The Causal Between Physical And Mental

There are several differences between correlation and causation. Correlation is if an event happens and is not related to another event and it is a coincidence. This would be if an event happened but it was not connected to another. An example of this would be catching a foul ball at a baseball game. It would be a correlation because you just happened to be in that place where the ball was hit and were able to catch it. Causation on the other hand is a cause and effect. One thing happens because another thing previously happened. An example of this would be if a person drank caffeine late at night, then they would be up all night. Another example of this would be if someone slipped on ice coming out of class.

The law of cause and effect is often considered to be the first governing principle of the universe. However, there are forces that precede this. (Forces that also precede Karma, the law of cause and effect on a moral spectrum) Longing, for example. Desire propels material life. It is the force that drives cause and effect. It represents our urges to seek as well as enjoy the pleasurable. It motivates us to avoid pain, along with our innate need to anticipate its occurrence pre-emptively.

Have you ever wondered about the world beyond its original state? How we know that electricity produces a light bulb to light up or causes the sort of energy necessary to produce heat? But in the first place, what is electricity? Nor have we seen it and not we encountered it; however, we know what it can do, hence its effects. To help us better understand the notion of cause and effect, David Hume, an empiricist and skepticist philosopher, proposed the that there is no such thing as causation. In his theory, he explained the deliberate relationship between the cause and effect, and how the two factors are not interrelated. Think of it this way: sometimes we end up failing to light a match even though it was struck. The previous day, it lit up, but today it did not. Why? Hume’s theory regarding causation helps us comprehend matters of cause and effect, and how we encounter the effects in our daily lives, without the cause being necessary. According to Hume, since we never experience the cause of something, we cannot use inductive reasoning to conclude that one event causes another. In other words, causal necessity (the cause and effect being related in some way or another) seems to be subjective, as if it solely exists in our minds and not in the object itself.

On the other hand, Anscombe disagrees with Hume, and believes that we can, and do observe causation. Anscombe uses examples of crushing, chewing, pushing, and such to illustrate that we do perceive causation. For example, if person A holds a sheet of paper in their hand, and then begins to crush the sheet of paper, and then later we see the sheet of paper crumbled; Anscombe argues that this is enough evidence to show that we do perceive causation, because we can see the causing of the sheet of paper to crumble. Another example is of person A cutting a sheet of paper; Anscombe would argue that it is evident that we observe the causing of the sheet of paper be divided. In addition, Ansombe add that we can perceive causation by tracing an effect to its cause. For example, of the cutting of a sheet of paper by person A, one can traced the effect (sheet of paper cut in half) to its cause (person A cutting the sheet of paper). Therefore, Anscombe claims that we do perceive causation. Anscombe believes that this evidence is sufficient to prove that we not only perceive “contiguity” and “succession” of events, but the cause of events.

     Hume analyzed the idea of causality by emphasizing the three demands that can be verified through observation. First he argued the aspect of constant conjunction. In this aspect, the cause and effect must be spatially and constantly existent. Secondly, he

Therefore, it can be asserted that knowledge gained from causality is not a priori, rather a posteriori, which is knowledge gained from experience and empirical evidence.

David Hume, a philosopher of the Enlightenment, challenged the thinking of the eighteenth century by questioning transcendentalism and believing one’s knowledge comes from one’s own senses. Considered a skeptic of the eighteenth century, Hume believes “we cannot get beyond our central perceptions to discover the essence of things, therefore we cannot find the causes of things” (Sonnino 3/10/16). He instead calls this theory “constant conjunction,” when one may consider things to keep happening in the same way they had before. Previously, philosophers such as Isaac Newton believed experience explains the causes of things (Sonnino 3/10/16). Formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation, many people regard Newton’s findings as an attribution to God for creating the world as a perfect machine.

Humans frequently engage in making causal judgements. For example, if an individual suffers a headache after ingesting alcohol, then the individual may deem that the alcohol caused the headache. The mechanism of this judgement has been characterised as being akin to the reflexive process of classical conditioning (Mitchell, De Houwer, & Lovibond, 2009). Essentially, the process of forming a mental link between the alcohol (a cue) to the headache (an outcome), is suggested to occur through classical associative learning (Mitchell, et al., 2009; Shanks, 2007). If a strong link between a cue and outcome is forged then the presentation of the cue is supposed to elicit a mental representation, and ultimately the expectation of the outcome (Shanks, 2007).

We, human beings, visibly and invisibly live in the cycle of cause and effect. This relationship exists in our lifetime.

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume states, “there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion” (Hume, 1993: 41). Hume establishes in section II that all ideas originate from impressions that employ the senses (11). Therefore, in order for there to be an idea of power or “necessary connexion,” there must be impressions of this connection present in single instances of cause and effect; if there are no such impressions, then there cannot be an idea of “necessary connexion” (52). To illustrate his statement, Hume examines four situations:

Imagine you want some tea, so you put a kettle of water on the stove. You turn on the gas, and shortly after, the water boils. In looking at what just happened, can you say that turning on the gas caused the water to boil? Or instead, would you say that there were two events – gas going on, and water boiling – but there is no real connection between the two? This dilemma plagued Hume throughout his life, and Section VII of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding deals exclusively with the subject of necessary connection and causality. Typically, the tradition of causality – saying A causes B – has been held as such: A is prior to B; A and B are contiguous (close in time and space); A and B are constantly conjoined; and A and B are necessarily connected. Hume took issue with this last condition – to say that would be to say that A has the power to produce B, therefore stating a causal necessity. Hume instead endeavored to eliminate this fourth condition, and reduce it to the first three, and constant conjunction. Hume’s central thought is that all we get to find out about the world is regularity, one thing following another, and one thing following another again, and so we conjure up beliefs about what causes what – through constant conjunction. Helen Beebee, a professor of philosophy at the University of Birmingham, says Hume was trying to do away with the “the thought that we can know a priori just by reflecting on concept, just by reflecting on the nature of ideas,

The theory of the Four Causes refers to an influential Aristotelian principle whereby the causes of movement and/or change are categorized allowing us to have knowledge of our existence and everything around us. Aristotle wrote that "we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its ‘why’, that is to say, its cause." He provided an account of the operation of various individual substances in the universe. Distinctions were made between things of two sorts: those that are contingent on something else’s movement and those that necessary in their own movement. Aristotle not only suggested a proper description of these but also attempted to answer particular questions such as ‘Why does this event happen?’ and ‘Why is this object as

David Hume is a British empiricist which means that he thought that all knowledge is ultimately rooted in sense experience and that all of our ideas derive from preceding impressions of sense or reflection, this theory had a huge effect on Humes account of causation. In this essay I will look at Humes account of causation and examine if any version of the Regularity View of causation can be defended.

“Causality” - Causality, within the context of determining the existence of free will, is the “causal link [that] determines what the future looks like.” (Rauhut, 82) In other words, it is the relationship between two or more events, in which an action is caused or influenced by a prior event. For example, within the context of my “big decision,” I am choosing between getting a traditional job or selling artwork. The causality within this scenario exists in that I grew up in an unstructured environment and have adapted to working with little structure. This predetermines my choice by influencing my preference and personal values.

Act and potency and their distinction are an important and fundamental theory in philosophy. It helps approach questions in metaphysics concerning substance, essence, and causation. In this essay, I will be using this theory of act and potency to show how the four causes and the theory relate to each other. Thus, the four causes: formal cause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause are related to each other and can be explained through the theory and concepts of act and potency.