Causality: Contemporary Approaches

From the dawn of philosophy, with pre-Socratic thinkers, to the present day, the concept of causality continues to captivate and divide philosophers in all areas. On the one hand, as it is a fundamental concept for understanding the World and its dynamism, the notion of causality remains attractive. On the other hand, it is a source of discord, since it can be understood and thought of in different ways, which leads to contradictory visions about reality. In face of these two stances, the contemporary philosophical debate about the nature of causality is fragmented into a large number of positions, each of which implies a different worldview. In this context, this issue of Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia (RPF) intends to contribute to the philosophical reflection on the challenges posed by the different perspectives on causality and corresponding problematics. This fragmentation and variety of perspectives can be seen in three distinct facets: its basic conception, its ontological status, and the impact of science on causal understanding.

The first strand concerns the divergence that exists around the basic conception of causality. In the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition, causality was understood in terms of what we today call ontological dependence, that is, the idea that one thing is dependent on another, or that one entity depends metaphysically on another to be what and how it is. This dependence was read in two distinct ways: the extrinsic (final and efficient causes) and the intrinsic (material and formal causes).

Currently, in the wake of Galileo and David Hume, causality tends to be seen as a strict relationship of conjugation of events, where the event-cause is temporally prior to the event-effect. In this sense, D. Hume described causality as exemplifying an explicit set of mere regularities. More recently, this model was renewed by J. L. Mackie and D. Davidson, who no longer describe regularities as explicit instances (such as Hume), but rather as implicit relations between “compatible” properties.

In an opposite way, Armstrong, while agreeing with Mackie and Davidson that the nature of the causal relationship must be implicit, refuses to describe causality as an example of contingent regularities. Armstrong prefers to describe causality as “necessary” because of the permanent character of “repeatability” that causal relationships seem to exhibit under equal conditions. Because of this, the author suggests that causality should be understood as a manifestation of implicit laws existing in the relationship between objects and their properties.

More recently, D. Lewis proposed an alternative way to bridge the gap between Armstrong’s “necessary” vision and the neo-human “contingent” vision. Based on his ontology of the plurality of worlds, Lewis described causality in terms of counterfactual dependence. Thus, on the one hand, there is causal need when a cause-effect event necessarily occurs in all possible worlds and, on the other hand, there is causal contingency when a cause-effect event can occur in a possible world, but not in all possible worlds. 

The second aspect of the fragmentation of the concept causality concerns its ontological status. Some of the authors – the defenders of regularities – think that causality is a not primitive characteristic of the World, i.e., it is a category that should be understood in terms of other more fundamental properties. On the contrary, M. Tooley and G. E. Anscombe consider that causality is not only the “cement” of the Universe, but it is the very foundation of reality, in such a way that the most fundamental level of the real cannot be thought of without the recourse to primitive causality.

Others, like S. Mumford, prefer to categorize ontologically causality in terms of “causal powers,” with the dispositions of reality solving the old dichotomies introduced by the Humean regularities. The models of regularities describe the World as a set of autonomous entities, in which regularities would be the “cement” that would unite entities through external and contingent relations. In the opposite sense, the metaphysics of powers extends the domain of causality, and causal relations can be described as internal relations of Nature and necessary for the dynamism of the Cosmos. Therefore, while Hume’s followers conceptualized causal relations as asymmetric relations, ordered by temporal priority, the defenders of dispositionalism can support causal symmetry – typical of the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition – without needing temporal priority to order and categorize the internal relations of the World.

The third aspect of the fragmentation of causality concerns the impact that developments within science have brought to the understanding and description of causality. For example, Newtonian mechanics postulates an instantaneous action at a distance, while the theory of relativity rejects this postulate. In another sense, a certain Laplacian view suggests that the foundations of causality are materially deterministic, while certain interpretations of quantum mechanics seem to suggest that the fundamental processes of the physical world are indeterministic in their essence. Also, the contribution of mathematics in this field, namely through the study of probabilities and statistics, has brought new perspectives to the debate on causality. The advances in science have also brought to the center of the debate the classic problems of mereology. On the one hand, supporters of physicalism and naturalism argue that causality should be understood according to a reductionist model, that is, a model in which the causes acting on the “whole” are simply the sum of the effects of its “parts.” On the other hand, opponents of causal reductionism argue that the “whole” is greater than the sum of its “parts.” Among the opponents of reductionism are the defenders of emergentism, for whom new properties and causal relationships emerge at the higher levels, even though they do not interact with them at the lower levels. This idea is known as “top-down causality.”

