Editing Causality (section)

=== Contrasted with conditionals ===
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[[Indicative conditional|Conditional]] statements are ''not'' statements of causality. An important distinction is that statements of causality require the antecedent to precede or coincide with the consequent in time, whereas conditional statements do not require this temporal order. Confusion commonly arises since many different statements in English may be presented using "If ..., then ..." form (and, arguably, because this form is far more commonly used to make a statement of causality). The two types of statements are distinct, however.

For example, all of the following statements are true when interpreting "If ..., then ..." as the material conditional:

# ''If Barack Obama is president of the United States in 2011, then Germany is in Europe.''
# ''If George Washington is president of the United States in 2011, then {{angbr|arbitrary statement}}.''

The first is true since both the [[Antecedent (logic)|antecedent]] and the [[consequent]] are true. The second is true in [[sentential logic]] and indeterminate in natural language, regardless of the consequent statement that follows, because the antecedent is false.

The ordinary [[indicative conditional]] has somewhat more structure than the material conditional. For instance, although the first is the closest, neither of the preceding two statements seems true as an ordinary indicative reading. But the sentence:
* ''If Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon did not write Macbeth, then someone else did.''
intuitively seems to be true, even though there is no straightforward causal relation in this hypothetical situation between Shakespeare's not writing Macbeth and someone else's actually writing it.

Another sort of conditional, the [[counterfactual conditional]], has a stronger connection with causality, yet even counterfactual statements are not all examples of causality. Consider the following two statements:

# ''If A were a triangle, then A would have three sides.''
# ''If switch S were thrown, then bulb B would light.''

In the first case, it would be incorrect to say that A's being a triangle ''caused'' it to have three sides, since the relationship between triangularity and three-sidedness is that of definition. The property of having three sides actually determines A's state as a triangle. Nonetheless, even when interpreted counterfactually, the first statement is true. An early version of Aristotle's "four cause" theory is described as recognizing "essential cause". In this version of the theory, that the closed polygon has three sides is said to be the "essential cause" of its being a triangle.<ref name="Graham 1987"/> This use of the word 'cause' is of course now far obsolete. Nevertheless, it is within the scope of ordinary language to say that it is essential to a triangle that it has three sides.

A full grasp of the concept of conditionals is important to [[understanding]] the literature on causality. In everyday language, loose conditional statements are often enough made, and need to be interpreted carefully.