Abstract

What is causation, and what are causal relations? Although the concept of causation must have been present in basic verbs, both transitive and intransitive, from the beginning of human speech, the difficulty of explaining this concept went unnoticed until the time of David Hume (1711–1776). Once the problem was appreciated, a number of important issues arose, an understanding of which requires the following ideas: (1) What are analytically basic concepts? (2) What is meant by a reductionist analysis of a concept? (3) What is a realist, or non-reductionist, analysis of a concept, and how is such an analysis carried out? Given answers to those questions, one is faced with the following crucial issues. First, is causation an analytically basic concept? Second, if not, how are causal relations between events related to causal laws? Third, can causation be given a reductive analysis in terms of other concepts, and if so, what is the correct analysis? If, on the other hand, reductive analyses do not work, can causation be given a realist, or non-reductive, analysis, and if so, what is the correct analysis? Next, in addition to causal relations between events, there are also causal laws, and one therefore has the question of how the two are related. Are causal relations ontologically more basic, and causal laws simply laws under which causal relations fall, or are causal laws more basic? Finally, in either case, what are laws of nature? Are they simply cosmic generalizations, or is something ontologically deeper involved?