Lars P. Syll — In search of causality

Causality is one of the fundamental problems in philosophy, covering epistemology, philosophy of language, semiotics, and philosophy of science. Since causality is the basis of explanation, it applies to all aspects of understanding and theorizing, as Aristotle pointed out in his Metaphysics millennia ago. Yet, there is still no complete understanding of causality that would end controversy.

There many interrogatives — who, what, when, where, how and why, for example. Description involves the facts — what what, when, where, how much and how long, etc. Explanation involves means and ends — "how" (Greek techné) and "why" (telos).

Natural science deals chiefly with the how. "Speculation" deals with the why. Aristotle opined that all speculation begins with wonder. The Greek word for "speculate" that Aristotle uses is theorein. The root is theo which means god, or divine. Speculation is contemplative rather than active. It involves reflection on experience.

An archaic English term for "to speculate" is "to divine." It means to discern the inner workings. We see the sun rise and set and still speak of the "sunrise" and "sunset," but now we know that the sun is not actually moving at all; the rotational movement of the earth is "causing" the experience.

What we wonder about is a "puzzle" to us. The Greek term is aporia. The root means "impasse." This "causes" us to speculate about how and why in search of an explanation as a "theory."

In ancient time, most of the answers to such foundational questions involved supernatural causes expressed in myths, which were largely anthropomorphisms about natural forces. At the time of the Axial Age, interest shifted toward intellectual (logical) reasoning in place of myth as storytelling became less satisfying intellectually.

Aristotle was the first person in the West to systematize knowledge largely in the form that it has been handed down through the centuries in the West. He understood that a requirement for gaining true knowledge (epistemé) through inquiry was to understand reasoning, so he wrote books on logic as a prerequisite.

Aristotle was also understood that knowledge of the world comes through the senses and so he emphasized the role of observation in gaining knowledge. He was particularly interested in biology as a science understood as theory based on observation rather than storytelling.

Aristotle also recognized the existence of foundational issues that "come before," or are "meta," as we say even today. These are properly the issues for intellectual inquiry, which we still call "philosophy." meaning love of wisdom. Here the Greek term sophia means speculative wisdom rather than practical wisdom. Speculative wisdom is concerned with the way, while practical wisdom is concerned with the how.

Aristotle seems to have gotten off on the wrong foot in some instances, but overall the paradigm of knowledge he set forth still holds sway in the West. In fact, Aristotelianism is now making a comeback.

Today, we are still arguing about causality, what counts as causal explanation, and the degree to such ultimate explanation is possible given bounded rationality.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
In search of causality
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University