In short, although there is a great fragmentation in the philosophical debate about the nature of causality, the interest about this concept and the will to create bridges remains a constant. 

It is within this complex context, that RPF offers this special volume with fifteen philosophical contributions that have been distributed among three sections. The first section, “Causality and Metaphysics,” opens with the article “Causal Predicates, Causal Principles, and the Core of Causation.” Uwe Meixner argues that is possible to give an answer to the question of whether it is possible to think causation with only three causal predicates and respective causal principles. This essay offers a sustained proposal to answer this question. The author defines and orders causal predicates according to their degrees of importance along with the respective causal principles, evaluating the different degrees of plausibility with each of them. The goal of Uwe Meixner’s discussion is to approach, step by step, to the core of causation, and with this to the possibility to think causation with the minimum necessary causal predicates.

In the essay “New Mechanism and Causality: The Case of Interactive Causal Pluralism,” Michał Oleksowicz focuses on the causal pluralism that emerged from the “New Mechanical Philosophy” (NMP), the dominant current in the philosophy of science. This position recovers the understanding of Nature as a mechanism, arguing that causal explanations, across the different scientific fields, should be described in mechanistic terms. The author characterizes four of the dominant approaches to causation present in the NMP, arguing that each approach offers an important viewpoint on causality, having, however, at the same time, serious internal difficulties that lead to problematic consequences to the idea of causation itself. At the end, Michał Oleksowicz addresses the issue of causal pluralism, arguing that even though the limitations of NMP to causality, that position deserves its own place in the debate, since it is able to defend the case of interactive pluralism.

In the article “On Backwards Causation,” Brian Garrett promotes the idea that all our experiences of causation are future-directed – or perhaps simultaneous. However, the author recognizes that many have defended – like Michael Dummett – that backwards causation is, at least, logically or metaphysically possible. On the other side, Max Black famously argued against this thought in what is known as the “Black argument against backwards causation.” Garrett argues that even though the Black argument fails, it still remains instructive. More specifically, Black show us how implausible would be the “World” of free agents if backwards causation was true, and within that framework it is implied that we can never have a good reason to bring about past events, in a supposed world with backwards causal chains.

In “The Causal Nature of Dispositions and Modality,” Jan Hauka explores the theories of modality – which invokes possible worlds – that have been recently challenged by the theories of dispositional properties. A prominent strand of this dispositional theories maintains that there is an intimate link between dispositions and possibilities, and that connection is said to be captured by the proposition: “a state of affairs is possible just in case there is some actual disposition whose manifestation is (or includes) the state.” Focusing on the defense of this approach, that was put forward by Barbara Vetter, the author critically examines the adequacy of the view of dispositional properties arguing in favor of the causal nature of dispositions.

In the, “Anselm, Existence, Causality, and the Metaphysics of Intentionality: Proslogion 2 Revisited,” Christopher Hughes argues that the Prologion 2 argument rests on Meinongian assumptions. Meinongianism is the view that even though an object does not exist, if it is possible to think it, then that object must have some sort of being. The author argues that although Meinongianism is more defensible than many metaphysicians hold, the contemporary strategies to object this position call into question the cogency of the Proslogion 2 argument. Christopher Hughes argues that the real problem is that, even if Meinongianism were true, the Proslogion 2 argument remains fragile and less than convincing. As such, the strategy to object Meinongianism by means of the attack on the Proslogion 2 argument remains a weak move.

Opening the section “Causality, Epistemology and Cognition,” John Shand addresses, in “Consciousness and Causality: Removing the Hardness and Solving the Problem,” the “hard” problem of consciousness, this is, the issue of explaining the properties of consciousness in terms of the properties of physical objects. The author defends that this problem is often seen mistakenly as a metaphysical problem, whereby the properties of physical things are of such a different nature of the mental that it is difficult to understand how the physical could ever explain consciousness. John Shand explores that this view of the physical is not however the true reason for the hardness of the problem, but the true motive is epistemologically in nature. The reason for this arises from the effort of trying to define “what is physical” as those features of the world that may be known objectively, coupled with the contention that only those objectively known properties are real. Therefore, this ends with the explanation of the subjective consciousness in terms of physical properties, which is not only “hard” but also impossible. The strategy of John Shand is to hold that the World is indeed all that is physical, but this physical can no longer be defined as what may be known only through objective means, holding that some physical properties may be only known subjectively. Therefore, this eliminates the hard problem of consciousness as it is no longer required that the explanation of the subjective properties of physical things be in terms of objective properties.

