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This chapter is divided into three sections. The first considers Kant's formulation of the problem of causality. It argues that Kant's questioning of the causal principle and his analysis of the concept of cause are best approached in light of his conception of logic, and more particularly in light of his conception of hypothetical judgments and hypothetical syllogisms. The second section considers Kant's proof of the causal principle in the Second Analogy of Experience. This relation provides an indispensable foundation for understanding Kant's argument on the conditions of time perception. However, the argument Kant provides does not appear to support the strong causal principle he claims to prove. This apparent discrepancy between Kant's claim and his actual argument in the specific context of the Second Analogy is a primary reason for the persisting disagreements about the meaning of the Second Analogy. The third section argues that Kant does provide an answer to the difficulty raised. This answer, however, relies not only on the discursive model of thought laid out in the first and second sections but also on Kant's conception of space and time as forms of intuition, as it emerges from the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories.

Although most philosophers would agree with the suggestion that Hume's treatment of the problem of causation “is the center‐piece of the Treatise” (or, at least, of Book I), they also generally hold that Hume's views on causation in the Treatise are of little or no direct relevance to problems of natural religion. In contrast with this, many of Hume's early critics interpreted his views on causation as involving an “atheistic” or irreligious attack on the argument a priori—particularly as defended by Clarke and his followers. This chapter argues that Hume was well aware that his most distinguished adversaries had used Lucretius's (atheistic) maxim “nothing can come from nothing” to defend the cause of “superstition.” In opposition to this, Hume abandoned Lucretius's maxim and embraced its direct opposite: “any thing may produce any thing.” This “curious nostrum” served as Hume's principal weapon in his battle to discredit all efforts to use demonstrative reason to prove the existence of God.

This chapter addresses a realization-based interpretation of the extended approach. On this view, cognitive states are states of an organismically bounded cognitive system, yet may still have realizers—that is, physical implementations—that extend beyond the boundary of the organism. Functionalism in philosophy of mind, as well as the associated idea of a physical realization, is spelled out in detail. It is then argued that the extension-friendly approach to realization is untenable. The relevant view of realization either undermines the examples motivating the extended view or is too liberal to be of use in cognitive science. Difficulty with this view arises largely because standard examples of extended cognitive processing involve interactions with the environment, and during these interactions, the realizers of the cognitive states at issue are distinct from those things with which the cognitive system interacts.

A summary of the main arguments of the previous chapters is presented. Among these are that a theory’s formalism may be inconsistent and yet allow the construction of highly reliable models of the phenomena of a certain domain. It is shown that there are scientifically meaningful distinctions between various causal locality principles that cannot be captured in causal terms. The most promising explanation for the temporal asymmetry exhibited by the total fields in the presence of radiating charges appeals to a causal constraint, namely that the field component physically associated with a radiating source is fully retarded.

This chapter gives an analysis of Kant’s attempt to prove the causal principle in the Second Analogy. After presenting an analysis of Kant’s strategy that draws on the work of Lewis White Beck, it examines two different interpretations of Kant’s argument, by P. F. Strawson and by Paul Guyer. It concludes by presenting a final reconstruction of the overall argument of the Analytic whose first stage is the Transcendental Deduction as given in either the first or the second edition of the Critique and whose final stage is based on Guyer’s analysis of the Second Analogy.

This chapter focuses on the controversy between statists and cosmopolitans with regard to the principles of global justice. It shows how on issues of principle both tend to condemn the consequences of global poverty as self-evident moral wrongs without linking first-order normative commitments to an appropriately fundamental analysis of its causes. A different combination of these claims would provide a more appropriate analysis of the circumstances of global injustice. If relevant causal links between absolute deprivation and relative deprivation are established, the chapter concludes, the endorsement of sufficientarian principles in global circumstances of injustice leads to the justification of global egalitarian principles.

