The principle of causality
Hello Rabbi Michael,
From what I understand (I’m not too knowledgeable in philosophy), Kant made a certain synthesis between the rationalist approach and the empirical approach regarding the principle of causality. The empirical approach (David Hume) was that there was really no basis for the principle of causality being a universal truth, but rather it was a result of habit, in contrast to the rationalists who believed that the principle of causality was an accepted working assumption without the need for justification.
What Kant innovated was that while the principle of causality itself does not depend on causality, it is the way in which we simply see the world. We experience the principle of causality through the “eyes of reason,” and it is essentially our consciousness that simply observes the world. We see phenomena, and our consciousness explains the phenomena to us through the principle of causality.
But according to this, it turns out that the entire principle of causality is found in our brain, in our consciousness, it is the intermediate form in which we look at the world. But in principle it is possible that in the “nomenal” world (the world in itself) there may actually be, even if only in its description, a phenomenon that does not depend on the principle of causality. We may not understand it in our consciousness, but in principle the world is not bound to the way in which our brain is structured. (By the way, an example of this is quantum mechanics, where the principle of causality does not work the same way as other phenomena in the world, and there is definitely a principle of uncertainty there).
My question to you, assuming that the description I presented is accurate (again, not very knowledgeable in philosophy), is that the principle of causality apparently says nothing about the world, but only about how we perceive and see the world. But in the world itself there may be different realities (where we may not perceive what we see at all) for which the principle of causality would not apply at all.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Have you yourself addressed the issue (or know someone who has) in a way that addresses the difficulties?
If so, can you direct me?
Columns 494 - 496
Greetings, Rabbi Michi, I have encountered a certain difficulty regarding the principle of causality in the context of the cosmological argument. Here is the difficulty:
Given David Hume's position, which claims that the principle of causality is based on a psychological habit that does not guarantee metaphysical necessity, how can this approach be reconciled with the central assumption of the cosmological argument, which claims that everything has a cause and that it is impossible to avoid a chain of causes leading to a first or unconditional cause?
In this context, does Hume's very claim, according to which we cannot prove with certainty the necessity of causality for the entire chain of events, not undermine the validity of the assumption regarding the necessary need for a first cause?
In addition, how can the principle of sufficient reason be integrated into this discussion? Is it able to provide a solution to the gap between the way we experience causality and the metaphysical necessity on which the cosmological argument rests? I would be happy to understand how the basic premises of the cosmological argument can be addressed in light of Hume's criticism and to examine whether the argument remains valid even if one accepts the skeptical approach towards the principle of causality.
Thank you very much.
1. David Hume is wrong, so there is no point in making the argument difficult from his (wrong) position.
2. The principle of causality does not indeed arise from observation, but Hume's empiricist assumption that only things that arise from observation are acceptable is incorrect.
3. Come to your senses, would you or anyone else accept a claim that some event occurred without a reason? An investigation committee into a plane crash finds that there was no reason for the crash. Would you accept that? I certainly wouldn't. You would say that they should continue to investigate, but clearly there is some reason. And so it is with everything in the world. But with regard to the formation of the world, for some reason the causal concept stops there.
4. Furthermore, in columns 459 – 466 I described in detail the causal relationship, and showed that it has three components: logical, temporal, and physical. Even if we empty the causal relation of its physical content, that is, we do not accept that event A caused B, there is still the more “thin” causal concept, according to which event A is a sufficient condition for event B (the temporal and logical relation). Even in this concept, we can ask what was the sufficient condition for the formation of the world.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
