Editing Causality (section)

== History ==
=== Hindu philosophy ===
{{See also|Karma}}

[[Vedic period]] ({{circa|1750}}–500 BCE) literature has karma's Eastern origins.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Krishan|first1=Y.|title=The Vedic Origins of the Doctrine of Karma|journal=South Asian Studies|date=6 August 2010|volume=4|issue=1|pages=51–55|doi=10.1080/02666030.1988.9628366}}</ref> Karma is the belief held by [[Sanatana Dharma]] and major religions that a person's actions cause certain effects in the current life and/or in future [[reincarnation|life]], positively or negatively. The various philosophical schools ([[Darshana (Hinduism)|darshanas]]) provide different accounts of the subject. The doctrine of '''satkaryavada''' affirms that the effect inheres in the cause in some way. The effect is thus either a real or apparent modification of the cause. The doctrine of '''asatkaryavada''' affirms that the effect does not inhere in the cause, but is a new arising. See [[Nyaya]] for some details of the theory of causation in the Nyaya school. In [[Brahma Samhita]], Brahma describes Krishna as the prime cause of all causes.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://vedabase.net/bs/5/1/en | title=Brahma Samhita, Chapter 5: Hymn to the Absolute Truth | publisher=Bhaktivedanta Book Trust | access-date=19 May 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140507215250/http://vedabase.net/bs/5/1/en | archive-date=7 May 2014 | url-status=dead | df=dmy-all }}</ref>

[http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-18-13.html Bhagavad-gītā 18.14] identifies five causes for any action (knowing which it can be perfected): the body, the individual soul, the senses, the efforts and the supersoul.

According to [[Monier Monier-Williams|Monier-Williams]], in the [[Nyāya]] causation theory from Sutra I.2.I,2 in the [[Vaisheshika]] philosophy, from causal non-existence is effectual non-existence; but, not effectual non-existence from causal non-existence. A cause precedes an effect. With a threads and cloth metaphors, three causes are:

# Co-inherence cause: resulting from substantial contact, 'substantial causes', threads are substantial to cloth, corresponding to Aristotle's material cause.
# Non-substantial cause: Methods putting threads into cloth, corresponding to Aristotle's formal cause.
# Instrumental cause: Tools to make the cloth, corresponding to Aristotle's efficient cause.

Monier-Williams also proposed that Aristotle's and the Nyaya's causality are considered conditional aggregates necessary to man's productive work.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=co7Mkn2SUQ8C | title=Indian Wisdom or Examples of the Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus | publisher=Oxford | author=Williams, Monier | year=1875 | location=London | page=81 | isbn=9781108007955}}</ref>

=== Buddhist philosophy ===
{{See also|Pratītyasamutpāda}}

[[Karma]] is the causality principle focusing on 1) causes, 2) actions, 3) effects, where it is the mind's phenomena that guide the actions that the actor performs. Buddhism trains the actor's actions for continued and uncontrived virtuous outcomes aimed at reducing suffering. This follows the [[Subject–verb–object]] structure.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}

The general or universal definition of pratityasamutpada (or "dependent origination" or "dependent arising" or "interdependent co-arising") is that everything arises in dependence upon multiple causes and conditions; nothing exists as a singular, independent entity. A traditional example in Buddhist texts is of three sticks standing upright and leaning against each other and supporting each other. If one stick is taken away, the other two will fall to the ground.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Macy |first1=Joanna |title=Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems |date=1991 |publisher=State University of New York Press |location=Albany |isbn=0-7914-0636-9 |page=56 |chapter=Dependent Co-Arising as Mutual Causality |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JXMqPJ-_eY0C&pg=PA56}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tanaka |first1=Kenneth K. |title=Simultaneous Relation (''Sahabhū-hetu''): A Study in Buddhist Theory of Causation |journal=The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies |date=1985 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=94, 101 |url=https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8652}}</ref>

