Causes and Effects

Extract

It is the objective of this paper to point out that discussions about cause and effect, and particularly those which bear upon their temporal relationship, are often blurred by failure to make use of the time-honored distinction between transeunt and immanent (also called “extrinsic” and “intrinsic”) causes. Transeunt causes are in evidence whenever we discern two systems, S₁ and S₂, spatially separated (at least in the beginning of the process), but locked in interaction. In this perspective, cotemporaneous changes can be asserted both of S₁ and S₂. S₁ has an effect on S₂, and vice versa. Both effects take place simultaneously but are, as a rule, of different nature. Whether we read the causal relationship from S₁, as the cause, to the changes of S₂, as the effect, or the other way, from S₂ to S₁, depends on nothing more objective than the momentary direction of our interest. Immanent causes get into focus whenever we compare the internal conditions C₁ and C₂ which characterize a system S₀ at two different moments t₁ and t₂. If t₁ is earlier than t₂, there is a sense in which we can say that C₁ is a cause, and C₂ its effect.