CRITIQUE OF KANT ON CAUSALITY AS AN A PRIORI

CATEGORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2017.

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 relation1 The judgment of causality and dependence (cause and effect), he says, is not analytic

1
Studies on Kant’s views on causality: A. C. EWING, Kant’s Treatment of Causality, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London, 1924 ; G. BUCHDAHL, Causality, Causal Laws, and Scientific Theory in the Philosophy of Kant, “British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science,” 16 (1965), pp. 187-208 ; G. BUCHDAHL, The Kantian ‘Dynamic of
Reason’ with Special Reference to the Place of Causality in Kant’s System, in Kant Studies Today, edited by L. W.
Beck, Open Court, Chicago, 1969, pp. 341-374 ; W. A. SUCHTING, Kant’s Second Analogy of Experience, in Kant
Studies Today, edited by L. W. Beck, Open Court, Chicago, 1969, pp. 322-340 ; L. W. BECK, Six Short Pieces on
the Second Analogy of Experience, in L. W. Beck, Essays on Kant and Hume, Yale University Press, New Haven,
CT, 1978, pp. 130-164 ; H. ROBINSON, What the Second Analogy Does, “The Southwestern Journal of
Philosophy,” 11.1 (1980), pp. 35-42 ; G. NAGEL, Substance and Causation, in Kant on Causality, Freedom, and
Objectivity, edited by W. L. Harper and R. Meerbote, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1984, pp.
97-107 ; C. J. POSY, Transcendental Idealism and Causality: An Interpretation of Kant’s Argument in the Second
Analogy, in Kant on Causality, Freedom, and Objectivity, edited by W. L. Harper and R. Meerbote, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1984, pp. 20-41 ; G. BRITTAN, Kant, Closure, and Causality in Kant on
Causality, Freedom, and Objectivity, edited by W. L. Harper and R. Meerbote, University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, MN, 1984, pp. 66-82 ; D. P. DRYER, The Second Analogy, in Kant on Causality, Freedom, and
Objectivity, edited by W. L. Harper and R. Meerbote, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1984, pp.
58-64 ; W. L. HARPER and R. MEERBOTE (eds.), Kant on Causality, Freedom, and Objectivity, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1984 ; M. FRIEDMAN, Causal Laws and the Foundations of Natural Science,
in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, edited by P. Guyer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 161-
199 ; G. STEINHOFF, Recent Phenomenalist Interpretations of Kant’s Second Analogy, “Southwest Philosophy
Review,” 9 (1993), pp. 29-41 ; H. ALLISON, Causality and Causal Laws in Kant: A Critique of Michael Friedman,
in Kant and Contemporary Epistemology, edited by P. Parrini, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1994, pp.
291-307 ; S. M. BAYNE, Objects of Representations and Kant’s Second Analogy, “Journal of the History of
Philosophy,” 32.3 (1994), pp. 381-410 ; M. CARRIER, How to Tell Causes from Effects: Kant’s Causal Theory of
Time and Modern Approaches, “Studies in History and Philosophy of Science,” 34 (2003), pp. 59-71 ; E.
WATKINS, Forces and Causes in Kant’s Early Pre-Critical Writings, “Studies in History and Philosophy of
Science, 34 (2003), pp. 5-27 ; P. McLAUGHLIN, Newtonian Biology and Kant’s Mechanistic Concept of Causality,
in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays, edited by P. Guyer, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham,
MD, 2003, pp. 209-218 ; E. WATKINS, Kant’s Model of Causality: Causal Powers, Laws, and Kant’s Reply to
Hume, “Journal of the History of Philosophy, 42 (2004), pp. 449-488 ; S. M. BAYNE, Kant on Causation, SUNY
Press, Albany, NY, 2004 ; E. WATKINS, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2005 ; A. MELNICK, Kant’s Proofs of Substance and Causation, in The Cambridge Companion to
Kant and Modern Philosophy, edited by P. Guyer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 203-237 ; A.
BREITENBACH, Kant on Causal Knowledge, in Causation and Modern Philosophy, edited by K. Allen and T.
Stoneham, Routledge, London, 2011, pp. 201-219 ; R. GREENBERG, The Bounds of Freedom: Kant’s Causal
Theory of Action, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2016.

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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 imagination2 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.”3

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,’ causality –
more 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
categories, causality by itself cannot be applied directly to intuitions; it has to be schematized;
that is, adapted to intuitions, in the course of which it becomes ‘the succession of the manifold,
in so far as that succession is subject to a rule’ (A 144/B 183). This is also achieved in ‘Analytic
of Principles’ which aligns the categories – justified in terms of ‘transcendental judgement’ with
reference to ‘universal conditions’ – with the actual conditions of the ‘relation to sensibility in
general’ (CPR A 148/B 187). To the categories of relation correspond the principles of the
analogies of experience which determine how appearances are ordered temporally. As the second
category of relation, causality yields the second analogy which states that all experience obeys
the law of succession according to cause and effect. This analogy is then justified by aligning the
irreversibility of causal succession with the irreversibility of time.

2
The object of this judgment is the phenomenon, so that this term designates these three different things: a) the brute
phenomenon, which is simply the experientially given; 2) the sensible phenomenon, whuch is this ‘given’ material
unified by space and time; 3) the scientific phenomenon, which is the fact under the form of a universal and
necessary law.
3
F.-J., THONNARD, A Short History of Philosophy, Descée, Tournai, 1956, pp. 674-675.

2
 “With such arguments Kant attempted to prove that causality was a condition of
experience and could not be derived from it…”4

Adriano Alessi observes the following concerning Kant’s critical period, transcendental
idealist views on causality, that is, on causality and dependence (cause and effect): “Kant accetta
le tesi humiana secondo cui il nesso causa-effetto non è, né un dato di esperienza sensibile, né un
principio analitico. Per questo (e in conformità con la tesi dell’inconoscibilità radicale del
noumeno) il principio di causalità è destituito di valore ontologico.

“Tuttavia, per non relegare nell’insignificanza il sapere scientifico (vale a dire ogni forma
di conoscenza universale e necessaria), per garantire cioè validità alle scienze matematico-fisiche
che hanno come oggetto il mondo dei fenomeni, Kant afferma che il principio di causalità è un
giudizio sintetico a priori. In questo modo perviene a riconoscere il valore universale e
necessario del principio senza ammetterne la valenza metafisica. Ciò è concretamente possibile
in quanto, secondo Kant, il principio di causalità costituisce:

“– un giudizio, ossia un atto giudicativo del soggetto conoscente;

“– sintetico, vale a dire inglobante un elemento proveniente dall’esperienza: tale

elemento «sintetico», o «a-posteriori», è costituito dal dato della pura successione di eventi nello
spazio e nel tempo; esso, appunto perché proveniente dall’al di là del soggetto, garantisce un
certo contenuto, sia pure fenomenico e non noumenico, al sapere umano;

“– a priori: tale giudizio include anche un elemento, o una struttura ineliminabile del
soggetto conoscitivo. Questa componente «a priori» è rappresentata dalla categoria soggettiva
del nesso causa-effetto. Costituisce una struttura per sé vuota di contenuti, ma che illumina i dati
intrinsicamente ciechi dell’esperienza. Propria di ogni soggetto conoscente, garantisce valore (o
forma) di necessità ed universalità al sapere esperienziale.5”6

In his explanation of Kant’s Second Analogy of Experience in the Transcendental

Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason, which contains Kant’s transcendental idealist views on
causality and dependence (cause and effect), Norman Kemp Smith writes that the Second
Analogy “is of special historical importance as being Kant’s answer to Hume’s denial of the
validity of the causal principle. Hume had maintained that we can never be conscious of anything
but mere succession. Kant in reply seeks to prove that consciousness of succession is only
possible through consciousness of a necessity that determines the order of the successive events.

“Kant, we must bear in mind, accepts much of Hume’s criticism of the category of
causality. The general principle that every event must have an antecedent cause is, Kant
recognises, neither intuitively certain nor demonstrable by general reasoning from more ultimate
truths. It is not to be accounted for by analytic thought, but like all synthetic judgments a priori

4
H. CAYGILL, A Kant Dictionary, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000, pp. 107-108.
5
Cfr. I. KANT, Critica della ragion pura: Analitica trascendentale, libro II, cap. 2, sez. 3, pp. 177-242. Sul
rapporto tra scienza fisica e conoscenza metafisica in Kant si veda J. VUILLEMIN, Physique et métaphysique
kantienne, Paris, 1955.
6
A. ALESSI, Sui sentieri dell’essere, LAS, Rome, 2004, p. 300.

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can only be proved by reference to the contingent fact of actual experience. Secondly, Kant
makes no attempt, either in this Analogy or elsewhere in the Critique, to explain the nature and
possibility of causal connection, that is, to show how one event, the cause, is able to give rise to
another and different event, the effect. We can never by analysis of an effect discover any reason
why it must necessarily be preceded by a cause.7 Thirdly, the principle of causality, as deduced
by Kant and shown to be necessarily involved in all consciousness of time, is the quite general
principle that every event must have some cause in what immediately precedes it. What in each
special case the cause may be, can only be empirically discovered; and that any selected event is
really the cause can never be absolutely certain. The particular causal laws are discovered from
experience, not by means of the general principle but only in accordance with it, and are
therefore neither purely empirical nor wholly a priori. As even J. S. Mill teaches, the general
principle is assumed in every inference to a causal law, and save by thus assuming the general
principle the particular inference to causal connection cannot be proved. But at the same time,
since the proof of causal connection depends upon satisfaction of those empirical tests which
Mill formulates in his inductive methods, such special causal laws can be gathered only from
experience.

“The starting-point of Kant’s analysis is our consciousness of an objective order in time.

This is for Kant a legitimate starting-point since he has proved in the Transcendental Deduction
that only through consciousness of the objective is consciousness of the subjective in any form
possible. The independent argument by which it is here supported is merely a particular
application of the general principle of that deduction. When we apprehend any very large object,
such as a house, though we do so by successively perceiving the different parts of it, we never
think of regarding these successive perceptions as representing anything successive in the house.
On the other hand, when we apprehend successive events in time, such as the successive
positions of a ship sailing down stream, we do regard the succession of our experiences as
representing objective succession in what is apprehended. Kant therefore feels justified in taking
as fact, that we have the power of distinguishing between subjective and objective succession,
i.e. between sequences which are determined by the order of our attentive experience and
sequences which are given as such. It is this fact which affords Kant a precise method of
formulating the problem of the second Analogy, viz. how consciousness of objective change, as
distinguished from, subjective succession, is possible?

