Abstract

A clear, thorough, and suggestive study of causality, by one who has an intimate knowledge of both science and philosophy. In the first part the author discusses different formulations of the causal principle and then proceeds to attack the empirical and the romantic views of causality. In the third part of the study the claims for the "linearity," "uni-directionality," "externality" of causality and the impossibility of novelty are critically analyzed. In the last part the author discusses the role of philosophy in modern science, particularly in physics, concluding that the causal principle is...a general hypothesis subsumed under the universal principle of determinacy, and having an approximate validity in its proper domain."--K. H.