71b9-12; Loeb edition, H. Tredennich and E.S. Forster.
Aristotle gave quite different examples of material causes, such as: the letters of syllables, the premises of a conclusion, and the parts of a whole (Physics II.3, 195al5-18). These make clear that Aristotle had an altogether different conception of matter than our modern notion of matter.
See for example, Physics II.9; Analytica Posterior II.11, 95a3-5. For a thorough discussion, see Sorabji, 1980, 51-56.
Cicero, for example, reproduced Carneades argument as follows: "e;If everything takes place with antecedent causes, all events take place in a closely knit web of natural interconnection; if this is so, all things are caused by necessity; if this is true, nothing is in our power. But something is in our power. Yet if all events take place by fate, there are antecedent causes of all events. Therefore it is not the case that whatever events take place take place by fate"e; (Cicero, De Fato, 31).
De Fato 22, 192 22.
See Dunphy, 1966, and Lauer, 1974.
In fact, there are three levels of causation: (i) the First cause or God, (ii) a cosmic universal causality assigned to the sun or to the first heaven (the sphere of fixed stars), and (iii) the activities of particular causes. In order to explain the order of the world, that is to say, the harmony of particular causes, Aquinas referred to a general causal influence on the cosmic process. This universal causality (which produces the specific essences of things) in direct subordination to God, directs the activities of the particular causes (see: Elders 1974, 101-2).
Other important characteristics of the efficient cause are: (a) secondary efficient causes either precede their effects or are simultaneous with them (SCG II 38.9); (b) the secondary causes are modeled after the primary cause inasmuch as "e;the agent is distinct from the patient and superior to it"e; (SCG II 45.4); (c) there is a proportional correspondence of effects to their causes: "e;we attribute actual effects to actual causes, potential effects to potential causes, and, similarly, particular effects to particular causes and universal effects to universal causes, as Aristotle teaches in Physics II"e; (SCG II 21.4).
It must be noted that, according to Descartes, human beings are in some sense the efficient causes of their actions. Descartes tried to reconcile his idea that "e;it is certain that all things are pre-ordained by God"e; (Princ. I: 40) with the "e;self-evident"e; idea of freedom of the will (Princ. I: 39). Descartes' solution was that the mind could not change the quantity of motion but that it could change the direction of motion.
This entails that there cannot be an unmoved mover. However, Hobbes does not discuss whether God himself was caused.
Also IV, iii, 12, 14, 16.
In his Enquiry Hume gives parallel definitions. Here, however, he held that causation only involved priority and necessary connection; there is no reference to contiguity, which according to the Treatise was the third constituent. According to his parallel regularity definition, a cause is "e;an object, followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second."e; On the view of necessity as a connection in the mind, a cause is "e;an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other"e; (Hume [1748] 1975, 76-77).
Eventually, despite his alleged empiricism, Mill appears to be some kind of a Laplacean determinist, according to whom the whole future course of nature is completely determined by antecedent causes: "e;The state of the whole universe at any instant we believe to be the consequence of its state at the previous moment; insomuch that one who knew all the agents which exist at the present moment, their collocation in space, and all their properties, in other words, the laws of their agency, could predict the whole subsequent history of the universe..."e; (Mill 1874, 250). It is obvious that such a conclusion about the future course of the universe cannot be based on empirical data alone.
See note 5.
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Hulswit, M. (2002). Some Key Moments in the History of the Concept of Causation. In: From Cause to Causation. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0297-4_1
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