“…We may now return to Kant’s main argument. His problem, as we have found, is how
consciousness of objective change, as distinguished from subjective succession, is possible. The
problem, being formulated in this particular way, demands, Kant felt, careful definition of what
is meant by the term ‘objective,’ upon which so much depends. To apply the illustration above
used, the house as apprehended is not a thing in itself but only an appearance to the mind. What,
then, do we mean by the house, as distinguished from our subjective representations of it, when
that house is nothing but a complex (Inbegriff) of representations?8 The question and Kant’s
answer to it are stated in subjectivist fashion, in terms of his earlier doctrine of the transcendental
object. To contrast an object with the representations through which we apprehend it, is only
possible if these representations stand under a rule which renders necessary their combination in
some one particular way, and so distinguishes this one particular mode of representation as the

7
Cf. A 205-7 = B 252.
8
A 191 = B 236.

4
only true mode from all others. The origin, therefore, of our distinction between the subjectively
successive and the succession which is also objective must be due in the one case to the presence
of a rule compelling us to combine the events in some particular successive order, and in the
other to the absence of such a rule. Our apprehension of the house, for instance, may proceed in
any order, from the roof downwards or vice versa, and as the order may always be reversed there
is no compulsion upon the mind to regard the order of its apprehension as representing objective
sequence. But since in our apprehension of an event B in time, the apprehension of B follows
upon the apprehension of a previous event A, and we cannot reverse the order, the mind is
compelled to view the order of succession, in terms of the category of causality, as necessitated,
and therefore as objective. The order is a necessary order not in the sense that A must always
precede B, that A is the cause of B, but that the order, if we are to apprehend it correctly, must in
this particular case be conceived as necessary. The succession, that is, need not be conceived as a
causal one, but in order to be conceived as objective succession it must be conceived as rendered
necessary by connections that are causal.

“Having, in this general fashion, shown the bearing of his previous analysis of objective
experience upon the problem in hand, Kant proceeds to develop from it his proof of the special
principle of causality. The schema of causality is necessary succession in time, and it is through
this, its time aspect, that Kant approaches the principle. It has to do with the special case of
change. To be conscious of change we must be conscious of an event, that is, of something as
happening at a particular point in time. The change, in other words, requires to be dated, and as
we are not conscious of time in general, it must be dated by reference to other events, and
obviously in this case in relation to the preceding events, in contrast to which it is apprehended
as change. But according to the results of our analysis of what constitutes objective experience, it
can be fixed in its position in objective time only if it be conceived as related to the preceding
events according to a necessary law; and the law of necessary connection in time is the law of
causality. In order, then, that something which has taken place may be apprehended as having
occurred, that is, as being an objective change, it must be apprehended as necessarily following
upon that which immediately precedes it in time, i.e. as causally necessary.

“The principle of causality thus conditions consciousness of objective succession, and

Hume in asserting that we are conscious of the succession of events, therefore admits all that
need be assumed in order to prove the principle. The reason why Hume failed to recognise this,
is that he ignored the distinction between consciousness of the subjective order of our
apprehensions and consciousness of the objective sequence of events. Yet that is a distinction
upon which his own position rested. For he teaches that determination of causal laws, sufficiently
certain to serve the purposes alike of practical life and of natural science, can be obtained
through observation of those sequences which remain constant. Such is also the position of all
empiricists. They hold that causal relation is discovered by comparison of given sequences.
Kant’s contention is that the apprehension of change as change, and therefore ultimately the
apprehension even of an arbitrarily determined order of subjective succession,9 presupposes, and
is only possible through, an application of the category of causality. The primary function of the
understanding does not consist in the clarification of our representation of an event, but in

9
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.

5
making such representation possible at all.10 The primary field of exercise for the understanding
lies not in the realm of reflective comparison, but in the more fundamental sphere of creative
synthesis.11 In determining the nature of the given it predetermines the principles to which all
reflection upon the given must conform. The discursive activities of scientific reflection are
secondary to, and conditioned by, the transcendental processes which generate the experience of
ordinary consciousness. Only an experience which conforms to the causal principle can serve as
foundation either for the empirical judgments of sense experience, or for that ever-increasing
body of scientific knowledge into which their content is progressively translated. The principle
of causality is applicable to everything experienced, for the sufficient reason that experience is
itself possible only in terms of it. This conclusion finds its most emphatic and adequate statement
in the Methodology.

“‘...through concepts of understanding pure reason establishes secure principles, not

however directly from concepts, but always only indirectly through relation of these concepts to
something altogether contingent, namely, possible experience. For when such experience (i.e.
something as object of possible experience) is presupposed, the principles are apodictically
certain, though by themselves (directly) a priori they cannot even be recognised at all. Thus no
one can acquire insight into the proposition that everything which happens has its cause, merely
from the concepts involved. It is not, therefore, a dogma, although from another point of view,
namely, from that of the sole field of its possible employment, i.e. experience, it can be proved
with complete apodictic certainty. But though it needs proof, it should be entitled a principle, not
a theorem, because it has the peculiar character that it makes possible the very experience which
is its own ground of proof and in this experience must always itself be presupposed.’12”13

G. F. Kreyche observes that Kant’s transcendental idealism maintains that “man knows
but the order of appearance or phenomena, not the order of things-in-themselves or noumena.
Now, to know means to change the datum by locating it within a spatio-temporal relationship,
which structure is supplied by the knower through the a priori forms of sensibility. Next man
must impose upon this spatio-temporal datum certain other categories that are also rooted in the
knower a priori. These are the categories of the understanding (Verstand): quantity, quality,
relation, and modality. Causality is contained as a subdivision of relation. Together with the
forms of space and time, these categories are constitutive of experience, as opposed to the ideas
of reason (Vernunft), which can only be regulative of experience. Previous philosophy erred in
confusing the regulative function of ideas with the constitutive functions of the categories. The
categories (including causality) are valid when applied to the phenomenal order, but not valid
when applied beyond this to the noumenal order. To attempt the latter is to court transcendental
illusion (or metaphysics, as Kant understood it). Nevertheless, such a tendency is natural to man,
and he must always be wary lest he give in to it.

“Since Kant allowed a valid but restricted use of causality and other categories within the
phenomenal order, he felt that he had preserved the legitimate character of the positive sciences.

10
Cf. A I99 = B 244, and above, pp. 133, 288-9; below, p. 377.
11
Cf. A I95-6 = B 2401, and above, pp. 172, 176 ff., 182-3, 263 ff., 277-8.
12
A 736-7 = B 765. Italics of last sentence not in Kant.
13
N. K. SMITH, A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Macmillan, New York, 1923, pp. 364-365, 368-
371.

6
But maintaining the inapplicability of such categories to the noumenal order led Kant to
conclude that metaphysics was impossible as a science. For Kant, then, man does not discover
causality in the order of things; rather, he prescribes it and imposes it upon the phenomena in
order to render them intelligible.14 Interestingly enough, Kant himself refers causality to the
noumenal order, an error he specifically warns against.15”16

Describing the erroneous subjectivist explanations of causal necessity in Hume and Kant,
Charles Hart writes: “Various purely subjective explanations are offered to explain the necessity
or invariability of the cause-effect sequence. For Hume it was due entirely to force of habit or
custom, which it would be entirely possible to set aside. We could indeed conceive an absolute
beginning of being from nothingness. He says: ‘As all distinct ideas are separable from each
other, and as the idea of cause and effect are separable from each other, it will be easy for us to
conceive any object as non-existent this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it
the distinct idea of cause or producing principle.’17 For Kant it is due to an a priori form or
category of necessity innate in the intellect which imposes the note of necessity on certain
sequences presented by the senses. On others, the innate form of contingency or nonnecessity is
imposed.18

“Hume and Kant have this in common: They reject the intellect’s metaphysical report of
efficiency in terms of being simply as existing and communicating existence. They accept only
the sense report of causality as a sensible sequence of events in time and place. Any necessity
whereby the intellect declares this effect must have an adequate cause comes entirely from the
mind’s own action, from the force of habit or custom according to Hume, from the imposing of
an innate form according to Kant. But such an explanation is quite evidently unsatisfactory. If
the intellect itself is the sole source of the necessity, how are we to account for the distinction the
mind makes between necessary or causal sequences and nonnecessary, and therefore noncausal
or casual sequences?

“In either the Humean or the Kantian explanation the distinction must be attributed to the
arbitrary action of the mind since from the standpoint of sense data alone both the causal and the
noncausal or casual sequences are quite similar. This common-sense distinction thus becomes a
complete mystery for empiricism and Kantianism. On the other hand, from the metaphysical
standpoint of a realistic philosophy such as that of St. Thomas, the distinction is based on the
compulsion, not of the mind itself, but from that of the realities involved. Going beyond the
sense data and considering the various sequences from the standpoint of the existence of the
beings concerned, the intellect is compelled to say that certain sequences are causal and others
noncausal, or casual, because the different realities involved compel such distinction.”19

14
Cf. I. KANT, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, a. 36.
15
Cf. I. KANT, op.cit., a. 13, remark 2, and Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction, 1.
16
G. F. KREYCHE, Causality, in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967, p. 346.
17
D. HUME, Treatise on Human Nature, p. 381.
18
Cf. I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, Part II, Transcendental Logic, 1, 1.
19
C. HART, Thomistic Metaphysics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959, p. 293-294.

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 Copleston’s Critique of Kant on Efficient Causality

Frederick Copleston explains that, for Kant “the schema of the category of cause is ‘the
real which, when posited, is always followed by something else. It consists, therefore, in the
succession of the manifold, in so far as this succession is subject to a rule.’20 Kant does not wish
to say that the concept of causality is nothing but the concept of regular succession. What he
means is that the cateory of cause is not applicable to appearances unless it is so schematized by
the imagination that it involves the representation of regular succession in time…

“…Now, in the first section of this chapter we saw how Kant speaks about our being
affected by objects. In other words, he started from the common-sense position that things
produce an effect on the subject which give rise to sensation, sensation being defined as ‘the
effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the object.21
But this common-sense point of view seems to involve the assertion that there are things-in-
themselves. For it appears to involve inference from sensation as an effect to the thing-in-itself
as cause. Thus in the Prolegomena we read that things-in-themselves are unknowable as they are
in themselves but that ‘we know them through the representations which their influence on our
sensibility procures for us.’22 But by talking in this way Kant obviously lays himself open to the
charge of applying the principle of causality beyond the limits which he himself lays down. It
has therefore been a common objection against the doctrine of noumena considered as things-in-
themselves that their existence is asserted as a result of causal inference whereas, on Kant’s
principles, the category of cause is only applicable to phenomena. In asserting the existence of
the noumenon as a cause of sensation, it has therefore been said, Kant contradicts himself; that is
to say, he is inconsistent with his own principles. It is, indeed, understandable that Kant talks in
this way. For he never believed that things can be reduced simply to our representations. And it
was natural, for him, therefore, to postulate an external cause or external causes of our
representations. But this does not alter the fact that he is guilty of a flagrant inconsistency. And
if we wish to maintain the Kantian view of the function of the category of cause, we must
abandon the notion of the noumenon as thing-in-itself.”23

Jolivet’s Critique of Kant on Causality as an A Priori Category of the

Understanding

Régis Jolivet critiques Kant on causality as an a priori category of the understanding in

the fourth volume (Metafisica II) of his Trattato di filosofia, as follows: “Gli empiristi, seguendo
Ockam (38), contestano l’evidenza del principio di causalità e pretendono di ricondurre il
concetto di causalità a quello di una successione regolare di due fenomeni, che l’abitudine o
l’associazione meccanica condurrebbero a poco a poco a ritenere come necessaria. La causa,
scrive Stuart Mill (System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, 9a ed., Londra, 1873, III, c. 5),
è l’antecedente o l’insieme di antecedenti di cui il fenomeno chiamato effetto è invariabilmente e
incondizionatamente conseguente» (83).

