On Causation

Hume rejects causation on essentially empirical grounds. We cannot perceive a mechanism for causation, and so we cannot know that it exists. I agree that causation does not exist, but I disagree that radical skepticism can be inferred from this view.

Firstly, the word causation is an abstraction from “cause and effect”, which may be understood as two events. By definition, of course, any cause implies an effect, so there is no grammatical or logical objection to the word “causation”. In fact, causation is a logical term – it belongs to the realm of logic – and therefore has as its subject matter language itself, and not the events witnessed.

Every word has a definition. Only nouns name something that actually exists. When we say “I am walking”, we don’t mean that we are walking itself, nor do we mean that walking has size or shape. Despite twentieth-century attempts to proclaim “isness” as something, it is not anything. So let’s take the noun “billiard ball” as an example. Don’t know why – it just popped into my head. In any event, what I have to say here will apply only to nouns, if for no other reason than simplicity.

Every definition “delimits” that which is defined – this much is evident in the etymology of the word “definition”. In common parlance, we delimit the meaning of any word only enough to make that word useful. The philosopher, like the scientist, must often go a bit further, and hone meanings, and therefore definitions, a bit further. We can accomplish this by describing various additional properties of an object – properties that we don’t ordinarily include in a definition. To say that a cat is a quadruped is to give part of the definition, but not enough even for most common usage. But whatever we need to add to this definition to make it useful in ordinary speech, we can add. We can add more properties – and by properties I mean just this – additional description – beyond what we need in a dictionary entry.

For instance, we would not ordinarily see the boiling point of water listed in a dictionary – because most usage of this word would not require that we know the boiling point of water. But the scientist might need to know this, and anyone might, for certain purposes. So, the boiling point of water is an additional (to the dictionary entry, to what we usually would call the definition) property of water – a description beyond what we normally take for a mere definition. This is not to say that the dictionary entry doesn’t include properties – it will usually not include all of them that we know.

So, what causes water to boil? What causes a billiard ball to move when struck by another ball? Well, a billiard ball is spherical, made of plastic and colored one of several standard ways. While there are a couple of different sizes these balls are found in, there is a standard size. A billiard ball six feet across would surely be called a “giant” billiard ball. No matter how persnickety we may wish to be, we can, with some effort, agree on what a billiard ball is. Oh – and a further property of billiard balls is that they move when struck by another ball (with force sufficient to overcome the friction of the felt), or by a cue stick, or by a shoe. In other words, the “cause and effect” relationship between billiard balls is part of the (extended) definition of “billiard ball”, just as the boiling point (or points, as this is affected by altitude or atmospheric pressure) of water is part of the (extended) definition of water.

Object A does this when that happens. Or, A = (definition), but sometimes A = (definition plus description, or additional properties – depending on the need at hand). I am only trying here to acknowledge that dictionary definitions don’t always tell the whole story.

A billiard ball is a billiard ball if and only if it will move when struck by another object, or the table is tilted, or…………fill in the cause of your choice.

But this cause is only another description, or extended definition of the object that strikes the ball we are observing as an effect. The only complication is this – the “cause” is something that is changing if only position. We will need a description of a particular ball (for instance) at a particular time – we are looking for a property of that particular ball at that time – that it is in motion. And the “effect” is not the second ball in any state we may find it, but the ball in motion.

This is, of course, exactly the phenomenon that Hume was observing. There is, indeed, no mechanism for causation – except language itself. Our description itself is the mechanism – and this is language, which does not exist in space/time. Causation is a brain function because language is.

Radical skepticism looks for substance where it does not exist, and then proclaims that it does not exist. But billiard balls do exist.

Causation requires definitions not just of objects, but of objects changing somehow. “Causes” are objects as they change (position, for instance) and so are “effects”. This may be a chemical change, of course, as is the case with water. But Hume treated billiard balls as static objects, and so thought that an additional something, causation, was required to explain their motion. Or so he said. It just isn’t. All that is required is to note that any causation is a description of a particular – an object as it changes (again, if only position).

I may be said that I am merely describing “virtues”. But I do not mean to say that these properties “belong” to the objects so defined, but that they are part of our description of those objects. They belong to language. Causation is an analytical term, because it is an abstraction from language itself – from a previous abstraction. “Ball” is an abstraction from an observed phenomenon – part of a Russellian “object language”. Causation is a second-order abstraction, none of which exist.

I’m not sure I am understanding you correctly…Are you saying that causation, or our use of it, is a result of the relations of sentences, and the assumptions that are behind them. Or are you saying that our mind is constituted such that we see through a lens of causation, a la Kant. If the former plays are role, what do you mean by “analytic”. Certainly you don’t mean it’s analytic in the way 2+2=4 is, but in the way “all bachelors are unmarried men” is. In which case do you have a response to Quine dissolving the distinction of Analytic and Synthetic, or do you just ignore it for the purposes of this post?

