Blackwell Reference Online

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Making something happen, allowing or enabling something to happen, or preventing something from happening. Mental and extra-mental occurrences, of all spatial and temporal dimensions, great and small, have causes and are causes. Our awareness of the world and our action within the world depends at every stage on causal processes. Although not all explanations are causal, anything that can be explained in any way, can be explained causally. Like other metaphysical concepts, the concept of causation applies very broadly. Yet this fundamental concept continues to elude metaphysical understanding. While there is some general philosophic agreement about causation, there is also considerable disagreement. Causal theories of knowledge, perception, memory, the mind, action, inference, meaning, reference, time and identity through time, take a notion as fundamental that philosophers understand only incompletely.Hume is the dominant philosopher of cause and effect. A running commentary on Hume' views and arguments, pro and con, could cover most contemporary philosophical concerns with causation (Hume, 1739, esp. Bk I, Pt III; Hume, 1748, esp. Sects IV, V, VII). Limitations of space preclude extensive quotation and discussion of primary texts. In what follows, a number of paragraphs begin with the statement of a view about causation. The next sentence then classifies the view as prevailing, ... log in or subscribe to read full text