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Unfortunately, this system breaks down severely when applied to natural phenomena. Finally, the chair is made for the purpose of being sat on, its ‘final cause’. The ‘formal cause’ is the idea of making a certain chair out of it with the design of that chair and doing the actual carpentry is the ‘efficient cause’. The ‘material cause’, the wood, is the starting point. It should be said that Aristotle’s system works best for deliberately created artefacts (physical or otherwise). In Time We Trust by Friedrich Farshaad Razmjouie, 2021 Aristotle was identifying the factors involved in producing any result. However, a better translation of aition might be ‘factor’. In the Middle Ages the Greek word aition was rendered by the Latin word causa, and this gives us the English ‘cause’. I’ve put ‘cause’ in inverted commas here because it is a mistranslation of what Aristotle said. The ‘final cause’ – the purpose behind the thing or event.The ‘efficient cause’ – the action which shapes the thing.The ‘formal cause’ – the design into which the material is shaped.The ‘material cause’ – the physical composition of something.Aristotle, it may be remembered, argued that there were four ‘causes’ involved in any event, that is, in the creation or altering of any object: This will possibly be reminiscent of Aristotle’s theory of causation. So, we can draw a line from coronavirus to blue skies – but it will not be a straight line, and will have to take in some other things on the way. In other words, once we decide to take action, then in respect of our behaviour we create the possibility of a non-linear understanding of causation. That example shows that our usual assumption – that causation cannot work backward in time – fails in the face of human intention. As for linear effects, the quarry example demonstrates that these do not necessarily work. But as we have seen in the case of Covid-19, cause x has produced multiple effects, many of which were not foreseen or intended.
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To take the latter first: we are inclined to think that a single cause x causes single effect y. Our understanding of causation also tends to be linear and singular. But, does the explosion cause the signal? Well, yes, in a sense… But how can something that happens after an event cause that event? The answer is, of course, that the human intention of the explosion causes the signal and it is in this sense that the explosion causes the signal which precedes it. Does the signal cause the explosion? Of course not. A signal sounds in a quarry to announce an explosion. Lewis came up with a brilliant counter-example.
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We tend to think in post hoc, ergo propter hoc (‘after that, therefore because of that’) terms. Human beings are not particularly well equipped to understand causation. In other words, without Covid-19, these things would not have happened, so it is legitimate to describe Covid-19 as (in some sense) the cause of these effects. But on the other hand, if Covid-19 hadn’t happened, our response of less traffic would not have happened, and so the effects would not have happened so the effects lie at the end of a chain of causation which begins with Covid-19. Now if we choose to be pedantic, it could be said that these effects are not caused by Covid-19 but by our response to it. So my vision has improved, in the sense that I can see further than I used to. Also, that lack of haze means that I can look out of my bedroom window, and, for the first time in thirty-four years, see clearly to the horizon – in my case, several miles away in north London. As a result, pollution levels have dropped significantly, and so the sky is bluer than usual for want of haze. It is an undoubted scientific fact that one result of the lockdown was a severe reduction in travel – both flights and on the ground. SUBSCRIBE NOW Reality Coronavirus, Correlation & Causation Martin Jenkins uses the virus to test our knowledge of causation.īecause of the coronavirus, the skies are bluer, and my vision has improved.ĭo those assertions sound crazy? Well, they probably do but I can demonstrate that they are, if not literally true, logically justifiable.