This chapter offers a reading of the Third Meditation argument from objective reality according to which Descartes’ central premise—the causal principle that the cause of the objective reality of an idea must have the same amount of reality either formally or eminently—is just an application of the premise that something cannot come from nothing. The meditator is able to recognize the truth of the premise and then construct an argument that entails that there exists an infinite being (God) whose nature is inconsistent with deception. This is a much better argument than any of the First Meditation skeptical arguments, and so the when the meditator stands the arguments up against each other he accepts the former. The chapter considers the confusion and material falsity of sensory ideas and the different ways that different first-person meditators would stand toward it. The chapter also considers various confusions that the meditator expresses because he had them before entering the Meditations and has not yet emended them.

Chapter 3 argues that Descartes’ views about mind–body interaction are internally consistent, and compatible with his more general views about causation; thus neither Descartes nor his followers were forced to reject interactionism to maintain mind–body dualism. In some later works, Descartes says that corporeal motions “give occasion” to the mind to form ideas, which are innate to the mind. Section 3.3 argues that these remarks are consistent with his claims in earlier texts that corporeal motions produce or bring about ideas in the mind. This causal theory of sensation seems to be inconsistent with general causal principles that Descartes endorses elsewhere—such as the principle that a cause must contain, “formally or eminently,” whatever it brings about in its effect. But sections 3.3 and 3.4 show that Descartes’ general statements about efficient causation are compatible with the view that bodily motions have the power to elicit sensations in the mind.

In this chapter, Hankinson considers the treatment of causation and explanation in two important strands of Ancient Greek thought: rational medicine and the sophistic movement. The Hippocratic treatises of the fifth century bc represent a movement in Greek medical practice away from traditional types of explanation of disease in favour of a naturalistic, physiological model of human pathology, which leads to the emergence of the allopathic causal principle, ‘opposites cure opposites’. The Hippocratic treatises distinguished internal, constitutional factors from external causes, a distinction that helps towards explaining why some people are affected by a disease, or benefited from a cure, while others are not. Drawing upon Antiphon and Gorgias, Hankinson also discusses the sophist contribution to causation and explanation, in particular their emphasis on responsibility in the explanation of action. Finally, Hankinson highlights a tendency, evident in Herodotus’ History and also in the medical treatise Airs, Waters, Places, to explain general traits of physique and character in terms of ethnography, i.e. on the basis of environment, climate, and lifestyle.

As their name suggests, the generalizing theories insist that, if a particular act or event is a cause of something, its status as a cause is derived from the fact that it is of a kind believed to be generally connected with an event of some other kind. The generalizing theories differ from the individualizing theories in that, though they also concentrate on the selection of one from among a set of conditions of an event as its cause, they select a particular condition as the cause of an event because it is of a kind which is connected with such events by a generalization or statement of regular sequence. The first section describes the rise of the adequate cause theory. The second section discusses the detailed application of the adequacy theory. The last section discusses the limitation of responsibility by reference to common-sense causal principles.

Some modern scholars such as Loeb have defended Descartes’ doctrine of mind-body interaction by arguing that it is not inconsistent with his Causal Adequacy Principle. This chapter seeks to extend this line of defence by focusing on the causation of mental events by bodies. It is shown that Descartes’ position here is complicated by his distinction between the formal and objective reality of ideas and by his subscription to the Augustinian principle that minds are more perfect than bodies. It is argued, however, that even when these complications are recognized, Descartes’ position emerges largely unscathed; at most the Causal Adequacy Principle is a source of difficulty only for a strong version of interactionism.

The chapter searches for the logically weakest causal principle that can be found that would establish the existence of a necessary being. First the most general principle of causation is presented and then a series of increasingly weaker versions are proposed. The goal of the chapter is to provide one of the most modest causal principles on which there is at least some causal order. It is then shown how to use such a principle to construct an argument for a necessary being. As usual, various objections and replies are considered, and an advantage is drawn out of this argument with a demonstration of how someone could have reason to accept the very weak causal principle even if they do not accept any causal principle in any previous argument for a necessary being.