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Core Concepts
Adequate Determinism Agent-Causality Alternative Possibilities Causa Sui Causal Closure Causality Certainty Chance Chance Not Direct Cause Chaos Theory The Cogito Model Compatibilism Complexity Comprehensive Compatibilism Conceptual Analysis Control Could Do Otherwise Creativity Default Responsibility De-liberation Determination Determination Fallacy Determinism Disambiguation Double Effect Either Way Emergent Determinism Epistemic Freedom Ethical Fallacy Experimental Philosophy Extreme Libertarianism Event Has Many Causes Frankfurt Cases Free Choice Freedom of Action "Free Will" Free Will Axiom Free Will in Antiquity Free Will Mechanisms Free Will Requirements Free Will Theorem Future Contingency Hard Incompatibilism Idea of Freedom Illusion of Determinism Illusionism Impossibilism Incompatibilism Indeterminacy Indeterminism Infinities Laplace's Demon Libertarianism Liberty of Indifference Libet Experiments Luck Master Argument Modest Libertarianism Moral Necessity Moral Responsibility Moral Sentiments Mysteries Naturalism Necessity Noise Non-Causality Nonlocality Origination Paradigm Case Possibilities Pre-determinism Predictability Probability Pseudo-Problem Random When?/Where? Rational Fallacy Refutations Replay Responsibility Same Circumstances Scandal Science Advance Fallacy Second Thoughts Self-Determination Semicompatibilism Separability Soft Causality Special Relativity Standard Argument Taxonomy Temporal Sequence Tertium Quid Torn Decision Two-Stage Models Ultimate Responsibility Uncertainty Up To Us Voluntarism Philosophers Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias Samuel Alexander G.E.M.Anscombe Anselm Louise Antony Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Harald Atmanspacher Augustine J.L.Austin A.J.Ayer Alexander Bain Mark Balaguer Jeffrey Barrett William Belsham Henri Bergson Isaiah Berlin Bernard Berofsky Robert Bishop Susanne Bobzien Emil du Bois-Reymond Hilary Bok George Boole Émile Boutroux F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Carneades Ernst Cassirer David Chalmers Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Anthony Collins Antonella Corradini Diodorus Cronus Jonathan Dancy Donald Davidson Democritus Daniel Dennett René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Dupré John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus Herbert Feigl John Martin Fischer Owen Flanagan Luciano Floridi Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Michael Frede Carl Ginet Nicholas St. John Green H.Paul Grice Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire W.F.R.Hardie William Hasker R.M.Hare Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume Ferenc Huoranszki William James Lord Kames Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Jaegwon Kim William King Christine Korsgaard Andrea Lavazza Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Leucippus Michael Levin George Henry Lewes C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton John Locke Michael Lockwood E. Jonathan Lowe John R. Lucas Lucretius James Martineau Storrs McCall Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Brian McLaughlin Paul E. Meehl Uwe Meixner Alfred Mele John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore C. Lloyd Morgan Thomas Nagel Friedrich Nietzsche P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor David F. Pears Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Plato Karl Popper H.A.Prichard Hilary Putnam Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher C.W.Rietdijk Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle Kenneth Sayre T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Wilfrid Sellars Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith L. Susan Stebbing George F. Stout Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Mark Twain Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin Voltaire G.H. von Wright David Foster Wallace R. Jay Wallace W.G.Ward Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford William Whewell Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Bernard Williams Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists Michael Arbib Bernard Baars John S. Bell Charles Bennett Ludwig von Bertalanffy Susan Blackmore Margaret Boden David Bohm Niels Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Emile Borel Max Born Walther Bothe Hans Briegel Leon Brillouin Stephen Brush Henry Thomas Buckle Donald Campbell Anthony Cashmore Eric Chaisson Jean-Pierre Changeux Arthur Holly Compton John Conway E. H. Culverwell Charles Darwin Terrence Deacon Abraham de Moivre Paul Dirac Hans Driesch John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Paul Ehrenfest Albert Einstein Hugh Everett, III Franz Exner Richard Feynman Joseph Fourier Michael Gazzaniga GianCarlo Ghirardi Nicolas Gisin Paul