In “Dispositionalism at Work: A Causal Theory of Perception,” Christian Kanzian proposes a version of dispositionalism that takes powers as the basic elements of reality. In turn, this can be used as a causal theory of perception. On the basis of his argument, rests the idea that the explanatory competence of a dispositional theory of causality relies on the ability of the subject to distinct between the primary and secondary qualities through the “powers” or dispositions of the objects. This leads the epistemic perception of causality to be thought of as an account of the potentialities perceived by the subject as “privations.” Within this framework, Christian Kanzian proposes a cogent account of the causal relation in the cognitive perception.

In the article, “Causes, Contingency and Freedom: A Reply to Anscombe, Mumford and Anjum,” Michaël Bauwens replies to Anscombe, Mumford and Anjum concerning the exploration of the idea of causality involved in our understanding of free will. The author shows that Anscombe tried to disentangle causality from necessary determination in order to make room for free will. However, what the author stresses is that the Anscombe split is not crucial to free will. What is crucial is a shift from a diachronic to a synchronic conception of time. This synchronic conception of time is then argued to be superior to the dispositional modality of Mumford and Anjum’s, by providing the possibility of alternative outcomes by subjects and ultimately free agency. In the final section, Michaël Bauwens points out that his reply puts persons and their contingent decisions partly in the role of being an explanans for, rather than an explanandum of, any current contingent state of affairs.

In “The Nonidentity Problem is an Artifact of Faulty Causal Reasoning,” Peter Gildenhuys argues that the nonidentity problem is a case of faulty causal reasoning. To solve the problem he leverages the work of Woodward and Holton. First, he undertakes the Woodward’s stance on actual agency causation. Second, he adopts Richard Holton stance that if side-effect actions are to be considered intentional then, those actions are also to be considered a causal function of the agent if, and only if, those side-effect actions violates a group of social norms. The result of the conjunction of Woodward and Holton provides a theory of harm that delivers intuitively correct responses to the seminal puzzles of the nonidentity problem, which, at the end, are a case of faulty causal reasoning.

In “Kant e a Causalidade: uma Leitura Baseada na Representação do Tempo,” Gehad Bark addresses the causality principle in the contemporary Kantian philosophy through the argument presented in the Second Analogy of Experience. The main goal of the author is to justify the unrestricted character of the principle of causality, that is, its unrestricted application to all objects of experience, through an argument based on the intuitive and a priori character of the representation of time. The discussion is introduced by a critical analysis of Henry Allison’s position, arguing that Allison’s slip into a phenomenalism that seems to reduce the argument of the “Second Analogy” to an argument concerning our perception of the objects. Finally, Gehad Bark tries to show that, through the intuitive and a priori character of the representation of time, the principle of causality can be applied to all objects of the experience.

In the final section, “Causality and the Natural Sciences,” Olavo Leopoldino, Ademir Santana, and Samuel Simon, addresse in their article “Causation, Symmetry and Quantum Physics: Space-like Causality and Conserved Quantities,” the problem of causation in physics. In order to discuss this problem, the authors resort to three basic elements as methodological concepts: first, the notion of mass-point and the notion of a field (as for example a quantum field) describing a physical system; second, the notion of state of a mass-point; third, the notion of causality among states, which are defined by symmetries. These three elements are discussed by the authors using the definition of measurement, associated with the notion of symmetry. This, in turn, gives rise to a generalization of the concept of causality. At the end, the authors examine the concept of conserved quantities, since some causality theories in physics are generalized due to the notion of symmetry.

In “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle: a Thematic case of Teleology and Causality in Contemporary Science,” João Barbosa analyses the principal versions of the anthropic cosmological principle that reintroduces teleology in cosmology, articulating those with the two forms of mechanical causality, namely, probabilism and determinism. According to Gerald Holton, it can be said that teleology is the opposing thema (the “antithema”) of mechanical causality. Therefore, the return of teleology easily created attrition in contemporary science, because mechanical causality is the dominant view. Nevertheless, the author argues that, on the contrary of what happened in the past nowadays teleology, it is usually not condemned to be a marginal presence in the scientific thought, since it was inside science, namely cosmology, that opened the door to teleology. 

