Kant on the Necessity of Causal Relations

Natur und Freiheit: Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, hrsg. v. Violetta L. Waibel, Margit Ruffing und David Wagner,, 2018

In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason we find the idea that providing a causal explanation for a certain natural phenomenon is necessarily equivalent with providing a sufficient reason for the occurrence of that phenomenon. In this work, I examine, first, this fundamental equivalence between the principle of causality and the principle of sufficient reason as it is presented in the “Second Analogy of Experience” and second, I explore this equivalence in contrast with other forms of explanations, in the light of the distinction between mechanical causality and teleological causality, as presented in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. I aim to show, contrary to what Béatrice Longuenesse² has argued, that the principle of sufficient reason, in the context of scientific explanation of nature, cannot be either identified with or otherwise reduced to the principle of causality in “Second Analogy of Experience”.

Kant on the Human Standpoint, 2009

Kant on Causality. In the schematism of the categories of the Metaphysical Deduction of the Categories of the Analytic of Conceptions of the Transcendental Analytic, and in the Second Analogy of Experience of the Analytic of Principles, the first part of Transcendental Analytic, both of which are included in the first division of the Transcendental Logic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant affirmed a transcendental idealist view of causality as an a priori form, a category of the understanding, the second of the categories of relation, derived from the hypothetical judgment of relation. The judgment of causality and dependence (cause and effect), he says, is not analytic a priori nor synthetic a posteriori, but is a synthetic a priori judgment, wherein the intellect expresses an a priori form by means of a judgment, unifying it with a conglomeration of phenomena. Consequently, causality has only a subjective validity within the realm of phenomena, not an objective, extra-mental noumenal one. Efficient causality, therefore, for the agnostic Kant, is not valid to demonstrate, for example, the existence of an extra-mental transcendent God. For Kant, "every synthetic a priori judgment is a complex whole, necessarily formed of three elements: 1) Sensible intuition is the first element as the matter of judgment; it comprises the experientially given which is passively received, and the a priori sensible form. 2) The concept, or a priori intellectual form, is the second element. 3) The schematism, or intermediary of the imagination 1 is the third element. For example, in order to pronounce this a priori synthetic judgment, 'The rising of liquids in a void has a cause,' the understanding, in Kant's view, formulates a hypothetical judgment, as 'If one posits the rising of a liquid, one necessarily posits its cause.' This judgment is such that there is between the two terms a bond of non-reciprocal dependence, that of effect upon cause. The raising of the liquid depends on the weight of the atmosphere , and not vice versa. Thus, when a savant perceives the concrete fact of a liquid raising itself in a void, the a priori form of causality is released in his spirit; and, beyond the frame of temporal succession (schematism of the concept of causality) and in virtue of the principle or general law that 'all changes occur in following the liaison of effects and causes,' he pronounces the scientific judgment, 'the raising of liquids in a void is produced by atmospheric pressure." 2 Describing Kant's views on causality and dependence (cause and effect) in the Critique of Pure Reason, Howard Caygill writes that "within the 'Transcendental Analytic,' causalitymore properly 'causality and dependence (cause and effect)'-features as the second of the categories of relation. These are derived from the pure judgements of relation, the second of which concerns the logical relation of ground to consequence. Causality, along with the other categories, is justified in the deduction as a form of 'connection and unity' which 'precedes all experience' and without which experience would not be possible. However, along with the other 8 By an "arbitrary" order Kant does not, of course, mean an order of succession that is not determined, but only one that is determined by subjectively conditioned direction of attention. Cf. below, p. 377.

This paper examines Kant’s account of causal knowledge by paying particular attention to the Critique of Teleological Judgment where Kant is concerned not with his well-known account of causality as the transcendental conditions of experience but with the possibility of causally explaining concrete objects in nature and, more specifically, material nature. The chapter develops an interpretation of Kant’s maxim of mechanism as a purely regulative principle that enables us to make determining judgments about mechanical causes. It concludes that knowledge of particular mechanical causes is essentially dependent on both constitutive and regulative principles.