Additionally, in your usage of the cluster of definite descriptions, do you intend that causation is so integral to our definition that if it is not present, then we have failed to pick out the object we wished to pick out? If so, what is the relation of our descriptions to the object, if we allow “made up” properties to decide weather or description is viable or not?

Sorry if you dislike my methodology in addressing your post, there’s alot to take in, and I feel i need clarifications before I can give you a serious response.

causation is metaphysics… never observed…

-Imp

One problem I have with the “causation is not observed” thing is that I don’t see how observation can be described in a non-causative way. Aren’t we assuming causation when we talk about observing things?

event a
event b

each is observed
each is seperate

did event a cause event b?
that was never witnessed.

-Imp

I agree that it doesn’t mean we are walking, but my view is this is because when we say “I am walking”, it assumes an “I” when, in fact, there is only “walking” (the scare quotes denoting pointing through language). So the question is what and where is there an identifiable ‘cause’.

This idea can be reduced to the morphemes of words, which are the simplest form of it: walk and walked

We may agree on some common notion, but that agreement is not the same thing as what or how it ‘is’.

I think the ‘cause of your choice’ is correct in a sense, but easily misconstrued. That an object moves when struck by another object doesn’t make it a billiard ball. That it moves when the table is tilted isn’t what makes it a billiard ball. That it moves at all is not what makes it a billiard ball. It’s also a billiard ball because it’s placed on the billiard table, because there are people utilizing it who follow the rules of billiards, because they hit it with a billiard stick, because it was manufactured by a company that makes billiard balls, etc. I’d suggest that there is nothing you can find that you can state to be: that which makes it a billiard ball. This is because it has no fixed nature of its own; it’s completely contengent in nature. The problem with finding that a strict necessity of one event follows from another event is that it implies that the effect of a cause was already inherent in the nature of the cause. Change is only an apparent transformation that is already potential in the actors interrelating. But if the effects already exist in the cause, then it would be nonsensical to speak of effects in the first place, because in their interaction with other phenomena, the pre-existent causes would not produce anything new, they would merely be manifesting the potential powers already exhibited.

Or the assumption may imply that any effect by definition must be a change in the condition of the receiver of the causal power and, as such, causal potential only becomes actual where it can effect a real change in something else. But if the effect does not pre-exist in the cause, but is instead a novel change in the world, then the category of substance breaks down. If the billiard ball and the force that moves it are entities which possess fixed natures or essences, then what sort of relation could they bear to other objects which have entirely different fixed natures? Yet we know they do.

Both of the above implications reflect substantialist ideas of fixed nature and essence, and that causal efficacy could only be accounted for through the fundamental nature of an object. Yet no object has thing-in-itself-ness, or no inherent self essence. If we maintain the philosophical assumption that things in the world derive from some unique material and essential basis, then we’ll come away empty-handed in a search to explain how things could possibly relate to one another, and so have no way of describing how changes happen. Yet we know that changes do happen constantly, so they happen somehow. Since we can prove they don’t happen because phenomena relate through fixed essences, then they must arise because phenomena lack fixed essences, they’re malleable and susceptible to alteration, addition and destruction. Their alterability then means that their physical and empirical forms are built not upon inherent essence but upon the fact that nothing ever defines and characterizes them eternally and unconditionally. It isn’t that things are in themselves nothing, nor that things possess a positive absence of essence. Change is possible because a fundamental indeterminancy permeates all forms. You burn your arm because conditions can arise where temperatures become hot enough to scorch flesh. Beings relate to one another not because of their heterogeneous forms, but because their interaction makes them susceptible to ongoing transformation.

If I understand right, (and most like don’t) ‘causation’ is the result of something acting on something else. It has no meaning till interaction exists between two things or concepts. It applies to most if not all things.

The fact that it is not seen by the observer, may be because the observer is not equipped well enough to understand? I think hume’s whole argument is based on ignorance i.e. our minds are too small.

Hume assumes that the human mind is capable of grasping truth in the first place when he doesn’t even know how it functions, I find that quite hilarious.

I think it’s based on the flawed idea that things are seperate and not united, what if all “objects” in the universe are connected to all other objects all the time in a strange way but we just don’t realize it? i.e. imagine an imaginary network of lines connected to every other thing in the universe from each “distinct object” that exists.

The arrow of time would be pretty good evidence that everything is connected, even if there may be problems with it.

your suggestion that hume claims anything like that only shows that you haven’t read him…

-Imp

Only if you reject the progressive nature of time, which Hume did.