In “Causalidad y regulación: algunas dificultades de los ensayos controlados aleatorizados,” Juan Bautista Bengoetxea examines the importance of causality in the biological sciences and especially in nutrition. The author discusses the counterfactual method, understood as a broad approach, to conceive causation in light of the Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) as it is used in the natural sciences in order to explain the causal nexus. Then, he examines the main ideas underlying RCTs and the role they play in regulation. Juan Bautista Bengoetxea proceeds to analyze the causal statements that are provided by RCTs and whose nature is not exempt from criticism in many scientific areas, such as biology, medicine, and the nutritional sciences. The author concludes that a plural methodological perspective is needed to improve the causal accounts in nutrition as in all biological sciences where RCT is used. 

Luís Ramos shows, in “Sobre a Questão dos Limites da Aplicação da Causalidade em Ciência: a Posição de Delfim Santos,” how Delfim Santos positioned himself in relation to what is designated as the question of the limits of the application of causality in science. In the first part of his text, the author shows how Delfim Santos exposes the universalist position and the rejectionist position. In the second part, the author examines how Delfim Santos criticized both of these positions. In the last part, Luís Ramos presents the synthesis made by Delfim Santos and how he positioned between this two opposing views.

Closing this section as the last of the thematic articles, the text “Gene Centrism, Causal Specificity and Missing Heritability,” by Gökhan Akbay, addresses Gene centrism, the idea that genes have a privileged causal role in the ontogeny of phenotypes. According to this viewpoint, genes are special causal agents because they carry the information to build the organism. However, as the author stresses, gene centrism implies the so-called “missing heritability problem,” according to which it is very hard to find a specific causal relation between a genome and its respective phenotype. Gökhan Akbay argues that causal concepts currently employed in philosophy of biology entail gene centrism assumptions, which are inadequate for answering the substantive problem of genotype-phenotype relations.

Finally, the section Varia of the present issue includes three articles. In the first contribution, “Access to Being: Elitism in M. Heidegger’s Philosophy,” Mateo Belgrano examines the elitist character of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy. He asserts that throughout his thought, the German philosopher has argued for the existence of a privileged access to truth, since only “some” will be able to glimpse the Ereignis. Mateo Belgrano analyzes in detail three special figures of Heidegger’s conceptual itinerary that corroborate his argument: first, those who suffer anxiety in Being and Time; second, the figure of the poets; and lastly, the role of thinkers in the late Heidegger. At the end, the author draws attention to the implications of the German philosopher thought on the idea of the access to Being.

In the second article, intitled “On the (possible) Moral Meaning of the Beautiful in Kant,” Rômulo Eisinger Guimarães reviews the Kantian connection between the “understanding,” concerning the sensible, and “reason,” concerning the domain of the intelligible. The author stresses that this connection is not as easy as it may seem, since each of these faculties has its own grounds, and as such, it is not legitimate to establish a direct link between the sensible and the intelligible. Thus, even when Kant claims “beauty as a symbol of morality”, one cannot directly link the domain of ethics with the domain of aesthetics, not even in the transcendental level, which is only possible by an analogy between forms. The author argues that it is only through analogy that we can hope to find moral significance in the statement “the beautiful forms of nature,” but this difficulty does nothing to reduce the importance of the significance for the Kantian system, especially with regard to the fulfilment of the dispositions of a rational being in the sensible world.

In the last article, “Rumo à Escola Cultural Pluridimensional segundo Manuel Ferreira Patrício,” Hélder António Mendonça Silva and Jacinto Jardim assess the philosophy of education of Manuel Ferreira Patrício, who proposed a “Cultural School” for the integral development of students and persons. Patrício’s proposal is based on the idea that education should be compromised of multi dimensions. Throughout the paper, the authors at the same time they describe the aspects of the “Cultural School,” they highlight the contributions and influences of Manuel Antunes, SJ, Delfim Santos, and Leonardo Coimbra to the philosophy of education of Manuel Ferreira Patrício.

With the aim of stimulating the debate on causality and thus advancing our understanding of the World and its dynamism, our aspiration is that the essays now offered to the public may shine as a glimpse into that shadow where Heraclitus said that “Nature loves to hide.”