The title of this chapter is "Causality and Explanation". The proposal which Bakker and Clark (B&C) identify here is that "the most adequate explanation is the one that identifies causes". There is something intuitively plausible about this proposal, I think. It is hard to account for this intuition, but perhaps it has something to do with the importance of cause/effect relationships in our ordinary lives. This importance, however, is not necessarily relevant to what we will take to be an adequate scientific explanation. So, let's give an example. How to explain why the litmus paper turned red when placed in acid? Answer: The chemicals of the acid mixed with the chemicals of the paper (and if we were chemists, we could specify the structure of the chemicals, etc.), and caused the paper to turn red.
If the above "explanation" is not satisfying to you, take heart, for you are not alone. I think part of the uneasiness has to do with our lack of understanding about causality as such, with David Hume's polemics always in the back of the mind. Another part of the uneasiness is perhaps connected to our ignorance about just what a explanation is supposed to achieve. Here we need to go to school and do some serious reflecting. We probably can't do this all on our own, and since Chapters 1 and 2 seemed to provide little help on this, we'll look to Chapter 3 as a new beginning of our search.
As B&C note, appeal to causes, and causal processes (what B&C refer to as a causal nexus), is one of the oldest methods of explaining. If you could say what caused the lights to go off, then you will have explained the lights going off. Now, while it seems pretty easy in the ordinary world to point to the cause of something, this "easiness" is deceptive, for the concept of causality is not simple, as witnessed by what Bakker and Clark call the differences in what people take the meaning of causality to be. There are different ways to look at causality: 1. Event C always precedes event E; 2. There is something necessary about the occurrences of events C and E (the necessary connection aspect); 3. There is a power event C has to produce event E (some say a secret power, others a productive power); 4. Events C and E are part of a constant conjunction of events.
As you can see, this entire business of pointing the philosophical finger at the notion of causality has a tendency to get people thinking along deterministic lines. This is especially so if one adds no event is uncaused to the ideas of necessary connection, productive power, and constant conjunction. Then of course the idea of the predictive power of science looms large, for if we could understand what causes what, the future would be laid out before us like a long straight highway viewed from above.
B&C introduce us to Aristotle's distinctions between formal, material, efficient, and final causes. An important question in philosophy of science is the extent to which science uses these conceptions of causality. Ernst Mayr makes an interesting case for final causes in biology and it is difficult to refute his argument on the grounds that "that's not the way we talk" when in fact it is exactly the way we talk sometimes. For example, though many people (most?) would not refer to nature as a conscious entity, still, those same people may well utter such words as, "Natural selection does its best to favor the production of codes guaranteeing behavior that increases fitness." (Mayr, p. 31 in B&C) Presumably, Mayr is not here really saying that nature (through natural selection) somehow strives in a conscious way to guarantee certain behavior. No, Mayr is using the phrase does its best to refer to something like an end product (in this case an end product of natural selection). The fact that science has largely dispensed with talk of purposive behavior of nature does not mean that that talk is unhelpful, as long as it is kept clear that we are not referring to nature as having a conscious purpose. This sort of teleology is strictly verboten, and the final say on final causes is generally agreed to be this: Since you can't test them, they don't belong in science. In the end, if we continue to speak in terms of final causes, perhaps we need to admit that it is simply a way of talking.
More interesting to some is the idea of formal cause. You may liken this preference
to a greater interest in formal logic than informal logic. Formal logic has no content; the
extralogical symbols (such as words and phrases in natural languages) are rendered unambiguous
(as far as that is possible at all) by representing them in the artificial language of logic.
So, for example, in English we have the sentence:
The logical symbols here are the parentheses and the arrow (®), which stand for punctuation and implication, respectively. To reduce this sentence even further, we take out all reference to Jean and Dave and put 'p' and 'q' in their places. In this way, logic (and logicians) become interested only in the form of the sentence. It's the same way with a mathematical rendering of a law, or axiom, or even an entire theory. It's the form that matters, not the content.
Certainly form, especially when we think of form as having to do with structure, is important for understanding causal explanations. Understanding how the structure of an object has been changed or has contributed to change goes a long way in explaining certain events. This is seen most clearly in a number of sciences, engineering, quantum mechanics and genetics, to name but three.
Nonetheless, it seems to many people that one cannot reasonably talk about causal explanations without also bringing in efficient and materialcauses. In fact, it may well be that the formal, material and efficient causes work together at all turns. Take the example of wax melting by the fire. To attempt to give a full explanation of this event without referring to the structure and material of the wax as well as the process by which the wax is altered has seemed to some people pure nonsense. At present, I would say that this way of talking and thinking about causality in science is the paradigm. However, quantum mechanics questions causality at the ground level, which leads us to David Hume.
And it is just here where we will pick up the conversation in class. Read the passage from Hume in B&C carefully. Come to class with questions and comments. Also, Kant's response to Hume is quite powerful for some people. We'll want to examine this.
Question. Could Hume legitimately respond to Kant by saying that the concept of causality as Kant uses it is further evidence of psychological habit on our part? Be able to explain your answer to this question.