Causality is one of the twelve categories or concepts of the understanding, the second of the three categories of relation. Its correlate is the concept of dependence. In the Table of Categories, it is paired with the notion of cause,
whose correlative is effect
(A80/B106). In the Prolegomena, the category is simply named “cause” (Ak IV, 383). Although the terms ‘causality’ and ‘cause‘ are sometunderstandingimes used interchangeably to refer to the category, they are otherwise used in different senses.
As a pure form, or subjective condition, of thought, the concept of cause . . . asserts the necessity ofappearances a result under a presupposed condition
(B168). Another description is found in both editions, [T]his concept [of cause] definitely requires that something, A, be of such a kind that something, else B, follows from it necessarily and according to an absolutely universal rule
(A91/B124). In the Prolegomena, it is stated that the meaning of the concept of cause
is that of something that can be constituted so that if that thing be posited, something else must necessarily be posited
(Ak IV time257).
The basis of the category is to be found in the hypothetical form of judgment, which relates ground to consequent
(A73/B98). An example is If there is a perfect justice, then the persistently evil person is punished
(A73/B98). The category does not relate judgments, but rather things; yet the relation of these kinds may be considered as one of metaphysical ground and consequence.
As a pure thought-formexperience, the category has no significance with respect to objects of experience. What is required is that the merely logical notions result under
and follows from
be made more specific in terms of a relation that holds of objects of experience. This is accomplished by way of the relations of time, in which change occurs. Thus, after the presupposed condition occurs, the result is a change which necessarily follows from it in time. The time-relation is the basis of the schema of the category. The schema of the cause and of the causality of a thing as such is the real upon which, whenever it is posited, something always follows
(A144/B183). The temporal succession follows a necessary rule.
As with other categories, there are predicables
of causality which are derivative a priori concepts. These include force, action, undergoing
(A82/B108). After a discussion of several examples of empirical causality, it is stated that, This causality leads to the concept of action; action leads to the concept of force and thereby to the concept of substance
(as that in which the force inheres) (A204/B249).
The principle of causality is that all change in objects of experience takes place necessarily, according to a rule. This stated in the first edition as follows: Everything that occurs (i.e., starts to be) presupposes something that it succeeds according to a rule
(A189). In the second edition, it is stated differently: All changes occur according to the law of the connection of cause and effect
(B232). There is an additional a priori
law of nature, that nothing occurs through a blind randomness (in mundo non datur casus)
(A228/B280). This law is said to be in fact a consequence of the principle of causality
(A228/B281). The reasoning behind this claim must be that randomness (or accidental occurrence, casus) is precluded by the rule-governed necessity of everything that occurs.
The proof of the principle, as given in the Second Analogy, is that rule-necessitated change is required in order to place events at determinate positions in time, as time itself cannot be perceived and hence cannot perform this function. The necessity that forms part of the concept of cause is explained by its a priori character. A common feature of the relational categories is that they allow the linking together of perceptions in time as such
(A177/B219). Since time itself is an a priori intuition or form of intuition, a priori concepts are required as a basis of the linkage. And since these concepts always carry with them necessity as well, experience is possible only through a presentation of the necessary connection of perceptions
(A177/B219). It is claimed that this proof of the transcendental principle
is the only one possible (A788/B816).
The transcendental proof of the principle of causality is said to overcome David Hume’s skepticism regarding that principle. Hume recognized the necessity in the concept of a cause and its a priori character. Thus, he correctly recognized that no proof of the principle can be based on experience, but He believed he had discovered that suchappearintuitionances a proposition is quite impossible a priori
(B20). His problem was that he thought that an a priori basis of the principle must lie in the relevant concepts alone. He demonstrated irrefutably that it was entirely impossible for reason to think a priori and by means of concepts such a combination as involves necessity
(Prolegomena, Ak IV 257). However, the principle can be proved by considering in addition to concepts rules for the connection of perceptions.
