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Causal Determination: its Nature and Types
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
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The problem of the nature and scope of Causation has again been raised into prominence by recent research on atomic structures and processes, the result being that many physicists maintain that the causational principle must now be restricted to macroscopic changes regarded as the averaged outcome of microscopic events, each of which alone may not be causally determined, or at least not completely so. Of this markedly new departure Professor Eddington is perhaps the best-known advocate. “Physics,” he asserts, “is no longer pledged to a scheme of deterministic law; the search for a scheme of strictly causal law (is) not practical politics.” But the issue concerns not Physics only, for Dr. Eddington at once proceeds to interpret his viewpoint by contending that “science withdraws its opposition to free will”; and thus the realms of consciousness and conduct are once more brought into intimate connection with the realm of physical phenomena. It must of course be recognized that the question still remains highly debatable; for, as Sir Oliver Lodge has recently urged, “break down causality, and we are left with chance. That is wholly unsatisfactory. Chance is no solution”; and he likewise expands his survey beyond Physics by adding, “not in that way would I aim at freedom.” It is scarcely necessary to refer to current controversy in the biological sphere, between those who regard living processes as falling, if only to some degree, outside the domain of causal action, and those who insist that such action is universal, the indubitable proof of their position being prevented only by the difficulties of investigation.
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References
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page 555 note 2 This can clearly be seen in the contrast between a spinning and a quiescent gyroscope. Its motion is an added complexity which, by enabling it to defy external causal agencies, endows it with that capacity for self-direction which is now utilized in steering gear. Conversely, to demagnetize a compass needle is both to simplify its constitution and to reduce its status to that of the pebble. This general principle gains ever-widening scope as we advance to the still higher levels of Life and Mind.
page 555 note 3 Cf. The Mentality of Apes (Koehler) and The Great Apes (Yerkes).
page 556 note 1 I do not mean, of course, that civilized man is completely rational. Once again it is a matter of comparison and relativity, and we must hope that another million years will bring some slight improvement. Nor do I suggest that ideas, purely as such, impel to action; it is sufficient for my argument that ideas influence future action, but always causally.
page 556 note 2 Essays of a Biologist, p. 55.
page 557 note 1 Ideals are often effective without being good, as with successful fraudulent financiers or unscrupulous politicians. To pursue this aspect of the situation would be to show that, in the end, the most completely rational is identical with the highest good—the fundamental Hegelian principle that “the Rational is the Real.”