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The “Established Maxim” and Causal Chains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

A. David Kline
A. David Kline*
Affiliation:
Iowa State University
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Extract

There is an ancient principle for which a number of writers on time and causation feel a certain allegiance. Bertrand Russell puts the idea with his characteristic flare for style: “… it seems strange—too strange to be accepted, in spite of bare logical possibility—that the cause, after existing placidly for some time, should suddenly explode into the effect, when it might just as well have done so at an earlier time, or have gone unchanged without producing its effect.” (Russell 1912, pp. 178-179). The maxim has a habit in the history of thought of lying unnoticed but once spotted leading its viewer to less than cautious theses. With maxim in hand, David Hume (1739, p. 76) concludes that simultaneous causation is impossible, Myles Brand (1980) concludes that every causal relation is one of simultaneity, Russell.(1912) declares that the very notion of causation is incoherent.

Type
Part II. Causation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 65 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank my colleague, William Robinson, for helping me think about this topic. A version of this paper was read at Marquette University.

References

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