Causality in the [[Chittamatrin]] Buddhist school approach, [[Asanga]]'s ({{circa|400 CE}}) mind-only Buddhist school, asserts that objects cause consciousness in the mind's image. Because causes precede effects, which must be different entities, then subject and object are different. For this school, there are no objects which are entities external to a perceiving consciousness. The Chittamatrin and the [[Yogachara]] [[Svatantrika]] schools accept that there are no objects external to the observer's causality. This largely follows the [[Nikayas]] approach.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hopkins|first1=Jeffrey|title=Meditation on Emptiness|url=https://archive.org/details/meditationonempt01hopk|url-access=limited|date=15 June 1996|publisher=Wisdom Publications|isbn=978-0861711109|page=[https://archive.org/details/meditationonempt01hopk/page/n369 367]|edition=Rep Sub}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Lusthaus|first1=Dan|title=What is and isn't Yogācāra|url=http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html|website=Yogacara Buddhism Research Associations|publisher= Resources for East Asian Language and Thought, A. Charles Muller Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo [Site Established July 1995]|access-date=30 January 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Suk-Fun|first1=Ng|title=Time and causality in Yogācāra Buddhism|journal=The HKU Scholars Hub|date=2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Makeham|first1=John|title=Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China|date=1 April 2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199358137|page=253|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7UesAgAAQBAJ&q=yogacara%20causality&pg=PA253}}</ref>

The [[Vaibhashika]] ({{circa|500 CE}}) is an [[early Buddhist school]] which favors direct object contact and accepts simultaneous cause and effects. This is based in the consciousness example which says, intentions and feelings are mutually accompanying mental factors that support each other like poles in tripod. In contrast, simultaneous cause and effect rejectors say that if the effect already exists, then it cannot effect the same way again. How past, present and future are accepted is a basis for various Buddhist school's causality viewpoints.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hopkins|first1=Jeffrey|title=Meditation on Emptiness|url=https://archive.org/details/meditationonempt01hopk|url-access=limited|date=15 June 1996|publisher=Wisdom Publications|isbn=978-0861711109|page=[https://archive.org/details/meditationonempt01hopk/page/n341 339]|edition=Rep Sub}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Klien|first1=Anne Carolyn|title=Knowledge And Liberation: Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology In Support Of Transformative Religious Experience|date=1 January 1987|publisher=Snow Lion|isbn=978-1559391146|page=101|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o2SutnTaXXAC&q=vaibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ika%20simultaneous%20causality&pg=PA101|access-date=30 January 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Bartley|first1=Christopher|title=An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources|date=30 July 2015|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|edition=Kindle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rn-8BwAAQBAJ&q=vaibh%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ika%20simultaneous%20causality&pg=PT45|access-date=30 January 2016|isbn=9781472528513}}</ref>

All the classic Buddhist schools teach [[karma]]. "The law of karma is a special instance of the law of cause and effect, according to which all our actions of body, speech, and mind are causes and all our experiences are their effects."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Joyful Path of Good Fortune : The Complete Guide to the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment|last=Kelsang Gyatso|first=Geshe|date=1995|publisher=Tharpa|isbn=978-0948006463|edition=2nd ed rev|location=London|oclc=34411408}}</ref>

=== Western philosophy ===
==== Aristotelian ====
{{Main|Four causes|Potentiality and actuality}}