20
B, 183; A, 144.
21
A, 19; B, 34.
22
Prol., 13, remark 2.
23
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., pp. 258-259, 270-271.

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 “Kant sembra allontanarsi da questo punto di vista, quando afferma che il concetto di
causa è irriducibile a quello di successione, in ciò che esso aggiunge a questo l’idea di una
dipendenza «generale e necessaria».24 Sennonché questa idea di dipendenza necessaria è per
Kant solo una categoria a priori dell’intelletto e niente affatto fondata nell’essere.25 Così egli
riporta il principio di causalità al tipo sintetico a priori. L’argomento da lui prospettato è che,
nella formula del principio di causalità («tutto ciò che comincia ad essere ha una causa»), il
concetto di causa non può essere tratto dall’analisi del concetto del soggetto («ciò che comincia
ad essere»). V’è in ciò tuttavia un sofisma che noi abbiamo già discusso (I, 58), mostrando che
se la nozione di causa non è inclusa in quella del soggetto in quanto essenza o parte dell’essenza
di questo, essa gli è necessariamente legata a titolo di proprietà (attribuzione a priori del
secondo modo), ciò che obbliga a considerare il principio di causalità come necessario ed
evidente per sé, in ragione stessa dei suoi termini.

“Sappiamo d’altra parte che la fonte di queste concezioni empiristiche è da ricercare nel
nominalismo (114). Se infatti ogni nostra conoscenza autentica è limitata ai fatti e ai fenomeni
sensibili, ne consegue che non possiamo pretendere di conoscere cause reali, poiché questa
conoscenza dipende da quella delle nature e delle essenze. Per i sensi, vi sono solo successioni.
Il postulato empiristico è d’altronde confessato da Kant nel modo più evidente. La causalità, egli
dice, consiste nel collegare due percezioni. Ora siccome «questo collegamento non è opera del
semplice senso e dell’intuizione (sensibile)», esso non può essere che «il prodotto di una facoltà
sintetica dell’immaginazione, che determina il senso intimo relativamente al tempo. È questa
facoltà che lega tra loro i due stati», cioè trasforma in rapporto causale un rapporto che,
oggettivamente, è soltanto pura successione. È chiaro che questa argomentazione consiste nel
trascurare puramente e semplicemente l’ipotesi in cui l’intelligenza fosse intesa come capace di
cogliere, nel dato sensibile stesso, un rapporto che i sensi, come tali, non possono apprendere.”26

Vanni Rovighi’s Critique of Kant on Causality as an A Priori Category of the

Understanding

Sofia Vanni Rovighi critiques Kant on causality as an a priori category of the

understanding in the second volume (Metafisica) of her Elementi di filosofia as follows: “La
saldatura operata da Hume fra due problemi e due significati affatto diversi del così detto
principio di causalità rimane un pregiudizio, un idolum, per il pensiero posteriore, a cominciare
da Kant, il quale, nei Prolegomeni, ascrisse a Hume il merito del suo risveglio dal «sonno
dogmatico».

24
Cfr. I. KANT, Critica della ragion pura, Analitica trascendentale, 1, II, sez. III, II analogia: «Il concetto del
rapporto di causa ed effetto, di cui la prima determina nel tempo l’ultimo come conseguente, e non come qualcosa
che potrebbe precedere semplicemente nell’immaginazione (o, in generale, non essere punto percepita)» (tr. it. cit.,
p. 198).
25
Cfr. I. KANT, ibid.: «Quando noi dunque sperimentiamo che una cosa accade, supponiamo sempre che precede
qualche altra cosa, a cui essa segue secondo una regola. Senza di che, infatti, non potrei dire dell’oggetto, che segue,
poiché la semplice successione nella mia apprensione, ove non sia determinata da una legge di relazione con un
antecedente, non autorizza una successione nell’oggetto. Egli è dunque sempre avendo riguardo ad una regola, per
cui i fenomeni nella loro successione; cioè così come accadono, sono determinati dallo stato precedente che io fo
obbiettiva la mia sintesi subbiettiva (dell’apprensione); e persino l’esperienza di qualche cosa che accade è possibile
unicamente in questo presupposto». (tr. it. cit., pp. 201-202).
26
R. JOLIVET, Trattato di filosofia, volume 4 (Metafisica II), Morcelliana, Brescia, 1960, no. 248.

9
 “Senonchè, mentre per Hume sono razionalmente ingiustificabili vuoi il principio
metafisico vuoi l’affermazione che esistono rapporti necessari tra i fenomeni naturali, per Kant è
ingiustificabile il primo, ma la seconda è un giudizio sintetico a priori, ossia una proposizione
necessaria, anche se di una necessità non riducibile alla contraddittorietà del contraddittorio.27

“Ricordiamo che Kant chiama giudizi analitici le proposizioni che non si possono negare
senza contraddizione e ritiene che i giudizi analitici siano puramente tautologici, tanto che per
lui anche le proposizioni matematiche non sono giudizi analitici, ma giudizi sintetici a priori.
Con un tale concetto del giudizio analitico, si capisce che Kant accettasse senz’altro da Hume la
tesi che la proposizione «tutto ciò che accade ha la sua causa»28 non è un giudizio analitico.

“Secondo Kant, Hume «provò irrefutabilmente che è del tutto impossibile alla ragione di
pensare a priori, e traendolo da concetti, un tal collegamento (fra la causa e l’effetto)».29 «Si
prenda la proposizione: tutto ciò che accade ha la sua causa. Nel concetto di qualche cosa che
accade io penso per verità una esistenza, alla quale precede un temto ecc.; e da ciò si possono
trarre giudizi analitici. Ma il concetto di causa sta interamente fuori di quel concetto, e indica
alcunchè di diverso da ciò che accade, e però non è punto incluso in quest’ultima
rappresentazione. Come mai dunque vengo io a riferire, e per di più necessariamente, all’effetto
alcunchè di affatto diverso, il concetto della causa, sebbene in quello non contenuto?»30 Avendo
noi cercato di dimostrare in Logica la fecondità del giudizio analitico, e nel capitolo precedente
l’analiticità del principio «ciò che diviene è causato», potremmo non aggiungere altre
osservazioni alla teoria kantiana. Ma ci interessa anche la parte positiva della dottrina kantiana
sulla causalità, perchè in essa si vede come saldatura operata da Hume fra il problema metafisico
e il problema fisico rimanga anche in Kant.

“Se, infatti, per Kant è impossibile giustificare il principio «tutto ciò che accade ha la sua
causa» come giudizio analitico, è invece possible giustificare il principio «tutti i mutamenti
avvengono secondo la legge del nesso causa ed effetto» (Seconda analogia dell’esperienza)31
come condizione del mondo fenomenico. E quando Kant parla di causalità nella Seconda
analogia dell’esperienza intende con questo termine l’affermazione che in natura esistono
rapporti necessari. I fenomeni che costituiscono la natura sono legati fra loro da rapporti
necessari, e questi rapporti sono espressi dalle leggi naturali (ossia dalle leggi della fisica
newtoniana).

“Kant dunque non ammette, come Hume, che le leggi naturali formulate dalla scienza
siano generalizzazioni di fatti osservati, siano ottenute per induzione, sia pure per una induzione
raffinatissima, e siano quindi conclusioni altamente probabili, ma non rigorosamente necessarie.
Per Kant le leggi della fisica hanno la medesima necessità delle proposizioni matematiche: la
necessità dei giudizi sintetici a priori.

27
Uso questa efficace espressione del Bontadini per indicare appunto la necessità di quelle proposizioni che non si
possono negare senza contraddizione, ossia la cui contraddittoria è contraddittoria.
28
È questa la formulazione kantiana del “principio di causalità.”
29
Prolegomeni, Prefazione, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV, pag. 257. Sottolineatura mia.
30
Critica della ragion pura, traduz. Gentile-Lombardo Radice (riveduta da V. Mathieu), Bari, Laterza, 1963, pag.
49.
31
Critica della ragion pura, trad. cit., vol. I, pagg. 206 ss.

10
 “Potremmo osservare che, su quest’ultimo problema, Hume era molto più spregiudicato
di Kant: il culto, oserei dire il feticismo per la nuova scienza della natura (la fisica newtoniana)
ha indotto Kant ad attribuire alle conclusioni di questa il medesimo carattere delle proposizioni
matematiche. E poichè le leggi fisiche non sono certo tali che il negarle implichi contraddizione,
Kant ha attribuito loro il carattere di giudizi sintetici a priori: a priori, ossia necessari, ma di
necessità sintetica, ossia tale che il negarla non implichi contraddizione.

“Ma osserviamo che la «legge del nesso di causa ed effetto» della quale parla Kant nella
Seconda analogia dell’esperienza non ha nulla a che fare col principio «ciò che diviene è
causato», del quale abbiamo parlato nel quarto capitolo, quindi la teoria kantiana della
«causalità» non ci impedirà affatto di applicare al reale il principio «ciò che diviene è causato».

“Le difficoltà che Kant muove al principio «ogni contingente è causato»32 derivano, mi
sembra, dall’aver proiettato su questo principio certi caratteri proprii soltanto della «legge del
nesso di causa ed effetto» così come è intesa nella seconda analogia (si tratta sempre della
saldatura operata da Hume). Comunque ne parleremo a proposito delle vie per dimostrare
l’esistenza di Dio.”33

“Le critiche kantiane alle prove dell’esistenza di Dio. Critica alla prova cosmologica.
Kant espone la prova così: «Se qualche cosa esiste, deve esistere anche un essere assolutamente
necessario. Ma io stesso, per lo meno, esisto, dunque esiste un essere assolutamente
necessario…Ma la prova deduce più oltre: l’essere necessario non può essere determinato se non
un un unico modo, cioè rispetto a tutti i possibili predicati opposti per uno solo di essi e però
deve essere completamente determinato dal suo concetto. Ora, c’è un concetto solo di una cosa
possibile che a priori determini questo completamente, ossia quello dell’ens realissimum. Il
concetto dunque di Essere realissimo è l’unico concetto onde possa essere pensato un Essere
necessario; cioè esiste in modo necessario un Essere supremo».34

“Dunque secondo Kant la prova cosmologica consta di due parti: 1) Passaggio da

un’esistenza in generale ad una esistenza necessaria ; 2) Attribuzione di questa esistenza
necessaria all’ens realissimum, ossia all’essere perfettissimo.

“Kant critica tutte e due le parti.