Glimcher Thomas Gold A.O.Gomes Brian Goodwin Joshua Greene Jacques Hadamard Stuart Hameroff Patrick Haggard Augustin Hamon Sam Harris Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg William Stanley Jevons Pascual Jordan Simon Kochen Stephen Kosslyn Ladislav Kovàč Rolf Landauer Alfred Landé Pierre-Simon Laplace David Layzer Benjamin Libet Josef Loschmidt Ernst Mach Henry Margenau James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr Ulrich Mohrhoff Jacques Monod Wolfgang Pauli Massimo Pauri Roger Penrose Steven Pinker Max Planck Henri Poincaré Hans Primas Adolphe Quételet Jerome Rothstein David Ruelle Erwin Schrödinger Aaron Schurger Claude Shannon Herbert Simon Dean Keith Simonton B. F. Skinner Roger Sperry Henry Stapp Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard William Thomson (Kelvin) Peter Tse John von Neumann Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Paul A. Weiss Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson H. Dieter Zeh Ernst Zermelo |
An Event Has Many Causes
"Every Event Has A Cause" is a principle of universal causality so sweeping as to be of little practical use. Events have many contributing causes. Selecting the "one" cause of an event is an exercise in story-telling.
The ancient idea of a "causal chain," with one event being the cause of the next event, and so on ad infinitum, is a philosophical fiction.
Aristotle made it clear that there are many kinds of causes, classifying them as efficient, material, final, and formal. He also added accidental causes. His word for causes, aitia (ἀιτία), has as root meaning "the things responsible for" something.
Even in a simple mechanical and deterministic world like that of Pierre-Simon Laplace's "super-intelligence," the future motion of each particle is dependent on ("caused by") the positions, momenta, and forces of all the other particles in the world.
More sophisticated physical determinists refine their idea of determinism, including the notion of every event having a cause, to the idea that the state of the universe at time t is completely determined by the state of the world an instant earlier.
But because of quantum mechanics, we now know that indeterminism is true, irreducible chance exists in the universe, and there are many events that occur only probabilistically.
What this means is that tracing any particular sequence of events back in time will come to one event - a "starting point" or "fresh start" (Aristotle calls it an origin or arche (ἀρκῆ)) - whose major contributing cause (or causes) was itself uncaused, in that it involved quantum indeterminacy.
Whether a particular thing happens, says Aristotle, may depend on a series of causes that
"goes back to some starting-point, which does not go back to something else. This, therefore, will be the starting-point of the fortuitous, and nothing else is the cause of its generation."We can thus in principle assign times, or ages, to the starting points of the contributing causes of an event. Some of these may in fact go back before the birth of an agent, hereditary causes for example. To the extent that such causes adequately determine an action, we can understand why hard determinists think that the agent has no control over such actions. (Of course if we can opt out of the action at the last moment, we retain a kind of control.) Other contributing causes may be traceable back to environmental and developmental events, perhaps education, perhaps simply life experiences, that were "character-forming" events. These and hereditary causes would be present in the mind of the agent as fixed habits, with a very high probability of "adequately determining" the agent's actions in many situations. But other contributing causes of a specific action may have been undetermined up to the very near past, even seconds before an important decision. Most importantly, these will include the free generation of new alternative possibilities during the agent's deliberations. Causes with these most recent starting points are the fundamental reason why an agent can do otherwise in what are essentially (up to that starting point) the same circumstances. These alternatives are likely generated from our internal knowledge of practical possibilities based on our past experience. Those that are handed up for consideration may be filtered to some extent by unconscious processes to be "within reason." They may consist of slight variations of past actions we have willed many times in the past. The evaluation and selection of one of these possibilities by the will is as deterministic and causal a process as anything that a determinist or compatibilist could ask for, consistent with our current knowledge of the physical world. But remember that instead of strict causal determinism, the world offers only adequate determinism. Just as determinism is limited, the role of random chance is