Fundamentals of causality

Issue title: Complex Socio-Technical Systems – Understanding and Influencing Causality of Change

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Mumford, Stephen | Anjum, Rani Lill

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: stephen.mumford@notlingham.ac.uk

Abstract: The orthodox view of the fundamentals of causality can be traced back to the empiricist philosophy of David Hume. Hume said that for causality to occur, the cause and effect must be spatially together, the cause must occur before the effect and must always be followed by that type of effect. Hume also thought that our concept of cause included necessity, but he rejected this as unjustified by the evidence of our sense. We show how all four of these conceptual assumptions about what it is for one this to cause another can be challenged. An alternative view based on real powers or dispositions can allow causation without necessity, constant conjunction, temporal priority, or even contiguity.

Keywords: Cause, David Hume, powers, complexity, threshold

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0186

Journal: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 10, no. 1-4, pp. 75-84, 2011