“a) Il primo passaggio contiene un sè «un nido di pretese dialettiche», dice Kant,35 e ne
enumera quattro. La prima è quella che consiste nel concludere da un contingente ad una causa.
Ora il principio che ci permette di inferire da un contingente una causa vale solo per il mondo
sensibile, come Kant ha concluso nell’Analitica transcendentale.

“Osservo: il principio che Kant ha giustificato come necessario solo per unificare il
mondo dell’esperienza è la «Seconda analogia dell’esperienza», cioè il principio che,
affermando l’esistenza di rapporti necessari tra fenomeni, permette di inferire da un fatto

32
Critica della ragion pura, trad. cit., vol. I, pagg. 245 e 253.
33
S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Elementi di filosofia, vol. 2 (Metafisica), La Scuola, Brescia, 1964, pp. 81-83.
34
Critica della ragion pura, trad. cit., vol. I, pagg. 485-486.
35
Ibid., pag. 488.

11
contingente una causa determinata; non è il principio «ogni contingente è causato». Kant compie
dunque qui implicitamente quella identificazione fra i due significati del così detto principio di
causa che abbiamo denunciata nel capitolo quinto.

“Tuttavia Kant ritiene che anche il principio «ogni contingente è causato» presenti
difficoltà. Infatti se si intende per contingente ciò di cui si può pensare il non essere, resta da
vedere se questo poterne pensare il non essere è solo un capriccio o si fonda sulla natura di ciò
che è pensato non esistente. In altre parole: bisogna dimostrare che esiste qualcosa di
contingente; ora la contingenza (la reale possibilità di non essere) può essere inferita solo dal
cominciare ad essere di una cosa o dal suo finire, ossia dal mutamento.36

“Osserverei: è proprio quello che si fa nelle prime tre vie tomistiche. Perchè dunque
Kant, senza dircene esplicitamente il motivo, ritiene che, se si inferisce la contingenza dal
mutamento, il principio «ogni contingente è causato» non è più un principio analitico?

“Credo si debba rispondere: per due motivi. Il primo è il concetto kantiano di giudizio
analitico come giudizio tautologico – e per questo rimandiamo al primo volume di questi
Elementi. Il secondo è il presupposto che tutto ciò che è dato nel tempo (e ogni mutamento è
dato nel tempo) sia fenomeno nel senso kantiano, e non cosa in sè. Se dunque la causa è
condizione necessaria del mutamento, essa è condizione necessaria del modo in cui ci appaiono
le cose, non delle cose in sè. Osservo: se non si ammette la teoria del tempo come intuizione
pura, non si potrà accettare questa conclusione kantiana.

“La seconda «pretesa dialettica» denunciata da Kant nella proposizione «se esiste
qualcosa, esiste un ente necessario» è questa: si presuppone che, se ciò che esiste non ha in sè la
ragione della sua esistenza e dipende da un altro, non si possa andare all’infinito nella
dipendenza da altro, ma si debba finalmente trovare un ente che ha in sè la ragione del suo
essere. Ora, obietta Kant, una serie infinita non può essere data tutta insieme, ma non è escluso
che si debba risalire sempre da un condizionato alla sua condizione senza trovar mai una
condizione incondizionata. E ciò perchè le condizioni dei fenomeni alle quali possiamo risalire
sono sempre fenomeni, quindi mai incondizionate (un fenomeno è per definizione un
condizionato: condizionato dalla cosa in sè e dal soggetto al quale appare).

“Osservo: questa obiezione kantiana suppone che il procedimento per dimostrare

l’esistenza di un Ente necessario o di una Causa prima sia quello di risalire da un fatto a ciò che
lo ha preceduto nel mondo dell’esperienza e così via; sia quello insomma di risalire alle causae
fiendi e di cercare per questa via un inizio assoluto. Ma nell’esporre le vie tomistiche abbiamo
detto che Dio non si trova come l’inizio del mondo, ma come ciò senza cui il mondo diveniente
sarebbe contraddittorio; non si trova all’origine di ciò che precede il fenomeno (la causa in senso
humiano e kantiano) ma all’origine dell’essere di ciò che constatiamo.

“La terza «pretesa dialettica» è quella di aver appunto esaurita la serie di tutte le
condizioni quando si è affermato che esse dipendono da un incondizionato. E invece se le
condizioni sono date, esse si presentano sempre come condizionate.

36
Ibid., pagg. 245 e 253.

12
 “Osservo: l’incondizionato è inferito come la ragion d’essere di ogni condizionato (di
ogni diveniente, di ogni causato) ma niente affatto come la serie totale delle condizioni. In altre
parole: l’efficacia causale della Causa prima è la ragion d’essere di ogni divenire e di ogni
incominciare, ma non esclude affatto che nel mondo dell’esperienza la serie degli effetti si
dispieghi in una serie infinita. Ripeto: quando si afferma l’esistenza di Dio non si afferma
l’esistenza di ciò da cui comincia il mondo, ma l’esistenza di ciò che fa essere il mondo,
l’esistenza di ciò di cui ogni ente mutevole ha bisogno per essere.

“La quarta «pretesa dialettica» riguarda piuttosto il concetto della possibilità di Dio come
ente perfettissimo che non l’inferenza da un’esistenza qualsiasi all’esistenza necessaria.

“b) Il secondo passaggio (dall’ente necessario all’ente perfettissimo) non è legittimo

perchè implica un ricorso alla prova ontologica, già dimostrata invalida. «Per porre sicuramente
il suo fondamento questa prova (cosmologica) si affida all’esperienza e si dà così un’aria come
se fosse diversa da quella ontologica che ripone tutta la sua fiducia in meri concetti puri a priori.
Ma di questa esperienza la prova cosmologica non si serve se non per fare un solo passo, cioè
per passare all’esistenza di un essere necessario. Quali proprietà questo abbia, l’argomento
empirico non può dircelo; e allora la ragione prende interamente congedo da esso e va in traccia
di meri concetti, ossia cerca quali proprietà debba avere un Essere assolutamente necessario in
generale, il quale, cioè, tra tutte le cose possibili contenga in sè le condizioni richieste di una
necessità assoluta. Ma essa crede di trovare questi requisiti unicamente nel concetto di un essere
realissimo e quindi conclude: esso è l’essere assolutamente necessario. Se non che, è chiaro, in
questo si presuppone che il concetto dell’Essere della più alta realtà soddisfaccia al concetto
dell’assoluta necessità dell’esistenza, cioè che da quella si possa conchiudere a questa;
proposizione che era affermata dall’argomento ontologico, il quale dunque si assume nella prova
cosmologica e si mette a suo fondamento, laddove si era voluto evitarlo».37 La prova
cosmologica, ci dice Kant, non è altro che la prova ontologica vista da rovescio. Infatti nella
prova ontologica io dico: l’idea dell’essere perfettissimo è tale che in essa deve essere compresa
anche l’esistenza necessaria; nella prova cosmologica dico: l’esistenza necessaria deve
competere all’essere perfettissimo: e poichè non vale la prova ontologica, neppure quella
cosmologica ha valore. Kant fa dunque questo fondamentale rimprovero al secondo passaggio
della prova cosmologica: tu arrivi da una parte ad un’esistenza necessaria (ma a che cosa
appartenga l’esistenza necessaria non sai); d’altra parte, e per altra via (con un puro gioco di
concetti), arrivi ad un essere perfettissimo (ma non sai se questo esista). A un bel momento metti
insieme essere perfettissimo ed esistenza necessaria e dici: l’essere perfettissimo esiste
necessariamente. Ma il tuo mettere assieme è affatto arbitrario.

“Osserviamo che questa scissione non c’è nella teologia naturale di S. Tommaso. Le
prove tomistiche, infatti, non partono mai da una «esistenza in generale» ma sempre
dall’esistenza di qualche cosa con determinati caratteri essenziali: dall’esistenza di ciò che muta,
dall’esistenza di ciò che comincia, di ciò che finisce, dall’esistenza di ciò che ha un certo grado
di perfezione. «Io stesso, per lo meno, esisto», dice Kant esponendo il fatto da cui parte la prova
cosmologica. Benissimo; ma quando dico «io esisto» non considero in me soltanto l’esistenza in
generale, ma considero l’esistenza di me come diveniente, imperfetto, insufficiente nell’essere;
ed è perchè non trovo in me la ragione della mia esistenza che affermo l’esistenza di un altro
37
Ibid., pagg. 486-487.

13
diverso da me. Diverso precisamente in quel carattere che è segno della mia insufficienza. E
siccome il segno più evidente della mia insufficienza è il divenire, dico che l’Altro deve essere
indivenibile, e quando ho detto indivenibile ho detto Atto puro, quindi perfettissimo. Non ricorro
affatto ad un gioco di concetti, alla prova ontologica, per dire che l’essere necessario è anche
essere perfettissimo, procedo sempre dietro la spinta dell’esperienza, o meglio di quella
contraddizione che ho trovato nell’esperienza e che devo risolvere affermando l’esistenza di Dio.

“L’esistenza in generale dalla quale parte la prova cosmologica esposta da Kant è un

astrazione vuota: il vero dato è una natura esistente, quindi la conclusione a cui arrivo è, non già
l’esistenza necessaria di non so che cosa, ma l’esistenza necessaria di una cosa che deve avere in
sè i caratteri che spiegano il fatto da cui sono partito.”38

Kreyche’s Critique of Hume and Kant on Efficient Causality

Robert J. Kreyche critiques Hume and Kant on efficient causality in his First Philosophy
(1959) as follows: “Throughout the history of philosophy various opinions have prevailed on the
question of our knowledge of causes. Indeed some thinkers, like David Hume, have denied that
we have any such knowledge at all, in the sense of its being objective knowledge. In Hume’s
opinion, our notion of causality has no real basis in things and is purely psychological in origin.
Due to the psychological laws of association we tend to ‘read’ causes into nature, but under no
circumstances do we have any ‘experience’ of a cause. All that we do experience are antecedents
and consequents, like a lighted candle and then paper burning, but we never experience any
causal connection that is alleged to exist between these events.

“Much the same principle appears in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Even though
Kant made a searching attempt to counteract the skepticism of Hume, for Kant as for Hume our
notion of cause is not something taken or derived from experience. In his doctrine, the notion of
cause is an a priori form: it is a subjective concept that we superimpose upon the disorganized
contents of experience.

“Besides Hume and Kant there are others who deny that we have an objective knowledge
of causes. However, even among those thinkers who hold that we have such a knowledge, some
give a wrong explanation of its origin or source. Hence we find, even among realists, certain
thinkers who begin with a preconceived notion of cause, and then attempt to ‘prove’ that this
notion has an objective correspondence in things. Such a view, however, represents a mistaken
approach to the subject, since our knowledge of causes is from its very inception drawn from the
contents of experience. We do not, as it were, begin with a concept of cause and later attempt to
verify it. Rather, our understanding of cause is in the very first instance taken from things
themselves.