[[Aristotle]] identified four kinds of answer or explanatory mode to various "Why?" questions. He thought that, for any given topic, all four kinds of explanatory mode were important, each in its own right. As a result of traditional specialized philosophical peculiarities of language, with translations between ancient Greek, Latin, and English, the word 'cause' is nowadays in specialized philosophical writings used to label Aristotle's four kinds.<ref name="Graham 1987">Graham, D.W. (1987). [http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198243151.do ''Aristotle's Two Systems''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701001238/http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198243151.do |date=1 July 2015 }}, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, {{ISBN|0-19-824970-5}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.wisdomsupreme.com/dictionary/aristotles-four-causes.php | title=WISDOM SUPREME &#124; Aristotle's Four Causes | access-date=9 October 2012 | archive-date=15 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180815072433/http://www.wisdomsupreme.com/dictionary/aristotles-four-causes.php | url-status=usurped }}</ref> In ordinary language, the word 'cause' has a variety of meanings, the most common of which refers to efficient causation, which is the topic of the present article.
* [[Material cause]], the material whence a thing has come or that which persists while it changes, as for example, one's mother or the bronze of a statue (see also [[substance theory]]).<ref name="Soccio2011">{{cite book |first=D.J. |last=Soccio |year=2011 |title=Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, 8th Ed.: An Introduction to Philosophy |publisher=Wadsworth |isbn=9781111837792 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zxVH9h-HDXYC&pg=PA167 |page=167}}</ref>
* [[Formal cause]], whereby a thing's dynamic ''form'' or static ''shape'' determines the thing's properties and function, as a human differs from a statue of a human or as a statue differs from a lump of bronze.<ref name="sep-aristotle-causality">{{cite journal |first=Andrea |last=Falcon |editor=Edward N. Zalta |year=2012 |title=Aristotle on Causality |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |edition=Winter 2012 |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/aristotle-causality/#FouCauSciNat |quote=In the ''Physics'', Aristotle builds on his general account of the four causes by developing explanatory principles that are specific to the study of nature. Here Aristotle insists that all four modes of explanation are called for in the study of natural phenomena, and that the job of "the student of nature is to bring the why-question back to them all in the way appropriate to the science of nature" (''Phys.'' 198 a 21–23). The best way to understand this methodological recommendation is the following: the science of nature is concerned with natural bodies insofar as they are subject to change, and the job of the student of nature is to provide the explanation of their natural change. The factors that are involved in the explanation of natural change turn out to be matter, form, that which produces the change, and the end of this change. Note that Aristotle does not say that all four explanatory factors are involved in the explanation of each and every instance of natural change. Rather, he says that an adequate explanation of natural change may involve a reference to all of them. Aristotle goes on by adding a specification on his doctrine of the four causes: the form and the end often coincide, and they are formally the same as that which produces the change (''Phys.'' 198 a 23–26).}}</ref>
* [[Efficient cause]], which imparts the first relevant ''movement'', as a human lifts a rock or raises a statue. This is the main topic of the present article.
* [[Final cause]], the criterion of completion, or the [[Telos (philosophy)|end]]; it may refer to an action or to an inanimate process. Examples: Socrates takes a walk after dinner for the sake of his health; earth falls to the lowest level because that is its nature.

Of Aristotle's four kinds or explanatory modes, only one, the 'efficient cause' is a cause as defined in the leading paragraph of this present article. The other three explanatory modes might be rendered material composition, structure and dynamics, and, again, criterion of completion. The word that Aristotle used was {{math|αἰτία}}. For the present purpose, that Greek word would be better translated as "explanation" than as "cause" as those words are most often used in current English. Another translation of Aristotle is that he meant "the four Becauses" as four kinds of answer to "why" questions.<ref name="Graham 1987"/>

Aristotle assumed efficient causality as referring to a basic fact of experience, not explicable by, or reducible to, anything more fundamental or basic.

In some works of Aristotle, the four causes are listed as (1) the essential cause, (2) the logical ground, (3) the moving cause, and (4) the final cause. In this listing, a statement of essential cause is a demonstration that an indicated object conforms to a definition of the word that refers to it. A statement of logical ground is an argument as to why an object statement is true. These are further examples of the idea that a "cause" in general in the context of Aristotle's usage is an "explanation".<ref name="Graham 1987"/>

The word "efficient" used here can also be translated from Aristotle as "moving" or "initiating".<ref name="Graham 1987"/>

Efficient causation was connected with [[Aristotelian physics]], which recognized the [[four classical elements|four elements]] (earth, air, fire, water), and added the [[Aether (classical element)|fifth element]] (aether). Water and earth by their intrinsic property ''gravitas'' or heaviness intrinsically fall toward, whereas air and fire by their intrinsic property ''levitas'' or lightness intrinsically rise away from, Earth's center—the motionless center of the universe—in a straight line while accelerating during the substance's approach to its natural place.