For humans, the only demonstrable application of the category of causality is to objects of experience: the principle of causality applies to things only . . . insofar as they are objects of experience, but . . . these same objects are not subject to that principle when taken
in the sense of things in themselves (Bxxvii). [O]nly for objects of possible experience were we able to prove that principle [of causality], viz., that everything that occurs (i.e., any event) presupposes a cause; and it presupposes this, moreover, in such a way that we were also unable to prove the principle from mere concepts, but could prove it only as a principle for the possibility of experience and hence of the cognition of an object given in empirical intuition
(B289).
The term ‘causality of‘ is applied to a number of different things: a being, a substance, reason, appearances, what occurs in time, a change, actions, and finally, a cause. The causality of beings, substances or reason, the action of the being in bringing about a change, is its primary sense.
There is an extended discussion of whether, among objects of experience, the cause might be simultaneous with its effect. In an example, a heated stove in a room is said to be the cause of an air temperature higher than that outside the room (A202/B247-8). At the instant the effect arises (in this case, the slightest rising of the air temperature), the effect is said to be simultaneous with the causality of its cause,
which, it seems, is the action, or at least the state, of the stove. At another point, we are told that, [I]f you assume that all that occurs in the world is nothing but the result according to the laws of nature, then the causality of the cause is always in turn something that occurs
(A488/B516). And what occurs is actions.
A consequence of this view is a strict determinism with respect to events which take place in time, given that the principle of causality is the only basis for the occurrence of events. We readily see that if all causality in the world of sense were merely nature, then every event would be determined by another event in time and according to necessary laws
(A534/B562). The claim that the world of experience is completely determined is the antithesis
in the Third Antinomy.
The thesis
of the Third Antinomy is that there must be a free cause. The argument for the thesis is shown to be bad, but there remains the possibility of another kind of causality, one in which the cause is the choice of a rational agent, acting freely.
The key to this kind of causality is the fact that the objects to which the principle of causality applies are merely appearances. As such, they demand a basis or ground. If . . . appearances count as nothing more than they in fact are, viz., if they count not as things in themselves but as mere presentations connected according to empirical laws, then they must themselves still have bases that are not appearances
(A537/B565). Such a basis or cause might be intelligible
which stands outside of the realm of empirical objects and might act freely, that is, act in such a way that its actions are not determined by its other states.
The possibility of one or more intelligible causes allows us to think objects hypothetically, that is, as if
they were operative in the realm of experience (B716). This allows us to think of human beings as well as a supreme being as acting freely on the basis of reason. As for humans, the thought of transcendental freedom is required for morality, and as for the supreme being, it allows us to think of the world as unified beyond the unification provided by the principles for the application of categories to objects of experience.
In the discussion of a conceivable causality through freedom, the causality of the cause cannot be an action or something that occurs in time, since the cause is taken not to be an object of experience, in which case it stands outside of time. It is described as an action (A555/B583) but such an action cannot be one occurring in time. The power of choice
in the rationally acting being is determined by its state, resulting in an action. However, that determining state need not itself be determined by any other state. Of reason, however, one cannot say that the state wherein it determines the power of choice is preceded by another state wherein that state itself is determined
(A553/B581). If reason does function in this way, it is not subject to the law of causality which applies to all objects of experience. Rational action could be a concurrent cause of an event whose natural cause is determined by necessity (A539ff/B566ff).
Human reason is not the only conceivable causal agent. There is a chain of arguments leading from causes in the world of experience to a supreme cause, a single God. One sees things change, arise, and pass away. Hence they, or at least their state, must have a cause. But the same question can be asked about any cause that may ever be given in experience. Now where could we put the highest causality more appropriately than where there is also the supreme causality?
(A590-1/B617-18). Although this reasoning is faulty because it applies the concept of causality beyond the limits of experience, there is no contradiction in the concept of a highest cause, so that it is at least a conceivable transcendent being. In natural theology, such a being is the principle of all natural order and perfection
(A632/B660). In moral philosophy, it is considered the basis of moral order and perfection. In both cases this being would be the originator of things through understanding and freedom; and this concept is the only one that interests us
(A632/B660).
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