limited. Rarely or never is chance the direct cause of action. Consequently, in most cases the indeterminism or chance involved in the generation of alternative possibilities is just an indirect cause of action, and leads to just one of many contributing causes. One of these possibilities is selected by our adequately determined will, so we can say that the action was up to us and that we can accept responsibility for it. We might select something that we always do for hereditary reasons, of some habit that was formed by our education. But we always have the option of not doing those things, when our evaluation suggests good reasons for not doing them. And we may often select a brand new creative idea, one that has occurred to us only moments before we closed off deliberation and made our selection. These new creative ideas originate within us (Aristotle's ἐν ἡμῖν. If we extend the "moment of choice" backwards to include the deliberation process and its generation of new possibilities, we have captured the essence of an "agent-causal" liberty that is not necessitated by any particular past causes, but instead is the result of many contributing causes, some habitual with causal chains that go back before our deliberations, others distinctly lacking causal chains that go back before our deliberations and free generation of alternative possibilities. The Cogito model explains not only human freedom but human creativity. There is no causal chain back to the big bang
We can see that some causes may be traced back very far indeed. Instinctual acts, such as babies' sucking, or fight or flight reactions, may be traceable back to earlier ancestor species. But it is extremely improbable that the causal chains extend back to the prime mover or big bang of the universe, as some determinists believe.
Given the conservative nature of evolution, the fundamental strategy of random variation followed by lawful selection, a behavioral strategy present in the most primitive life forms (cf. Martin Heisenberg), may well be connected to our two-stage model of "free" possibilities followed by "willed" determinations in the higher animals and humans.
But although this ancient fundamental strategy may be present in human minds, its presence insures that the mind has access to randomness and a break with determinism when it needs it to create new alternative possibilities for totally unexpected situations, or importantly whenever the agent simply wants to be creative and original in thoughts or actions.
For Teachers
For Scholars
Aristotle Metaphysics VI iii describes the accidental starting points of new causal chains.
Clearly, then, the series goes back to some starting-point, which does not go back to something else. This, therefore, will be the starting-point of the fortuitous, and nothing else is the cause of its generation. But to what sort of starting-point and cause this process of tracing back leads, whether to a material or final or moving cause, is a question for careful consideration. δῆλον ἄρα ὅτι μέχρι τινὸς βαδίζει ἀρχῆς, αὕτη δ᾽ οὐκέτι εἰς ἄλλο. ἔσται οὖν ἡ τοῦ ὁπότερ᾽ ἔτυχεν αὕτη, καὶ αἴτιον τῆς γενέσεως αὐτῆς ἄλλο οὐθέν. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς ἀρχὴν ποίαν καὶ αἴτιον ποῖον ἡ ἀναγωγὴ ἡ τοιαύτη, πότερον ὡς εἰς ὕλην ἢ ὡς εἰς τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα ἢ ὡς εἰς τὸ κινῆσαν, μάλιστα σκεπτέον.Nicholas St. John Green debunks the idea of a single "chain of causation" and argues for multiple causes for all events in an 1871 article entitled "Proximate and Remote Cause." From every point of view from which we look at the facts, a new cause appears. In as many different ways as we view an effect, so many different causes, as the word is generally used, can we find for it. The true, the entire, cause is none of these separate causes taken singly, but all of them taken together. These separate causes are not causes which stand to each other in the relation of proximate and remote, in any intelligible sense in which those words can be used. There is no chain of causation consisting of determinate links ranged in order of proximity to the effect. They are rather mutually interwoven with themselves and the effect, as the meshes of a net are interwoven. As the existence of each adjoining mesh of the net is necessary for the existence of any particular mesh, so the presence of each and every surrounding circumstance, which, taken by itself we may call a cause, is necessary for the production of the effect.Ted Honderich also argues for multiple causes, with people selecting the one they favor. His example is lighting a match only to have the house explode because there was a gas leak. Is the cause person striking the match?, the match itself?, or the gas leak?, or perhaps the fact that the match was dry enough to ignite?
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