As air remained on Earth, however, and did not escape Earth while eventually achieving infinite speed—an absurdity—Aristotle inferred that the universe is finite in size and contains an invisible substance that holds planet Earth and its atmosphere, the [[sublunary sphere]], centered in the universe. And since celestial bodies exhibit perpetual, unaccelerated motion orbiting planet Earth in unchanging relations, Aristotle inferred that the fifth element, ''aither'', that fills space and composes celestial bodies intrinsically moves in perpetual circles, the only constant motion between two points. (An object traveling a straight line from point ''A'' to ''B'' and back must stop at either point before returning to the other.)

Left to itself, a thing exhibits ''natural motion'', but can—according to [[Aristotelian metaphysics]]—exhibit ''enforced motion'' imparted by an efficient cause. The form of plants endows plants with the processes nutrition and reproduction, the form of animals adds locomotion, and the form of humankind adds reason atop these. A rock normally exhibits ''natural motion''—explained by the rock's material cause of being composed of the element earth—but a living thing can lift the rock, an ''enforced motion'' diverting the rock from its natural place and natural motion. As a further kind of explanation, Aristotle identified the final cause, specifying a purpose or criterion of completion in light of which something should be understood.

Aristotle himself explained,

{{Blockquote|''Cause'' means

(a) in one sense, that as the result of whose presence something comes into being—e.g., the bronze of a statue and the silver of a cup, and the classes which contain these [i.e., the '''material cause'''];

(b) in another sense, the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it—e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general is the cause of the octave—and the parts of the formula [i.e., the '''formal cause'''].

(c) The source of the first beginning of change or rest; e.g. the man who plans is a cause, and the father is the cause of the child, and in general that which produces is the cause of that which is produced, and that which changes of that which is changed [i.e., the '''efficient cause'''].

(d) The same as "end"; i.e. the final cause; e.g., as the "end" of walking is health. For why does a man walk? "To be healthy", we say, and by saying this we consider that we have supplied the cause [the '''final cause'''].

(e) All those means towards the end which arise at the instigation of something else, as, e.g., fat-reducing, purging, drugs, and instruments are causes of health; for they all have the end as their object, although they differ from each other as being some instruments, others actions [i.e., necessary conditions].|Metaphysics, Book 5, section 1013a, translated by Hugh Tredennick<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D1013a Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304035840/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D1013a |date=4 March 2021 }} (hosted at perseus.tufts.edu.)</ref>}}

Aristotle further discerned two modes of causation: proper (prior) causation and accidental (chance) causation. All causes, proper and accidental, can be spoken as potential or as actual, particular or generic. The same language refers to the effects of causes, so that generic effects are assigned to generic causes, particular effects to particular causes, and actual effects to operating causes.

Averting [[infinite regress]], Aristotle inferred the first mover—an [[unmoved mover]]. The first mover's motion, too, must have been caused, but, being an unmoved mover, must have moved only toward a particular goal or desire.

==== Pyrrhonism ====
While the plausibility of causality was accepted in [[Pyrrhonism]],<ref>[[Sextus Empiricus]], ''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'' Book III Chapter 5 Section 17</ref> it was equally accepted that it was plausible that nothing was the cause of anything.<ref>[[Sextus Empiricus]], ''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'' Book III Chapter 5 Section 20</ref>

