Peter Machamer and Gereon Wolters, eds. Thinking About Causes: From Greek Philosophy to Modern Physics (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 2007), 384 Pps., $75.00.
Causation has troubled philosophers at least since the time of Aristotle, and philosophers have consequently sought to clarify the concept of causation. The main reason for the quest to clarify causation concerns its implications for other philosophical issues, as clarity regarding causation is intrinsically vital for clarity in the areas of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, as well as the philosophy of logic. To believe in causation is simply to believe that there is something fundamental about nature in virtue of which the world is regular in its behavior and that something is what causation is, or is at least is an essential component of what causation involves. It may be added that the concept of causation involves the notion of one thing deriving from another.
Probably the most radical change in the meaning of “cause” occurred during the seventeenth century, in which there emerged a strong tendency to understand causal relations as instantiations of deterministic laws. Prior to the seventeenth century, Western philosophy largely considered the concept of causation as unproblematic, and its intelligibility was not an issue. However, during this early modern period many philosophers questioned the intelligibility of causal interactions and the notion of causation itself. Whereas the Aristotelian/scholastic model of causation centered God as the active cause of everything within his creation, that model is jettisoned by early modern philosophers in favor of explanations without God, substantial forms, or even substances. As a consequence of this debate, causes were no longer seen as the active initiators of a change, but as inactive nodes in a law-like implication chain. Natural philosophers, thus, attempted to explain causation in terms of matter and motion alone. An important characteristic of the early modern conception of cause was that causation and determinism became virtually equivalent.
Peter Machamer is professor of history and philosophy of science, University of Pittsburgh. Gereon Wolters is professor of philosophy and deputy director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Konstanz. Together, Machamer and Wolters have edited the eleventh installment to the Pittsburgh-Konstanz Series in the Philosophy and History of Science. In so doing, they have brought together sixteen different authors to review current theories of causality, and to explore how causality works within the variant branches of science.
Thinking about Causes brings together top philosophers from the United States and Europe to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought. Topics addressed include: ancient Stoicism and moral philosophy; the case of sacramental causality; traditional causal concepts in Descartes; Kant on transcendental laws; the influence of J.S. Mill’s politics on his concept of causation; plurality in causality; causality in modern physics; causality in economics; and the concept of free will. Taken together, these sixteen essays provide adequate coverage to current ruminations about causality, especially as it relates to the larger area of the philosophy of science. In fact, they cover most of the major historical periods in which causality has been a central issue, and have brought many aspects of the discussion to contemporary attention. Although a comprehensive definition of causality is notoriously hard to provide, these authors do a good job of highlighting the crucial issues regarding causality in the twenty first century.
A notable strength of the book is likewise its weakness: its breadth of coverage. I say that this is both a weakness as well as a strength because in attempting to have a broad swath, there are several seemingly out-of-place essays within the volume. For example, Adams’ essay regarding sacramental causality takes the conversation of the book out of the physical realm entirely and into the metaphysical realm, where I question if causality is truly a topic of pursuit. Moreover, Inwood’s essay concerning causality and morality is similarly seemingly out-of-place, especially when considering the overwhelming natural science orientation of the majority of the sixteen essays. As a final critique, I found Granger’s essay concerning causality in economics to be almost entirely unrelated to the larger goal of the book: to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought. These three aberrations aside, I heartily recommend the purchase and consumption of this volume for graduate and postgraduate students, as well as others who are interested in the technicalities of causation. Not only are the majority of the essays in and of themselves profitable reading, but there are also invaluable quasi-bibliographies which point the interested reader to other (extensive) literature regarding causality.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA