Causation, Language, and the Kabbalah

Abstract

In an extremely interesting and insightful article Lois Frankel points out that it is difficult for the modern reader to comprehend Leibniz’s concept of causation because we use different models which ultimately derive from Hume. We reject metaphysical, non-mechanical causal connections and tend to define causal relations in non-causal terms. As Frankel says, “the contem­porary theorists seek formulas to determine when causation obtains, not an understanding of what causation is.”³⁷⁰ Where we tend to think of causation in terms of a relation between events, philosophers in earlier centuries viewed causation in the much broader terms of the qualities, essences, and powers of substances acting upon each other on different levels of ontological reality. Thus, for Leibniz, God acts in one way, monads in another, and physical bod­ies in still another way. Yet, as Frankel points out, all these different forms of interaction are analogous, a point we will come back to.