==== Middle Ages ====
In line with Aristotelian cosmology, [[Thomas Aquinas]] posed a hierarchy prioritizing Aristotle's four causes: "final > efficient > material > formal".<ref name="The Thomist article">{{cite journal|journal=The Thomist|author=William E. May|title=Knowledge of Causality in Hume and Aquinas|date=April 1970|access-date=6 April 2011|url=http://www.thomist.org/journal/1970,%20vol.%2034/April/1970%20April%20A%20May%20web.htm|volume=34|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501095157/http://www.thomist.org/journal/1970%2C%20vol.%2034/April/1970%20April%20A%20May%20web.htm|archive-date=1 May 2011|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Aquinas sought to identify the first efficient cause—now simply ''[[first cause]]''—as everyone would agree, said Aquinas, to call it ''God''. Later in the Middle Ages, many scholars conceded that the first cause was God, but explained that many earthly events occur within God's design or plan, and thereby scholars sought freedom to investigate the numerous ''secondary causes''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Meara |first1=T.F. |title=The dignity of being a cause |journal=Open Theology |date=2018 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=186–191 |doi=10.1515/opth-2018-0013|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==== After the Middle Ages ====
<!--[[David Hume]] links here-->
{{See also|Humean definition of causality}}
For Aristotelian philosophy before Aquinas, the word ''cause'' had a broad meaning. It meant 'answer to a why question' or 'explanation', and Aristotelian scholars recognized four kinds of such answers. With the end of the [[Middle Ages]], in many philosophical usages, the meaning of the word 'cause' narrowed. It often lost that broad meaning, and was restricted to just one of the four kinds. For authors such as [[Niccolò Machiavelli]], in the field of political thinking, and [[Francis Bacon]], concerning [[science]] more generally, Aristotle's moving cause was the focus of their interest. A widely used modern definition of causality in this newly narrowed sense was assumed by [[David Hume]].<ref name="The Thomist article"/> He undertook an epistemological and metaphysical investigation of the notion of moving cause. He denied that we can ever perceive cause and effect, except by developing a habit or custom of mind where we come to associate two types of object or event, always contiguous and occurring one after the other.<ref name=Hume/> In Part III, section XV of his book ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'', Hume expanded this to a list of eight ways of judging whether two things might be cause and effect. The first three:

# "The cause and effect must be contiguous in space and time."
# "The cause must be prior to the effect."
# "There must be a constant union betwixt the cause and effect. 'Tis chiefly this quality, that constitutes the relation."
And then additionally there are three connected criteria which come from our experience and which are "the source of most of our philosophical reasonings": {{ordered list | start = 4
| "The same cause always produces the same effect, and the same effect never arises but from the same cause. This principle we derive from experience, and is the source of most of our philosophical reasonings."
| Hanging upon the above, Hume says that "where several different objects produce the same effect, it must be by means of some quality, which we discover to be common amongst them."
| And "founded on the same reason": "The difference in the effects of two resembling objects must proceed from that particular, in which they differ."}}
And then two more: {{ordered list | start = 7
| "When any object increases or diminishes with the increase or diminution of its cause, 'tis to be regarded as a compounded effect, deriv'd from the union of the several different effects, which arise from the several different parts of the cause."
| An "object, which exists for any time in its full perfection without any effect, is not the sole cause of that effect, but requires to be assisted by some other principle, which may forward its influence and operation."}}

In 1949, physicist [[Max Born]] distinguished determination from causality. For him, determination meant that actual events are so linked by laws of nature that certainly reliable predictions and retrodictions can be made from sufficient present data about them. He describes two kinds of causation: nomic or generic causation and singular causation. Nomic causality means that cause and effect are linked by more or less certain or probabilistic general laws covering many possible or potential instances; this can be recognized as a probabilized version of Hume's criterion 3. An occasion of singular causation is a particular occurrence of a definite complex of events that are physically linked by antecedence and contiguity, which may be recognized as criteria 1 and 2.<ref name="Born">[[Max Born|Born, M.]] (1949). [https://archive.org/details/naturalphilosoph032159mbp ''Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance''], Oxford University Press, London, p. 9.</ref>