Brand The Nature of Causation
9/03/07: Brand, Myles, ed. The Nature of Causation (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1976).
The main reason for the quest to clarify causation concerns its implications for other philosophical issues. Indeed, clarity regarding causation is utterly vital for clarity in the areas of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, as well as the philosophy of logic, to name a few (1). For example, an inquiry into causation within the realm of the philosophy of science has manifold repercussions, of which the lawfulness of nature, as well as the nature of time are but two.
Brand argues for a reductive (i.e. systemic or realist) theory of causation (6). MIn eading through Brand, I am gaining more affinity toward the Skeptical Realist interpretation of Hume, which I have earlier referred to as incoherent. Moreover, Brand argues that Hume viewed as possible to have extra-systemic (non-reductive, i.e.) causation, and he offers a convincing case for thinking that Hume thought such. Brand argues, however, that no fully fleshed-out account of extra-systemic causation is available, and that when one belies a pure systemic causal network, causal talk itself in abandoned and left unintelligible (6). I am struggling to make sense of his view re: the nonsense that results from allowing there to be extra-systemic causation.
Hume posits, in essence, in his TREAT, the following three proposals re: causation: For every event e and every event f, e caused f, if and only if:
1). e occurred before the occurrence of f.
2). e occurred in the immediate geographic area of f; and
3). Every time a similar event to e occurred, f likewise occurred after it.
Brand takes issue with Hume regarding posit #1, as do I, as well (6). It is indeed possible that looking at the world through a panentheistically informed pneumatological position, that the cause and the effect could be coterminous with one another, and not sequentially follow or precede the other. Look at the example of a seesaw; King goes down while Kate goes up. If the seesaw is inelastic, there is a bonafide case of simultaneous causation, as neither instance (King or Kate) caused the other (i.e. either going up or going down). In such a case of simultaneous causation, neither the cause nor the effect can be distinguished from one another. Most causal imputations, in everyday affairs, do not contain reference to each and every sufficient condition for the occurrence of the effect. Rather, more commonly elucidated is the one causal event that completes the necessary set of sufficient conditions.
Additionally, as Brand notes, the well documented case given by Thomas Reid (18th century) is a problem for Humean causation. Reid propounded that Hume’s definition of causation did not allow for the differentiation of genuine causation from accidental correlation. For example, Reid noted that just because the day always followed the night, that does not mean that the night caused the day. Thus, Hume’s notion of cause and effect fits entirely with some relations between two events wherein the relationship is not one of cause and effect, but mere accidental association instead (Ducasse, 70). For example, in infants the growth of hair is regularly followed by the growth of teeth, but these two events are not linked by a causal relation. Thus, constant conjunction, in and of itself, is not a valid criteria with which to determine causal relations. Rather, it is often popularly conceived in science, for example (and correctly, I might add), that the cause of some change in a situation is the change itself which is introduced to the situation. Hume himself cedes this notion within his Treatise (pg. 104-105) when he writes, “we may attain the knowledge of a particular cause merely by one experiment, provided it be made with judgment, and after a careful removal of all foreign and superfluous circumstances.” How can a single experiment, for Hume, be constitutive of full proof? I understand not his logic here, for if causation can be adduced by a single experiment, then it logically follows that constant conjunction is NOT constitutive of causation, contra Hume’s prior asseverations.