“The Existence of Causes: A Fundamental Datum of Experience. Our knowledge of

cause, like our knowledge of being and substance, is fundamentally based on our knowledge of
sensible things. Consider, for the moment, a person who is shaking the dust out of a rug. Can we
truthfully say, as we observe what this person is doing, that we perceive him to be acting as a
cause? Some thinkers of a sophisticated cast of mind would say ‘no.’ According to them, all that
38
S. VANNI ROVIGHI, Elementi di filosofia, vol. 2 (Metafisica), La Scuola, Brescia, 1964, pp. 148-152.

14
we do perceive is a ‘correlated series of events’ in which one thing ‘happens’ after something
else – that is, first the movement of the arms and then the ‘cloud’ of dust. Under no
circumstances, however, are we aware (in their view) of any ‘mysterious’ causal link by which it
is known that one thing depends on another; in short, we have no ‘experience’ of a cause.

“In regard to this view, we can only point out that it is an essentially distorted notion of
the nature of human experience. For if ‘experience’ meant nothing more than a purely sensory
knowledge of objects, then we could never know causes as causes. The experience of a dog, for
example, as it witnesses an automobile accident is a purely sensory experience which is limited
to sense data as such. Although a dog may witness such events – that is, on the level of sensory
perception – it has no knowledge of them in terms of their causal relations. However, the case is
different with human beings.

“A typically human experience is at one and the same time both sensory and intellectual.
Whenever we perceive an event (such as a person putting on his shoes) we are engaged in
something more than a mere activity of the senses. Through our power of understanding we are
able to abstract certain intelligible data that are given in that event, so that we know what is
‘going on’ in experience. Human experience (of whatever sort) involves an intellectual grasp,
however vague or imperfect, of the very factors involved in that experience, and one of these
factors is the knowledge that some things are operative as causes.

“Reality, then, is no mere patchwork of essences. The real world is one of existing things,
and in the realm of existing things there are many things that act, and as a result of what they do
something happens in a being distinct from themselves. A carpenter pounds a hammer, and as a
result a nail is driven into the wood; an ice pack is applied to one’s head, and as a result there is
a change in the temperature of one’s body; a boy gets bitten by a dog, and as a result his finger
begins to bleed. In all such instances we bear witness to an elementary fact of experience: that
the activity of certain agents causes other things, affected by those agents, to change.”39

39
R. J. KREYCHE, First Philosophy, Henry Holt, New York, 1959, pp. 208-210. Kreyche then proceeds to give a
metaphysics of the predicamental efficient causality of becoming, as well as a transcendental metaphysical causality
of being in his same book, First Philosophy, from pages 210-245.
Benignus Gerrity’s Critique of Hume’s Rejection of the Affirmation that Objective Efficient Causality Truly
Operates in Extra-Mental Reality: “1. Sensism. Hume’s original error, which led to his rejection of substance and
causality as valid philosophical concepts, was sensism. He considered experience as the sole ultimate source of valid
human knowledge, which it is, but by experience he meant pure sensation, or at very best perception, and nothing
more. Impressions of sense and their less vivid relics in the mind, namely, ideas, are the only data of knowledge for
which experience vouches, according to Hume. We have no impression of causality or substance; therefore, he
argues, these are not given in experience.
“Hume mistakes an analysis of the factors in perception for an account of the perceptive act. The data of pure
sensation are, as he says, fragmentary and intermittent sense impressions. But the act which he is analyzing is not an
act of pure sensation. What I perceive is not these fragmentary impressions, but the things of which they are
accidents. It is doubtful that even animals perceive merely sensory qualities. Substances (i.e., particular, concrete)
are the data of perception. They are incidental sensibles immediately perceived by means of internal sense co-
operating within external sense. In his analysis Hume takes as the immediate datum of perception something which
is actually known only as a result of a difficult abstraction, namely, the pure sensation. Then his problem is to
discover how, starting from pure sensations, we come to believe in objective substances which exist unperceived
and permanently. It is a false problem.
“2. Human Experience Includes Understanding. Hume is right in saying that we never have a sensory impression
of causality or substance. But he is wrong in saying that we never experience causes or substances. Efficient causes

15
are immediately experienced every time we observe anything physically influencing anything else, every time, for
example, we see a hammer driving a nail. But the cause qua cause is never sensed directly; cause, like substance, is
only sensed per accidens. The cause as a sensible object, its movement, and the subsequent movement of the object
acted upon are the immediate data of sense. But to limit experience to the sensible data perceived is to imply that
man perceives without ever at the same time understanding what he perceives. When I perceive a hammer
descending upon a nail and the nail moving further into the wood, I also understand that the hammer is something
and is driving the nail into the wood. Both perception and understanding are equally parts of the experience. To
exclude the understanding is to reduce all human experience to uncomprehending sense awareness. Not only is this
not the only kind of human experience, but, at least in the case of adults, it never normally occurs at all. We simply
do not perceive without some understanding of what we are perceiving; we do not perceive phenomena without
perceiving them as the phenomena of something; nor do we perceive one thing acting upon another without at the
same time understanding the former as a cause of the effect produced in the latter.
“3. Understanding in Perception. There is surely a crystal-clear distinction between mere perceiving and
understanding. The domestic animals of the battlelands of Europe are no more spared the bombing and the fire, the
hunger and the cold, the noise and the stench, than are their human owners. But they have no understanding of what
is going on; no reason for what is happening is known to them, and none is sought. Their minds do not grope for
reasons the way their parched tongues crave for water. The darkness that their eyes suffer when they are driven in
the midst of the night through strange lands is matched by no darkness of intellect seeking a reason which it cannot
find – that awful darkness which is so often the lot of man. Failure to understand could no more be a privation and a
suffering in man if his intellect were not made for grasping the reasons and causes of things, than blindness would
be a suffering if sight never grasped the visible. A man who does not understand feels frustrated, because his mind is
made for understanding; he suffers when he cannot grasp the reason, because he knows that there is a reason.
Perception is not understanding; but normally some understanding occurs together with perception: we could not
possibly have the experience of failing to understand what we perceive, if we did not have the prior experience of
understanding what we perceive.
“4. Cause is ‘Given’ to the Intellect. Cause is something that we grasp intellectually in the very act of
experiencing action – whether our own action or another’s. We understand the cause as producing the effect: the
hammer as driving the nail, the saw as cutting the wood, the flood as devastating the land, the drill as piercing the
rock, the hand as molding the putty, ourselves as producing our own thoughts, words, and movements, our shoes as
pinching our feet, a pin as piercing our finger, our fellow subway travelers as pressing our ribs together. We do not
think that the nail will ever plunge into the wood without the hammer, the marble shape up as a statue without a
sculptor, the baby begin to exist without a father, the acorn grow with no sunlight; if something ever seems to occur
in this way, we do not believe it, or we call it a miracle (i.e., we attribute it to a higher, unseen cause). In a similar
manner, substance is given directly to the intellect in the very act of perception; the substance is grasped as the
reason for the sensible phenomena.
“5. The Subjectivistic Postulate. The arguments of Hume are based on the subjectivistic postulate, namely, that
we know nothing directly except our own ideas. From this starting point, certitude about real causality can never be
reached. The only causality that could ever possibly be discovered if the primary objects of our knowledge were our
own ideas would be the causal relations among the ideas themselves. No such relations are as a matter of fact found,
since none exist and since the subjectivistic postulate is false to begin with. Causal relations exist between objects
and the mind, and between the mind and its ideas, but not between ideas and ideas. Hume places causality in our
mind, as a bond between ideas, when he accounts for our idea of causality by attributing it to mental custom.
Whatever his intention, he actually presents similar successions of ideas as the cause of our ideas of causality and
the principle of causality. As a matter of fact, such causality would not account for our belief in causality, because it
would never be an idea, but only an unknown bond connecting ideas. It is only because Hume is already in
possession of the concept of causality gained through external experience that he is able to formulate the theory that
invariable succession of ideas produces mental custom, which in turn gives rise to the idea of cause.
“6. Imagination and Causality. It is, perhaps, this locating of causality among our ideas that leads Hume to a very
peculiar argument against the principle of causality: ‘We can never demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every
new existence, or new modification of existence, without showing at the same time the impossibility there is that
anything can ever begin to exist without some productive principle…Now that the latter is utterly incapable of a
demonstrative proof, we may satisfy ourselves by considering, that as all distinct ideas are separable from each
other, and as the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, it will be easy for us to conceive any object to be
non-existent at this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive
principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible

16
fot the imagination; and consequently the actual separation of these objects is so far possible, that it implies no
contradiction nor absurdity; and it is therefore incapable of being refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas; without
which it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause’(D. HUME, Treatise of Human Nature, I, 3, 3).
“This argument, even if we overlook the flagrant petitio principii in the statement that ‘all distinct ideas are
separable from each other,’ is no argument at all. What Hume says is nothing more than that he can imagine a thing
beginning to exist without a cause, and that consequently no argument from mere ideas can ever prove the necessity
of a cause. We can agree with him that no argument from mere ideas can ever prove real causality; but we will add
that that is why Hume could never prove it – he started with mere ideas, or rather images. Aside from this, the
argument is utterly unrelated to the subject of causality. Imagination has nothing to do with causes or with
beginnings of existence. I never imagine anything as beginning to exist, or even as existing; I simply imagine the
thing, and in my image there is no reference to existence. The thing which I imagine may as easily be a fire-
breathing dragon as my own brother. The reference to existence lies in thought, not in imagination. The words of
Hume, ‘The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence, is plainly possible for
the imagination,’ have no real meaning, because the imagination never possesses the idea of a beginning of
existence. Thought judges whether a thing conceived exists or not, and thought (even Hume’s ‘natural belief’)
judges that nothing begins to exist without a cause. Surely, I can imagine a situation in which a certain thing is not
an element and then a situation in which it is. To do this is not to conceive the thing as beginning to exist; it is
merely to imagine it after not imagining it. Such imaginative play has no connection with causality, except in the
obvious sense that I could not imagine anything, to say nothing of making imagination experiments, if I had not the
power of producing, that is, causing images in my mind; and presumably that is not the sense in which Hume
intended his illustration to the interpreted.
“7. Loaded Dice. The subjectivistic postulate prejudices the whole issue as to the reality of causes before
examination of the question even begins. If knowledge cannot attain to anything real and extramental, it cannot
attain to real, extramental causes. The only causality it could possibly discover would be causal relation among
images in the mind. If the object is read out of court by the postulate that we know only our ideas, objective
causality is read out with it. It is not surprising that sensism and subjectivism should lead to the explicit denial of the
principles of causality, sufficient reason, and substance, since they begin with their implicit denial. Sensations,
impressions, images, separated from any being arousing them must be viewed by any intelligent mind as so many
phenomena without any sufficient reason for existing. Normal men cannot abide sensory experiences without
objective reasons. They regard a person who has such experiences as a psychopathic case; they say, ‘He imagines
things,’ and suggests a psychiarist”(B. GERRITY, Nature, Knowledge, and God, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1947, pp. 337-
341).
Celestine Bittle writes: “In proving the existence of efficient causality among things, it will be necessary first to
show that the assumptions which underlie the position of the opponents are unwarranted; then it will be necessary to
adduce the positive evidence which supports the view that efficient causality actually is present in nature.
“The opposition against the existence of efficient cause is based primarily on an adverse theory of knowledge,
and not on the facts themselves. As such, the denial is made primarily on epistemological grounds. Kant, since he
maintained that we can have no knowledge of things-in-themselves, naturally had to deny any knowledge of
efficient causality as existing among these things-in-themselves. It is the purpose of epistemology to vindicate the
sources of our knowledge, among them being sense-perception, consciousness, and reason. In this connection we
will restrict ourselves to one consideration. If Kant’s fundamental assumption were correct, we could know nothing
of the existence and activity of other minds beside our own, because these ‘other minds’ are evidently things-in-
themselves. But we have a knowledge of other minds. This is proved conclusively by the fact of language, whether
spoken or written or printed. We do not use language to converse with ourselves; conversation is essentially a
dialogue between our mind and ‘other minds.’ Hence, we can and do acquire knowledge of things-in-themselves, as
they exist in themselves, through the medium of language. Kant’s fundamental assumption is, therefore, incorrect.
Consequently Kant is wrong, when he asserts that we could know nothing of efficient causality, if it existed among
things. If we can show that efficient causality exists in ourselves, we prove that efficient causes exist in nature,
because we ourselves are a part of nature.
“Hume, Mill, and others, denied efficient causality because of their phenomenalism. According to their
assumption, all we can perceive are the phenomena, and phenomena are revealed to us in our senses merely as
events in ‘invariable sequence.’ Whenever, then, we perceive phenomena as invariably succeeding each other in
place and time, we are prompted by habit and the association of ideas to imagine a causal connection to exist
between them, so that the earlier event is the ‘cause’ and the later even the ‘effect.’ This is, in their view, the origin
within our mind of the concept of efficient causality.