The Philosophical Review, 2023

Kant’s formula of universal law (FUL) is standardly understood as a test of the moral permissibility of an agent’s maxim: maxims which pass the test are morally neutral, and so permissible, while those which do not are morally impermissible. In contrast, I argue that the FUL tests whether a maxim is the cause or determining ground of an action at all. According to Kant’s general account of causality, nothing can be a cause of some effect unless there is a law-like relation between the putative cause and effect. Applied to the case of action, no maxim can be the cause of an agent’s action unless there is a law-like relation between maxims of that kind and actions of that kind. The special capacity to act according to maxims as law-like causes is what Kant calls a will; the basic constitutive principle of the will is a non-normative principle I call the categorical declarative. While the actions of a perfectly good will would be described by the categorical declarative alone, human action is determined not only by the causality of the will, but also by competing causes, namely those stemming from inclination. There is thus need for a causal test for putative maxims. The test contained in the FUL is meant to determine whether an action could be grounded solely on the agent’s maxim, or whether it requires a cause external to the will. This account permits one to build eventual distinctions concerning the morality of actions on prior and independent distinctions concerning their causality.

Philosophical Review, 2010

and Eric Watkins, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

2005

The main concern of the thesis is the problem of reconciliation of freedom and natural causality and to investigate how Kant makes a room for freedom. Kant, firstly, in "Analytic", constitutes the conditions of knowledge upon which the objective validity of the law of causality entirely rests. This process of constitution also determines the limits of experience. On the other hand, Kant, in "Dialectic", postulates freedom as a noumenal cause together with the law of causality. Transcendental freedom, in this case, is a problematic concept which transcends the limits of experience, as it seems to destruct the unity of experience. However, Kant gives up neither the law of causality nor the idea of freedom, but rather he insists upon the idea that they can exist together without contradiction by asserting the distinction between phenomena and noumena as different grounds on which these iv two different types of causalities rest. According to Kant both are indispensable, as the former is necessary for the knowledge and the latter is absolutely needed for morality. In this context this thesis aims to explain the objective validity of natural causality which is proved in Second Analogy and the transcendental ground of the idea of freedom which is established in the solution of Third Antinomy in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. And it is discussed whether Kant's solution of this issue is satisfactory and legitimate or not.

Kant Yearbook, 2015

In the Second Analogy of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Kant attempts to address Hume’s causal skepticism. Kant argues that the concept of cause must be employed in order to identify objective changes in the world, and that, therefore, all events are caused. In this paper, I will challenge Kant’s argument in the Second Analogy, arguing that we can identify objective changes without using the concept of cause, but by using the concept of logical condition instead. Rather than objectively ordering our perceptions through the idea that one thing that was perceived is the cause of the next thing that was perceived, the first necessitating the second, we can objectively order our perceptions through the idea that the first thing perceived is the logical condition of the second. In terms of Kant’s debate with Hume, I find that, though my objection undermines some of Hume’s own conclusions, it does allow Hume to avoid Kant’s argument against his causal skepticism.

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 2014

The aim of the paper is threefold. Its first aim is to defend Eric Watkins's claim that for Kant, a cause is not an event but a causal power: a power that is borne by a substance, and that, when active, brings about its effect, i.e. a change of the states of another substance, by generating a continuous flow of intermediate states of that substance. The second aim of the paper is to argue against Watkins that the Kantian concept of causal power is not the pre critical concept of real ground but the category of causality, and that Kant holds with Hume that causal laws cannot be inferred non inductively (that he accordingly has no intention to show in the Second analogy or elsewhere that events fall under causal laws). The third aim of the paper is to compare the Kantian position on causality with central tenets of contemporary powers ontology: it argues that unlike the variants endorsed by contemporary powers theorists, the Kantian variants of these tenets are resistant to objections that neo Humeans raise to these tenets.