Blackwell Reference Online

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[ Kausalität ] see also analogies of experience , analytic , categories , force , freedom , nature , principles , succession Causality is a theme central to both Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. His theoretical discussion of causality is couched entirely in terms of a modern conception of causality which rejected the Aristotelian order of material, formal, efficient and final causes and confined causality to local motion. Although this conception may be traced back to Galileo, he himself did not explain motion in terms of causality; he destroyed the old notion of causality and left the justification of the new to the philosophers. Kant's response to the problem of justifying theoretical causality underwent several changes in the course of his career. In ND he followed the Wolffian school's identification of causality with the rational principle of ground and consequence. This ontological justification of causality was abandoned in DS and other works of the 1760s where the relation of cause and effect is described as a ‘fundamental relation’ which cannot be further determined: ‘It is impossible for reason ever to understand how something can be a cause, or have a force; such relations can only be derived from experience’ (DS p. 370, p. 356). Already Kant is uneasy in his dogmatic slumbers, but was finally woken up by what he saw as Hume's demonstration that causality ... log in or subscribe to read full text