17
 “This is a deplorable error. The fact is, we clearly distinguish between mere ‘invariable sequence’ and ‘real
causality.’ We notice, for example, an invariable sequence between day and night every twenty-four hours, and we
are convinced that this sequence has been maintained throughout the ages; at any rate, we have never experienced a
single exception in this sequence. We also notice, when the day is hot and humid, and a sudden, decisive drop in
temperature occurs, that a rainstorm develops; this sequence, however, is by far not as invariable as the sequence
between day and night. No one, however, dreams of considering day and night as being in any causal connection, as
if the day ‘produced’ or ‘caused’ the night. On the other hand, we certainly are convinced of the existence of a
causal connection between the states of the weather, although the occurrence has by no means the invariability of the
sequence we observe between day and night. Hence, the fundamental assumption of the phenomenalists, that our
observation of ‘invariable sequence’ is the basis of our concept of ‘efficient causality’ is opposed to fact. In
accordance with their principle, the phenomenalists must maintain a parity in all cases of invariable sequence. We,
however, do not judge the cases to be the same. There must, then, be some other reason why we judge a causal
connection to exist between phenomena, between things and events.
“Besides this, we clearly distinguish between conditions and causes, even if there be an invariable succession
between them. We know by experience that we are unable to see objects except in the presence of light. In the dark
all objects are invisible; light must first be admitted before we can see. There is an invariable sequence between the
presence of light and the seeing of objects. According to the phenomenalists’ principle, therefore, we should judge
that light is the ‘cause’ of vision, because its presence invariably precedes vision. But we do not so judge. We
consider light to be the condition, not the cause, of vision, although vision must always ‘follow after’ the admission
of light in sound eyes. And so it is with all ‘conditions.’
“It is entirely untrue to assert that we obtain our concept of cause and effect from the observation of the
frequency of an occurrence through habit and the association of ideas. We judge of the presence of causality even in
single cases. When the first steam engine, or the first telephone, or the first automobile, went into operation, no one
waited for the hundredth or thousandth appearance or operation in order to apply the principle of causality; this was
done immediately. Similarly, when an accident or disaster occurs, we do not wait until it occurs frequently before
we think of cause and effect; we look for the causal connection as soon as it occurs. On the other hand, though we
see a million automobiles follow each other down the highway, we never think of the one being the cause of the
other, due to association of ideas or habit.
“Hence, mere sequence, no matter how frequent and invariable, is not the principle which forces us to accept the
concept of efficient cause and causal connection as valid in nature. The facts themselves compel our reason to judge
that the relation of cause and effect exists between things.
“Our experience proves causality. Critical analysis of our internal states and of external nature convinces us of its
reality. Internal consciousness is an indubitable witness to the fact that our mental activities not only take place in
us, but that they are also produced by us. Such are the activities of thinking, imagining, desiring, willing. They are
clearly observed to be ‘produced’ by ourselves, and this production is observed to be due to our own action, so that
their existence is intrinsically dependent on this productive action. Thus, we are conscious that we deliberately set
about to solve a certain mental problem by combining ideas into judgments, judgments into inferences, and a whole
chain of inferences into an extended argumentation. With the help of our imagination we work out poems, essays,
melodies, pictorial scenes, machines, etc., before they ever appear outside the mind. We desire certain things and
consciously will them; and we are fully aware that we are the responsible agents of these desires and acts of the will,
because we produce them by direct action. No one can deny these facts; they are present for everyone to observe.
But if the conscious knowledge of ourselves as the active agents in the production of these internal activities is
unreliable and false, all our knowledge, of whatever character, must be adjudged an illusion, because knowledge
rests ultimately on the testimony of consciousness. In that case, however, universal skepticism is the logical
outcome, and that means the bankruptcy of all science and philosophy. Hence, our consciousness is a trustworthy
witness to the fact of efficient causality within us.
“External experience proves the same. We speak. Language is an external expression of our internal ideas. It is
impossible for us to doubt that we actually produce the sounds of language which express our own thoughts. We
intend to express these thoughts in conversation, and we actually do; and we are conscious of the fact that we are the
agents in this process. If I am a painter, I set up my canvas, mix the paints, apply the colors, and with much effort
project my mental images upon the canvas in form and color; I know that all this is not a mere ‘sequence of events,’
but a production of something in virtue of my own actions. So, too, if I take pen and ink and write something on
paper, I not only perceive one word following the other, but I am also convinced beyond the possibility of any
rational doubt that I am the ‘author’ of the words appearing on the paper. Neither Hume, nor Mill, nor any other

18
 Gilson’s Critique of Hume and Kant on Causality

Étienne Gilson critiques Hume and Kant on causality as follows: “Causal efficiency is a
fact experienced by sense knowledge…This position is safe against the various criticisms of the
notion of efficient causality made by Malebranche, Hume, and their many successors. The
criticism of Hume is directed against the illusion that we can form a mental representation of the
sort of energy whereby the efficient cause brings about the being of its effect. Hume also denied
that the relationship of efficient cause to effect can be conceived as a purely analytical one – that
is, as a consequence of the principle of contradiction alone. The proper answer to Hume is that
efficient causality is a relationship experienced in sense perception and intellectually explicated
in the abstract notions of cause and effect as well as in the intelligible laws that preside over their
relations in general. As to the way these laws themselves are formulated, it must be said that they
obey strictly the exigencies of the first principle of all judgments – namely, the principle of
contradiction. But this does not mean that effects follows analytically from their causes in the

phenomenalist, disclaimed the authorship of the books which appeared in their name, nor would they refuse to
accept royalties from their publishers on the plea that they were not the efficient causes of these books.
“Again, we are convinced that many bodily actions are of a voluntary nature. I move my hand, my arm, my head,
and I know that these members move because I make them move. If I am set for a sprint, and the gun goes off, I
jump into action. But I am conscious that there is not a mere sequence between the shot and my running; and I am
also conscious that the shot does not make my limbs move so rapidly: it is I myself who decides to run and who
deliberately produces this action of running. This is all the more obvious to me, when I compare this sort of action
with the action of the heart or of the liver, etc., over which I have no control. I clearly distinguish between
‘sequence’ and ‘causality.’ Hume, as we have seen, claims that we cannot know of this causal connection between
our will and our bodily movements, because we cannot ‘feel’ the energy involved in this operation. This merely
proves that we do not observe the whole process. Of the fact of causation itself we are most assuredly aware, and we
are also aware of the exertion and fatigue involved in producing these effects; but if we ‘produced’ nothing, of if
there were no energy expended in the production (for instance, in walking, working, running, making a speech, etc.),
why should we feel exertion and fatigue? And thus our external experience also testifies to the fact that we ourselves
are efficient causes which produce definite effects.
“In order to disprove the opponents’ contention, no more is required than to prove a single case of causality. We
could, therefore, rest our case with the above argument taken from the internal and external experience of our own
selves. However, we contend that the existence of other efficient causes in nature is also capable of proof.
“Reason demands efficient causality in nature. If reason demands that we admit the existence of efficient causes
acting in the universe, the philosopher cannot refuse to accept the verdict of reason, because science and philosophy
are based on the operations of reason. Now, if I am convinced beyond doubt that I am the cause of the picture I
paint, what am I to conclude, when I see someone else paint a picture? I must conclude that he is doing what I did,
when I went through the same series of actions. Of course, all that my senses can observe is a ‘sequence’ of actions;
my reason, however, demands that he, too, must be the ‘producer’ of his picture, just as I am of mine. This is
common sense and sound logic. And the same principles applies to all actions performed by others, when I observe
them doing the same things that I do or have done: if I am the efficient cause, they must be efficient causes for the
same reason. There is a complete parity between my actions and their actions, and so I know, through a conclusion
of reason, that real causality exists in nature in these and similar cases.
“It is only a short step from instances of such activities to productive activities in the world at large. A farmer
places seed into the soil. After a period of time it sprouts, grows, and eventually matures into an abundant harvest.
Here something new has originated. And so with animals and men. We were not here a hundred years ago; but we
are here now. We perceive new living beings coming into existence daily. They are new realities. But if they did not
exist always and do exist now, they must have received existence. Their existence is a ‘produced’ existence, a
‘caused’ reality, because they were brought from non-existence to existence. That, however, which exerts a positive
influence through its action in the production of another, is an efficient cause. Efficient causes, therefore, exist in
nature. We must, then, reject phenomenalism as false and accept efficient causality as the only adequate
interpretation of the facts as observed”(C. BITTLE, The Domain of Being: Ontology, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1941, pp.
343-349).