As for RS being the default, I think that is a rather tall order and is speculation at this point – most unskeptical.

nothing tall about it… starting from nothing and taking what is observed as opposed to beginning with everything (forms) and coloring within the lines…

very few artists indeed…

-Imp

I would argue you are embracing the fallacy of misplaced concreteness and applying that to absolutely everything in time.

Also, given how much of humanity comes hardwired, I think that tabula rasa is a fairly naive position to take.

tabula rasa is not naive in the least… the animal human may have certain hard wired animal qualities as any animal does, I grant you that… the human part of the animal, that which seperates ones “humanness” from ones animal nature, begins with a blank slate…

-Imp

But that is just it, every moment in that dustbowl is concrete. That is where the fallacy lies in this case.

And I agree with what you’ve said in principle, but I think the baggage from the animal part is great enough that calling it “starting with nothing” is a grave error.

some are conditioned to be better slaves than others, but that’s only because some animals are easier to break than others…

-Imp

  1. Ahhh, but I’m not concerned with where the moment was – that is where the mistake lies. I am concerned with where it was going and where it is.

  2. I fail to see how one could interpret that as anything other than an insult. Since I know you are rather sensitive on that particular issue, would you care to enlighten me as to how that is not a slight? I must be misunderstanding you.

yes you mistake the motive; you are personally attributing a comment I made about humans in general…

-Imp

Oh crap. Too may responses. I’ll have to take them as they come. May take a while.

Nihilistic - I am saying that something like Russell’s object-language describes the world, and that everything else describes language. So, yes, I am saying that causation is the result of the relations of words, or of propositions.

Yes - your second example in that we don’t suppose that 2 + 2 will yield any empirical information by itself. I do say that there is a distinction between the analytic and the synthetic - we take the object language to be a reflection of things that actually exist - just as single men exist.

I am saying that if the second ball didn’t move, we would originally be at a loss for words - but we would still, in the end, call it a billiard ball. We plant seeds in a garden, water and fertilise them. Sometimes they come up, and sometimes they don’t - this would simply become part of the definition of billiard ball. In fact, we can tap a billiard ball ever-so-lightly, and the friction of the felt will prevent any discernable movement. This doesn’t astound us at all.

There are many thing we know that we define partly due to their “behavior”. The “behavior” is built into the definition.

Made-up properties aren’t significant. Color is made up - we call a bluebird a bluebird - but if we were “colorblind” we woulod bot. Presumably, the bird has not changed.

I understand that this is a bit of an unusual thesis. I am posting to get some criticism. I will thank you all in advance. I would be most grateful if everyone just pounded the shit out of this.

Imp - I didn’t actually mean to say that Hume inferred radical skepticism, but that many other have inferred it from Hume’s thesis. Obviously, Hume’s basic ideas were set before he argued for them.

My main point is that there is a flaw in Hume’s basic description. He describes objects even more “essentially” - as static objects. He could not, by this method, describe a plume of smoke or a cloud - yet he could observe them, theoretically, to determine causation, of to show that it does not exist. He seeks a causative mechanism - he is correct to say that it can’t be observed - he is incorrect to look for it in the first place - except that, in his time, that was the prevailing view. I am not atrributing the essence of possible movement, but of actual movement - but it is, indeed, not an essence - it is as unavoidable a description as any that Hume ascribes - his is merely incomplete. of course, all descriptions are incomplete - but his leaves out change itself, in the end.

Again, that is because he sets out to disprove a mechanistic worldview - there were a lot of watches out there when he was writing - and a lot of people asumeing that there must be a watchmaker. Gears and cogs move - but they don’t change, themselves. I may have to rewrite my thesis using water as an example. We use three words, at very least, to describe one thing - ice, water and steam. You may look for a causative mechanism for those two changes of state - or you may simply decide that state isn;t important - and voila! not casue is required. Of course state is important - to us.

This isn’t actually Kantian. Kant couldn’t distinguish between knowledge itself and our ability to acquire it. And empty seine net is not a load of fish. But it will catch fish only big enough that they don’t slip through the weave.

And again - it is a mistake to believe in causation per se - everything must be a particular within this thesis - despite that most words are generalisations. I’ll have to clarify this. Thank you.

Again - the properties belong to statements about the object-language. Causation cannot be depicted without recourse to purely logical words, which never impart attributes to the objects of object-language. Even Hume woulf admit this - he would just disagree that it matters.

Not potential actions - those are the result of just the kind of abstractions that Hume combatted - and successfully. I am not positing that causation, even as I have depicted it, is a reliable predictor of the future, in just the way that “acorn” is not a relaibale predictor of Oak tree".

Thank you also for your critique. I must clarify a lot of what i have said here.