Q&A: The Principle of Causality
The Principle of Causality
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
From what I understand (I’m not very well-versed 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 is no real basis for saying that the principle of causality is a universal truth; rather, it is a result of habit, as opposed to the rationalists, who held that the principle of causality is an accepted working assumption that does not require justification.
What Kant innovated was that even though the principle of causality itself does not depend on causality, it is simply the way we see the world. We experience the principle of causality through the “eyes of the intellect,” and this is essentially our consciousness simply examining the world. We see phenomena, and our consciousness explains those phenomena to us through the principle of causality.
But according to this, it turns out that the entire principle of causality is in our mind, in our consciousness; it is the mediating form through which we look at the world. But in principle, it could be that in the “noumenal” world (the world as it is in itself), a phenomenon that does not depend on the principle of causality could indeed exist, even if only in its description. We might not understand it in our consciousness, but in principle the world is not bound by the way our mind is structured. (By the way, an example of this is quantum mechanics, where the principle of causality does not work as it does in the rest of the phenomena in the world, and a principle of uncertainty definitely prevails there.)
My question to you is: assuming the description I presented is accurate (again, I’m not very knowledgeable in philosophy), seemingly the principle of causality says nothing about the world itself, but only about how we perceive and see the world. But in the world itself there could be different realities (which we might not even be able to grasp at all) to which the principle of causality does not apply whatsoever.
Answer
Indeed, that is correct. Therefore, in my opinion, Kant did not really answer the difficulties raised by Hume.
Discussion on Answer
Columns 494–496
Greetings, Rabbi Michi. I ran into 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 one reconcile this approach with the central premise of the cosmological argument, which claims that everything has a cause and that one cannot avoid a chain of causes leading to a first or unconditioned cause?
In this context, doesn’t Hume’s very claim—that we cannot prove with certainty the necessity of causality across the whole chain of events—undermine the validity of the premise about the necessary need for a first cause?
In addition, how can the principle of sufficient reason be incorporated into this discussion? Is it capable of addressing the gap between the way we experience causality and the metaphysical necessity on which the cosmological argument rests? I would be glad to understand how one should relate to the basic premises of the cosmological argument in light of Hume’s critique, and to examine whether the argument remains valid even if one accepts the skeptical approach toward the principle of causality.
Thank you very much.
1. David Hume is not correct, so there is no point in challenging the argument from within his (mistaken) position.
2. The principle of causality indeed does not arise from observation, but Hume’s empiricist assumption that only things that arise from observation are acceptable is not correct.
3. Just think: would you, or anyone else, accept the claim that some event occurred without a cause? A commission investigating a plane crash discovers that there was no cause for the crash. Would you accept that? I certainly wouldn’t. You would say they should keep investigating, because obviously there is some cause. And so with everything in the world. But when it comes to the coming-into-being of the world, for some reason the causal intuition suddenly stops there.
4. Moreover, in Columns 459–466 I described the causal relation in detail, and showed that it has three components: logical, temporal, and physical. Even if one empties the causal relation of its physical content—that is, one does not accept that event A caused event B—there still remains the “thinner” causal conception, according to which event A is a sufficient condition for event B (the temporal and logical relation). Even on that conception one can ask what the sufficient condition was for the coming-into-being of the world.
Have you yourself addressed the topic (or do you know someone who addressed it) in a way that answers the difficulties?
If so, could you point me to it?