19
same way as consequences follow from principles. An abstract principle is not an efficient cause.
Everything happens in conformity with the requirements of the first principle of knowledge (i.e.,
being and the principle of contradiction), but from the first principle of knowledge alone, nothing
follows in reality. The error of Kant was not that for him causality was synthetic knowledge but
rather that causality was an a priori synthetic judgment. It is, precisely, an a posteriori synthetic
judgment whose terms are synthetically united in the sense experience of efficient causality. Let
us not forget that sense experience has its own evidence, and that, in their own way, sensations
themselves are principles.”40

Gilson and Langan’s Critique of Kant on Causality

Étienne Gilson and Thomas Langan critique Kant on causality in their Modern
Philosophy: Descartes to Kant (1963) as follows: “Kant has identified them (‘substance’ and
‘cause and effect’) as two among twelve kinds of unifying conceptions; i.e., as two of the
functions of the understanding that make thought possible by unifying
representations…‘Causality,’ for Kant, is ‘Hume explicated transcendentally and translated in
terms of time. In the synthesis of phenomena, the manifold of our representations is always
successive, the present representation implying the preceding and necessarily following it. Why
is this? ‘For all experience and for the possibility of experience, understanding is indispensable,
and the first step which it takes in this sphere is not to render the representation of objects clear,
but to render the representation of an object in general, possible. It does this by applying the
order of time to phenomena, and their existence. In other words, it assigns to each phenomenon,
as a consequence, a place in relation to preceding phenomena, determined a priori in time,
without which it could not harmonize with time itself, which determines a place a priori to all its
parts.41

“Kant explains that this determination of place is not derived from the relation of
phenomena to absolute time, which cannot be an object of perception, but rather that the
phenomena must reciprocally determine the places in time of one another, and render these
necessary in order of time. ‘Whatever follows or happens must follow in conformity with a
universal rule upon that which was contained in the foregoing state. Hence arises a series of
phenomena, which, by means of the understanding, produces and renders necessary exactly the
same order and continuous connection in the series of our possible perceptions, as is found a
priori in the form of internal intuition (time), in which all our perceptions must place.’42

“Kant has not only brought out the last drop of temporality inherent in Hume’s doctrine,
but he has succeeded in explaining in idealist terms the grounds for whatever necessity there may
be in our perceptions of causality; and he has done so in a way that, far from turning traitor to
Hume’s empiricism, not only accepts it as an indispensable condition for valid experiene, but
lays the ground for showing why every effort to transcend the empirical plane must fail.
Consider carefully the exquisite nuance of this declaration: ‘Whatever follows or happens must
follows in conformity with a universal rule upon that which was contained in the foregoing
state.’ It suggests that the necessity in any such connection is due to sensible experience, and

40
É. GILSON, Elements of Christian Philosophy, Mentor-Omega, New York, 1963, pp. 77, 322-323.
41
I. KANT, Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Doctrine of Judgment, Second Analogy.
42
Ibid.

20
without it the rule, or any application of it, would simply be devoid of sense; yet the whole
matter is so phrased that we can see at once the temptation to extend the rule beyond this
empirical stage.

“That Kant has ‘set up’ this explanation very carefully for the sake of the killing – the
grand slaughter of ‘metaphysics’ that is to follows – is, then, perfectly evident…”43

Answer to Hume and Kant: What is a Cause and What is Efficent Causality?

Cause

A cause is that which really and positively influences something, making that something
depend upon it in a certain way. A cause is “a positive principle from which something really
proceeds according to a dependence in being.”44 Causality45 is the aspect of a thing insofar as it

43
É. GILSON and T. LANGAN, Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant, Random House, New York, 1963, pp.
423-425.
44
K. DOUGHERTY, Metaphysics, Graymoor Press, Peekskill, New York, 1965, p. 137.
45
Studies on causality: G. BALLERINI, Il principio di causalità e l’esistenza di Dio, Libreria Editrice Fiorentina,
Florence, 1904 ; T. DE REGNON, La métaphysique des causes selon Saint Thomas et Albert le Grand, Victor
Retaux, Paris, 1906 ; A. BERSANI, Principium causalitatis et existentia Dei, “Divus Thomas,” 2 (1925), pp. 14-35 ;
P. E. NOLAN, Causality and the Existence of God, “The Modern Schoolman,” 14 (1936), pp. 16-18 ; C. FABRO,
La difesa critica del principio di causa, “Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica,” 27 (1936), pp. 102-141 ; D.
HAWKINGS, Causality and Implication, Sheed and Ward, London, 1937 ; F. X. MEEHAN, Efficient Causality in
Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1940 ; E. R. KILZER,
Efficient Causality in the Philosophy of Nature, “Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association,”
17 (1941), pp. 142-150 ; G. KLUBERTANZ, Causality in the Philosophy of Nature, “The Modern Schoolman,” 19
(1942), pp. 29-31 ; J. F. ANDERSON, The Cause of Being, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1952 ; J. S. ALBERTSON,
Instrumental Causality in St. Thomas, “The New Scholasticism,” 28 (1954), pp. 409-435 ; A. MICHOTTE, La
perception de la causalité, University of Louvain Publications, Louvain, 1954 ; C. GIACON, La causalità nel
razionalismo moderno, Bocca, Milan, 1954 ; J. OWENS, The Causal Proposition: Principle or Conclusion?, “The
Modern Schoolman,” 32 (1955), pp. 159-171, 257-270, 323-339 ; L. DE RAEYMAEKER, Le problème
métaphysique de la causalité, “Giornale di Metafisica,” 2 (1957), pp. 161-179 ; P. GARIN, Le problème de la
causalité et Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Beauchesne, Paris, 1958 ; F. GIARDINI, Gradi di causalità e di similitudine,
“Angelicum,” 36 (1959), pp. 26-50 ; C. FABRO, Partecipazione e causalità, S.E.I., Turin, 1961 ; W. H. KANE,
Existence and Causality, “The Thomist,” 28 (1964), pp. 76-92 ; E. SELVAGGI, Causalità e indeterminismo,
Gregorian University, Rome, 1964 ; J. OWENS, The Causal Proposition Revisited, “The Modern Schoolman,” 44
(1967), pp. 143-151 ; C. GIACON, La causalità del Motore Immobile, Editrice Antenore, Padua, 1969 ; R.
LAVERDIÈRE, Le principe de causalité, Vrin, Paris, 1969 ; W. E. MAY, Knowledge of Causality in Hume and
Aquinas, “The Thomist,” 34 (1970), pp. 254-288 ; J. PETERSON, Aristotle’s Incomplete Causal Theory, “The
Thomist,” 36 (1972), pp. 420-432 ; C. GIACON, Il binomio causa-effetto secondo il tomismo, “Rivista di Filosofia
Neoscolastica,” 66 (1974), pp. 541-551 ; L. DEWAN, St. Thomas and the Causality of God’s Goodness, “Laval
Théologique et Philosophique,” 34 (1978), pp. 291-304 ; G. BLANDINO, Discussione sulla causalità I, “Aquinas,”
23 (1980), pp. 93-113; T. M. OLSHEWSKY, Thomas’ Conception of Causation, “Nature and System,” 2 (1980),
pp. 101-122 ; M. BEUCHOT, La metafísica de las causas en Aristóteles y Santo Tomás, “Logos” (México) 9
(1981), pp. 9-28 ; G. BLANDINO, Discussione sulla causalità II, “Aquinas,” 25 (1982), pp. 515-552 ; G. E.
PONFERRADA, Las causas en Aristóteles y Santo Tomás, “Sapientia,” 38 (1983), pp. 9-36 ; L. DEWAN, St.
Thomas and the Principle of Causality, in Jacques Maritain: A Philosopher in the World, edited by J. L. Allard,
University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa, 1985, pp. 53-71 ; M. PANGALLO, Il principio di causalità nella metafisica di
san Tommaso: saggio di ontologia tomista alla luce dell’interpretazione di Cornelio Fabro, Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, Vatican City, 1991 ; L. DEWAN, Thomas and Infinite Causal Regress, in Idealism, Metaphysics and
Community, edited by W. Sweet, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, pp. 119-130 ; S. L. BROCK, Causality and Necessity in
Thomas Aquinas, “Quaestio,” 2 (2002), pp. 217-240 ; K. E. O’REILLY, Efficient and Final Causality and the

21
influences the being of something else. A cause is a “principle having some direct influx on the
‘to be’ of another (principium per se influens esse in aliud). St. Thomas remarks that a cause
‘brings some influence on the ‘to be’ of the thing caused.’46”47 It is “an ontological principle
which exercises a positive influence upon the ‘to be’ of something else.”48

Efficient Cause

An efficient or agent cause49 is the primary principle or origin of an action which makes
something simply to be, or to be in a certain way. Alvira, Clavell and Melendo explain that “the
intrinsic causes found in corporeal creatures require the action of an external agent. Since matter
and form are two distinct principles by themselves, they cannot bring about the formation of a
thing; they need an external cause that has to put them together. Besides, experience shows that a
corporeal being only acquires a new substantial or accidental form by virtue of an actual
extrinsic principle whose precise role is to make matter acquire a new form.

“From this point of view, the efficient cause is by nature prior to the material and formal
causes. The latter cannot exert their causal influence on one another without the prior influence

Human Desire for Beatitude in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, “The Modern Schoolman,” 82 (2004),
pp. 33-58 ; J. DECOSSAS, Causalité et création. Réflexion libre sur quelques difficultés du thomisme, Cerf, Paris,
2006.
46
“Importat influxum quedam ad esse causati”(In V Metaphys., lect. 1, no. 751).
47
H. RENARD, The Philosophy of Being, Bruce, Milwaukee, 1950, p. 165.
48
H. J. KOREN, Introduction to the Science of Metaphysics, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1965, p. 232. William Wallace, in
his The Elements of Philosophy, states: “A cause is generally defined as that from which something else proceeds
with a dependence in being”(W. WALLACE, The Elements of Philosophy, Alba House, Staten Island, New York,
1977, p. 100). Peter Coffey writes: “We understand by a cause anything which has a positive influence of any sort
on the being or happening of something else”(P. COFFEY, Ontology, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1926, p.
357).
Wallace observes that “the essential notion of cause is that it is a positive principle exerting some influence on a
perfection or thing that is coming to be, i.e., an influx into being. This definition is general and obscure to the extent
that cause is an analogous concept, for the precise manner of causing differs in various exercises of causality. The
major types of cause, however, may be set out schematically in terms of the general doctrine on potency and act.
Since a cause is that upon which the being of another thing depends, this being may be viewed under the aspect
either of act or of potency. As act, its cause of being is a form by which it is constituted a being-in-act, thus called a
formal cause. As potency, it further requires two other causes, namely, matter that is potential and an agent that
reduces this matter from potency to act, known as the material cause and the efficient cause respectively. But the
action of an agent tends to something determinate, and that to which it tends is called the end or final cause. Thus
there are four basic types of cause. Each of these can also have subdivisions and various modes of acting”(W.
WALLACE, op. cit., p. 101).
49
Studies on efficient causality: O. LA PLANTE, The Traditional View of Efficient Causality, “Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association,” 14 (1938), pp. 1-12 ; F. X. MEEHAN, Efficient Causality in
Aristotle and St. Thomas, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1940 ; R. O. JOHANN,
Comment on Secondary Causality, “The Modern Schoolman,” 1947-1948, pp. 19-25 ; T. M. FLANIGAN,
Secondary Causality in the Summa contra Gentiles, “The Modern Schoolman,” 35 (1957), pp. 21-37 ; E. GILSON,
Avicenne et les origines de la notion de cause efficiente, in Atti del XII Congresso internazionale di filosofia, vol. 9,
pp. 121-130 ; E. GILSON, Pour l’histoire de la cause efficiente, “AHLDMA,” 1962, pp. 7-31 ; C. FABRO, La
difesa critica del principio di causa, in C. Fabro, Esegesi Tomistica, Libreria Ed. della Pontificia Università
Lateranense, Rome, 1969, pp. 1-48 ; M. L. COLISH, Avicenna’s Theory of Efficient Causation and Its Influence on
St. Thomas Aquinas, in Atti del Congresso internazionale (I): Tommaso d’Aquino nel suo settimo centenario, 1974,
pp. 296-306 ; T. D. HUMBRECHT, Note sur la cause efficiente et l’onto-théologie, “Revue Thomiste,”105 (2005),
pp. 5-24.

