Cause: A critical and historical examination of some uses of the term

Abstract

The following thesis discusses some uses of the term 'cause' with a view to elucidating some 'causal' problems and conflicting assertions about 'causes' found among philosophers. Some common sense uses are first examined (as those met earliest by any philosopher), and then the term's treatment by a representative selection of philosophers, the positions of Aristotle, Hume, and Kant are discussed in some detail, those of the others more briefly. Many philosophers have believed themselves referring to a non-verbal relation in using the term cause; some supposing this relation necessary. These opinions stand condemned if words cannot express information about anything but symbols; and the view of 'causation' as a relation both non-verbal and necessary is false if necessity is properly predicable of verbal connections alone. The main discussion is therefore prefaced by a brief examination of these general questions; this concludes that words can refer to something other than symbols and that there are some non-verbal entailments so that the claims made for the term 'cause' by plain men and philosophers may be considered on their own merits. Two main contentions about 'causes' are found claiming attention: (a) everything is caused in the sense of being somehow explicable (a view shared by plain men, Aristotelians, and other rationalists); (b) every event is 'caused' in the sense of being preceded by another which it follows necessarily (the subject of most post-Humean discussions of 'causation').