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Toward a Widening of the Notion of Causality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Milič Čapek
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If we wish to speak of the widening of the idea of causality, we must first specify the exact meaning of this concept, the modification of which is now being considered by many contemporary philosophers and scientists. In order to shed light on the classical concept of causality, it is almost impossible to avoid approaching it from the genetic point of view. Without a historical perspective we have only a very limited understanding of the content of the classical concepts by which this philosophic as well as scientific tradition has been constituted. By showing the deep and tenacious roots of our belief in rigorous determinism, we shall better understand certain types of resistance which today are opposed to any attempt at making determinism more flexible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 7 , Issue 28 , December 1959 , pp. 63 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

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15. Ibid., PP. 38-39.

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19. William James, "The Dilemma of Determinism," The Will To Believe, pp. I54-55.

20. Ibid., p. I57, n. I. James adds: "Users of this argument should properly be ex cluded from debate till they learn what the real question is…. Persons really tempted often do murder their best friends, mothers do strangle their first-born, people do jump out of fourth-story windows, etc."

21. H. Driesch, "Naturwissenschaft und Philosophic," Actes du Congrès International de Philosophie, à Prague (I934); R. Berthelot, Bulletin de la Société Française de Philo sophie, Vol. XXXIV, No. 5 (October—December, I934); L. Brunschvicg, La Physique du vingtième siècle et la philosophie (Paris, I936).

22. Jean-Louis Destouches, La Physique moderne et la philosophie (Paris, I939), pp. 39-40.

23. A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I929), passim.

24. H. Bergson, The Creative Mind, trans. [of La Pensée et le mouvant] Mabelle Andi son (New York: Philosophical Library, I946), p. 220.

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27. G. W. Leibniz, Phil. Schriften, I, 568.

28. Boutroux, op. cit., p. 29.

29. O. Hamelin, Le Système de Renouvier (Paris: J. Vrin, I927), p. I47; William James, "The Dilemma of Determinism," The Will To Believe, p. I5I.

30. See my articles: "The Doctrine of Necessity Re-examined," Review of Metaphysics, V, No. 5 (I95I), 40-45; "Relativity and the Status of Space," ibid., Vol. IX, No. 2 (I955); and "La Théorie bergsonienne de la matière et la physique moderne," Revue Philosophique, Vol. LXXVII (I953).

31. Louis de Broglie, "L'Espace et le temps dans la physique quantique," Revue de métaphysique et de morale, LIV (I949), II9-20.