Cause

One generally understands by causes of a fact what produces it or at least takes part in its production. To give the causes of a fact amounts making it understandable while answering the question: " why this fact take place does? ". The data of the causes can thus be conceived like the explanation of the fact par excellence.

That what is a " cause" ?

Difference between implication and causality

In Logical, when " Has implies B" , it is said that " Is a condition sufficient has for B". But B could be true without has is it. Has is thus not a requirement for B.

On the other hand, when " Has implies B" , B is a requirement for A. In other words if B is not true, then has either.

In the implication there is strictly no causal relation.

The " cause" in physical sciences

One can put the question of the cause of a physical fact Expérimental, which one can say clearly if it took place or not. With is the question “why such fact observed? ” the answer is always a whole of initial conditions of the studied system and of physical Lois. Are these conditions necessary? It is difficult to know it because the fact could cetainement be produced differently. Are they sufficient? Yes, but taken together: is all the experimental device enough to produce the result, which excludes to be able to answer the question “why? ” in a simple way. The scientific explanation is thus reduced to the data of an experimental device which is enough to produce the remarks, without this device being necessary.

To refine the comprehension of the phenomenon, the physicist thus will strip his device to reduce it to the minimum necessary to produce the fact, it is in this minimum which he will find what he will call phenomena the causes. One returns from there to the requirement of sufficient and necessary which satisfies the request for explanation, as in mathematics.

The " cause" with the daily newspaper

It should be stressed that the facts of which it is question in our daily newspaper are not often as simple as an experiment in physics. The simple assertion " the fact had lieu" can raise insurmountable difficulties. One can say: " it makes beau" for a a whole range of weather conditions which depend on the place, of the season and of the mood of that which produces the judgment.

But as in physics, the explanatory unit to which we have resort as “a cause” is an agglomerate of conditions which are not necessary, but which is sufficient (since the fact occurred). But this agglomerate can be completely unsatisfactory for the spirit (one suspected well that the state of the world had produced the fact) if it is not sufficiently small. We are constrained to select in this unit a “main cause”, a “explanation” which will be sufficiently particular to satisfy our curiosity. Often, this " cause" will be neither necessary, nor sufficient. However it will seem to us a satisfactory explanation.

It is seen, the data of the causes of a fact to the daily newspaper almost always amounts isolating in incredible complexity from the world a notable former fact which seems to be sufficient to produce the fact to explain, the rest of the world functioning " as usual ". Then occurs lived of comprehension.

The " cause" in philosophy and epistemology

Small tale

The philosopher and the gardener

A gardener passes in front of a philosopher by drawing his wheelbarrow. The philosopher, indicator to ravel in front of him initially the gardener then the wheel of the wheelbarrow turning on the ground, is confirmed in the idea that the cause always precedes the effect. One moment after, the gardener returns while pushing his wheelbarrow and the philosopher sees with his great surprise initially the wheel then the gardener, the effect preceding the cause thus. Then the philosopher enters a deep meditation, wonders whether God draws or pushes the wheelbarrow of the evolution, then it ends up falling asleep.

The four aristotelicians causes

See also: Four causes

For Aristote, causes and effects are simultaneous. He distinguishes Four causes for any phenomenon, which act together.

For example, for a house:

  • material Cause : wood and stones or bricks;

  • formal Cause : the specific measure of these materials, the plan;
  • efficient Cause (driving): the architect and the workmen who built it;
  • final Cause : the function which this house is intended to fill.

In the ethical in Nicomaque and in Physics, Aristote stresses the final Cause, and shows how all the others are brought back there: the finality is to reach its own gasoline (its form) and the efficient causes serve this intention. Only the material cause cannot be reduced to the finality. One often reproaches Aristote for having confused the " cause" with the physical direction (that does not recover that partially the concept of efficient cause) with the " raison" , with the ethical direction and Metaphysical, which corresponds to the final cause.

The modern ones will explain the stagnation of physical sciences to the Moyen-âge by the constraint of philosophy aristotelician adopted by theology Scolastique.

The handing-over in question of the concept of causes physical will coincide with the constitution of physical sciences as a science independent of the Métaphysique, and with the Révolution copernician.

The mechanism

The mechanism at the 17th century aims at reducing all the physical phenomena to shocks between particles having very simple mechanical properties such as perfect elasticity, sphericity,… Thus the temperature of a system corresponds to the mean velocity of the particles which compose it, the pressure with the shock of these particles against the border of the system,… the mechanist explanation thus does not leave any mystery on the cause-effect relations: they are shocks whose laws are perfectly known and express the conservation of the momentum. Having raised the hope to include/understand the nature of the causal nexus, it constitutes a model indépassable satisfactory scientific explanation for the spirit. Unfortunately, the mechanism will never come to end from the phenomena of gravitation, contrary to the Newtonian theory which admits the idea (a little mysterious) of remote action.

The " cause" Empiriste: analysis of Hume

When an event causes some another, one very often thinks of knowing what it of it is connection between the two terms of causality, supposed connection to make follow the first term of the second. However, notices Hume, we anything else perceive in a series of events only the events which constitute it; in other words, our Connaissance of a connection necessary is not empirical. But from where, except Perception, let us can be held this knowledge? Hume denies that we can have a Idée differently causality than by the fact that two events always followed one another: we then form a kind of anticipation, which represents us that the second term must occur, when the first occurs. This constant conjunction of two events and waiting or anticipation which results from it for us is all that we can know of causality, i.e our ideas cannot penetrate front any more in the Nature of the relation of the cause for purpose.

The difficulty presented by Hume is such as “humiens” as Bertrand Russell entirely rejected the idea of causality, this idea concerned with a kind of superstition popular. But, at all events, the problem remains of knowing what justifies our Croyance in the causal nexus and of what this connection consists. For Hume, this belief is a kind of Instinct, founded on the development of our Habitude S and our nervous system. This belief is thus inéliminable, but can be proven by no kind of argument (deductive or inductive).

The " cause" like pure concept of the understanding at Kant

Kant is not satisfied by the design of Hume: for him the idea of causality cannot come from the experiment and practice. It belongs to the Concept S.A. priori which are themselves the base of the Expérience.

The scientific Determinism

The cause in Philosophy of sciences: even if, it were seen, the Causalité in physics is to be handled with precaution, it holds an important place in philosophy of physics. Because if one can read whole books of physical theories without it being never mentioned there “cause”, the epistemology on the contrary “is obsessed” by causality. The fundamental idea of any true science is that the facts do not arrive by chance, that their production is the consequence of facts which preceded it. Science refuses to believe that the facts occur without causes, spontaneously. Pushed to the extreme, this position is expressed in the Déterminisme: being given a state of the world to a given moment, then its state in one later moment is then entirely given (without it being inevitably possible to know it, which would require means exceeding the human capacities, and which would be even perhaps theoretically impossible). “Given” means that no other state would be possible being given the former state.

Cause and reason in philosophy

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