Symbolism and Causality

SYMBOLISM AND CAUSALITY T HE rational organization of the world has always involved the notion of causalily in some form or another. }'or the simple observation and collection of detached events would be meaningless and useless without the operation of some principle of order. As the most significant and powerful instrument of order, causality is usually defined as that which produces something different from itself. Without discussing here the existence, meaning, types, operation or the value of causality, it suffices to acknowledge that this notion is generally accepted by common sense as well as by reflexive thinking, and that it has played a leading role in the natural sciences from the time of the Greeks to the classical period of modern science. The question to be treated here is whether causality is still relevant in science and more particularly in physical theories. As physics was mainly qualitative in earlier times, the causal language already accepted by common sense was convenient and adequate for natural science as welL In this sense, Aristotle and later St. Thomas 1 maintained that the physicist must use all the causes and especially the final cause in explaining nature. Insofar as rnobile being is the proper object of physics, the fact that it is a specification of being as such makes it capable of treatment by metaphysical categories as well. That is why the modern scientific thinkers, from Descartes and Newton to Laplace and Herz, remained faithful to the causal language, although their philosophies differed from the Aristotelian tradition" During the modern period, however, the quantitative aspect of physics emerged from the experiments of Galileo with an expanding success, and it lent itself more freely to a symbolic instead of to a verbal expression. At the same time, the subtle 1 St. Thomas, I Physic., lect. 1, and I Metaphys., lect. I (513b) and lect. ~ (5l8b). 100 SYMBOLISM AND CAUSALITY 101 analysis of the conditions and limits of knowledge, as well as of the strict and sufficient requirements of experimentation and generalization, led some philosophers to discard the notion of causality as a real and necessary principle. For Hume, a cause as such is never observable or perceivable; consequently, it has no objective existence. Causality thus shrinks into a mere habit and can be replaced more conveniently and effectively by linguistic or mathematical structures displaying the constant and necessary connections which prove sufficient to science. There is something uncanny about the finality with which Hume's analysis and conclusions have been accepted by scientists. But if one disagrees with his rudimentary epistemology , which confuses impressions and ideas, then his comments on causality do not make sense any more. The mind can certainly see or intuit the constant and necessary connections between given sets_ of objects or events. It also names and uses such connections in analyzing and systematizing knowledge. But it cannot be responsible for all the events themselves, for their actual contacts, for their results, and for their constant recurrence. For if it were, there could be no decisive distinction between objective changes and dreams or subjective constructions. And if it is not, then nothing can explain how the mind recognizes recurrences, how it interprets its perceptions, and why there is such a close parallelism between external events and our mental construction of them. Furthermore, it is unnecessary to observe a thing in order to assert its existence: atoms, electrons and protons are considered as objective without ever being observed as objects. Likewise, if some events are observable by external inspection or reflexive introspection, yet the details of their becoming or their continuity are never completely observable: yet, we accept these notions as a whole, as they help to assume or assert constant and necessary connections between events or objects. For there are no absolutely independent occurrences in the world, and no absolute discontinuity between any phenomena. Because of these intimate binding connections between events, scientific words are relatively static. And they have to 102 THOMAS GREENWOOD be in this world of flux, in order to fix meanings and uses in statements concerning the present and the future. In short, they are universals; and as such they should not be identified with the things in...