Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

A Short History of ‘Causation’

Author: Menno Hulswit
Publisher: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Category:

• ABSTRACT
• 1. CAUSATION IN ANCIENT GREECE
• 1.1. Aristotle: four types of explanation
• 1.2. The Stoics: causation, exceptionless regularity, and necessity
• 2. CAUSATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES
• 2.1. Thomas Aquinas
• 3. CAUSATION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY
• 3.1. THE METAPHYSICAL SYSTEMS FROM DESCARTES TILL LEIBNIZZ
• 3.1.1. Descartes: dismissal of substantial forms
• 3.1.2. Hobbes: causation and motion
• 3.1.3. Spinoza: causation is logical necessitation
• 3.1.4. Leibniz: sufficient reason and the denial of intra-substantial causality
• 3.2. CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY FROM LOCKE TILL MILL
• 3.2.1. Locke: causation and power
• 3.2.2. Newton: rejection of the principle of causality
• 3.2.3. David Hume: Causation and Regularity
• 3.2.4. Kant: causation as an a priori conception
• 3.2.5. John Stuart Mill: causes and causal circumstances
• 4. CONCLUSION: IMPORTANT CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF CAUSE
• References
• NOTES