22
of the efficient cause. Therefore, the study of matter and form alone is not sufficient; it should
naturally lead to a consideration of the efficient cause.” 50

“In corporeal beings, the efficient cause always acts by altering some (secondary) matter
so as to educe a new form from it. Hence, it can also be called a moving cause (causa movens).
‘The efficient cause is the cause of the causality of matter and form, since by its motion or
movement it makes the matter receive the form, and makes the form inhere in matter.’51 In the
case of created causes, the agent always requires a potency upon which it exerts its activity, or, in
other words, a subject on which it acts in order to obtain a new effect. God alone causes without
any need for a pre-existing reality, since He produces the totality of the effect.”52

Distinctive Characteristics of Efficient Causality

Alvira, Clavell, and Melendo give us some the features of the efficient cause: “a) Unlike
the material and formal causes, the efficient cause is a principle extrinsic to the effect…

“b) The efficient cause imparts to the subject the perfection which makes it an effect of
the agent, a perfection which the agent must actually have. A teacher, for instance, is the
efficient cause of the knowledge of the student, because he imparts to the student a portion of his
own actual knowledge.

“In this respect, the efficient cause is always an exemplary cause, since no one can give
another a perfection which he does not have. Thus, only an actual being can impart actuality to
an effect, and it can only do so to the extent that it is itself actual (every agent acts insofar as it is
in act).

“c) The effect always pre-exists in its cause in some way. The perfection transmitted may
be found in the cause either in a more eminent manner or at least in the same degree. A man, for
instance, can engender another man. To warm another body, the warming body must have a
higher temperature.

“Consequently, when an agent acts, it always produces something like itself. The likeness
does not refer to any perfection whatsoever, but precisely to that perfection by virtue of which
the agent acts in the given instance. Fire, for instance, does not warm insofar as it is actually
luminous, but insofar as it is actually hot. Producing an effect means imparting to matter a form
which is like that possessed by the cause. Since this form may be possessed in either of two
ways, either naturally or intellectually, the likeness of the effect may refer to either. A colt is like
the horse with respect to the form which is possessed by both in a natural way. A cathedral,
however, is not like the architect, but like the model which the architect conceived in his mind.

“Furthermore, the principle by virtue of which something acts in producing an effect is its
form, and not its matter, since it is by virtue of the form that it is actual. This is true both in the

50
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, Metaphysics, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1991, p. 201.
51
In V Metaphysicorum, lect. 3.
52
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 201-202.

23
case of the substance and of the accident: 1) The specific actions of a substance stem from its
substantial form and from its consequent operative powers. If man can think and will, this is
because he has a spiritual soul, which is endowed with intelligence and will. 2) Acquired
perfections in the sphere of activity stem from operative habits. Thus, only a person who has the
knowledge and skill of the architect can design houses.”53

Types of Efficient Causes

There are various types of efficient causes, namely: the primary cause and the secondary
cause; the principal cause and the instrumental cause; the total cause and the partial cause; the
coordinated cause and the subordinated cause; the universal cause and the partial cause; the
physical cause and the moral cause; the ‘per se’ cause and the ‘per accidens’ cause; the
proximate cause and the remote cause; the necessary cause and the free cause; the univocal
cause and analogical cause; the natural cause and the rational cause.

“1. Primary Cause and secondary cause. God is the sole First or Primary Efficient Cause,
for the definition of primary efficient cause is this: a cause which is wholly independent of other
things; a cause which has, in no sense, a cause of its own. Creatures are secondary efficient
causes; they depend upon the First Cause for their existence and their equipment and their
function.”54

53
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 202-203.
54
P. J. GLENN, Ontology, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1957, p. 318. The Causality of the First Efficient Cause (God) and
the Causality of Secondary Efficient Causes (Creatures): Explaining the limits of created causality and how, in the
final analysis, secondary causes (creatures) have need of a First Cause, God, Who is the cause of the act of being
(esse), Alvira, Clavell and Melendo write:
“‘Becoming’ and Forms Constitute the Proper Object of the Efficient Causality of Creatures. The action of a
created agent is the cause of the coming into being (‘fieri’) of the effect; however, it does not produce the being of
the effect as such. It effectively brings about the production of a new reality, (in the case of generation and
corruption) or the acquisition of a new mode of being by an already existing being (in accidental changes).
However, once the action of the natural agent ceases, the effect remains in its being, which reveals the effect’s
actual independence with respect to the cause which produced it. When an architect builds a house, for instance, he
imparts a new accidental form to already existing materials, making them suitable for dwelling. In this way, he
effectively brings about the construction of the building or its coming into being (becoming). Once the construction
activity is finished, however, the house preserves its being by virtue of certain principles which no longer depend on
the builder in any way. The same thing happens in the case of a new animal begoten by its progenitors.
“The proper terminus of created causality, in the processes of generation and corruption, is the form, which is the
primary act of a corporeal substance. In the case of accidental changes, the terminus is a new accident of the
substance. The proper effect of the causality of creatures is always the eduction of a form. We can see this clearly if
we recall that a substance is a cause to the extent that it really influences its effect, or, in other words, to the extent
that the latter cannot exist if the former is suppressed. It is obvious, however, that what disappears when a created
efficient cause is removed is the process of ‘in-forming’ some matter or the production of a new form, which is
where the influence of the agent of itself ends. The very reality of the effect, which continues in its own being, is not
eliminated.
“Consequently, the created agent is not the sole or the absolute cause of its effect; rather, it is the cause of the
production of the effect. Generation, which is the most profound type of causality in material things, has to be
considered as a via in esse or as the way by which an effect comes to be, namely, by receiving a new substantial
form. Consequently, ‘when the action of the agent in generation is removed, the transition from potency to act,
which is the coming into being (fieri) of the begotten, ceases, but the form itself, through which the begotten has the
act of being, does not cease. Hence, when the action of the agent in generation ceases, the being of the things
produced persists, but not their becoming (De Potentia Dei, q. 5, a. 1, c.).

24
 “Creatures are Particular Causes of Their Effects. The finitude of created causes becomes even more manifest as
we take into account the way in which they act:
“a) Natural agents always act by transforming something. Both in the case of accidental changes and the
production of a new being, creatures act by merely altering an already existing reality.
“b) Hence, in their activity, created causes presuppose a preexisting object. If they are bringing about an
accidental change, they need an actually existing subject that will be affected by this modification. If they are
generating a new substance, they also need prime matter from which they can educe the new substantial form, while
divesting it of the form it previously had. Fire engenders fire in another material substance; plants grow from seeds,
with the help of some other elements provided to them by their material surroundings. Animals beget their offspring
by means of their own bodies.
“c) The efficient causality of finite beings is limited by their own active capacity and by the conditions of the
subject on which they act. It is evident that one cannot produce more perfection than what he himself possesses (no
one can transmit knowledge which he does not have or generate a substantial form different from his own). Besides,
the efficient power of a cause is restricted by the potentiality of the matter which it transforms or influences. No
matter how intelligent a scientist may be, he can never transmit more knowledge than what his students are able to
grasp. Similarly, the skill of a sculptor is hampered by the poor quality of the marble be carves.
“d) Consequently, the act of being of their effects is not the immediate and proper effect of the causality of
creatures. The causality of a creature cannot account for the effect in its totality; it can do so only for some of its
perfections, which the efficient cause is able to impart, and the subject, because of its conditions, is able to receive.
Consequently, no created cause produces the total being of its effect. Even in the case of generation, it does not
produce being from absolute non-being (from nothingness); rather, it produces this thing from something which was
not this thing. This is how a new plant grows from seed.
“What the created cause immediately and directly influences is the effect’s manner of being, (as a substance or as
an accident), rather than its act of being. Strictly speaking, its causal influence ends in the form. A horse, for
instance, is the immediate cause, not of the colt’s being (its having the act of being), but of its being a colt.
“This does not mean that the created cause does not influence the being of the effect (otherwise it would not
really be a cause). It truly does, but in an indirect and mediate fashion, that is, through the form, which is its proper
effect. No creature can be a cause of being as such, since its activity always presupposes something which already is
or has the act of being (esse). Created agents ‘are not the cause of the act of being as such, but of being this – of
being a man, or being white, for example. The act of being, as such, presupposes nothing, since nothing can preexist
that is outside being as such. Through the activity of creatures, this being or a manner of being of this thing is
produced; for out of a preexistent being, this new being or a new manner of being of it comes about’(Summa Contra
Gentiles, II, 21).
“Hence, it must be said that in relation to the act of being, created causes are always particular causes; in other
words, they attain their effect not insofar as it is being but only insofar as it is a particular kind of being. Besides,
everything acts to the extent that it is actual, and since creatures possess a limited act of being (they are not pure act
of being), they necessarily have to cause limited effects in the ontological order.
“Created Causality Requires a First Cause Which is the Cause of the Act of Being. Summarizing the conclusions
of the two preceding sections, we can say that the efficient causality of creatures is not sufficient to explain the being
of an effect. We have underlined the fact that it extends only to the latter’s ‘coming into being’ or becoming.
“At the same time, we have also emphasized that the created cause is a real cause. Hence, to say ‘a created thing
causes a new substance’ is perfectly valid. Even though the form is the end of the act of generation, the effect is a
new substance. But it is also evident that this new substance proceeds not only from the active power of the agent,
but also from the preexistent passive potency of matter (ex materia).
“Therefore, all causality of creatures necessarily demands the act of being that is presupposed. The cause of this
act of being (esse) is God, the Subsistent Esse, the First and Universal cause, in contrast to which other beings are
merely secondary causes. Only divine causality can have esse as its proper object.
“God has the act of being as the proper object of His causality, both in terms of creation and the conservation of
all things in being. Creation is the act of giving the act of being (esse) to creatures out of nothing. In God, creation is
an act co-eternal and one with Himself (ab aeterno), but from man’s point of view, creation is carried out in time.
The duration in time of that divine act is known as conservation, which is not really distinct from the act of creation.
As a consequence, if God had not created, nothing would exist; seen from the angle of conservation (which is the
same as creation), everything would fall into nothingness if God would not maintain in being what He had created.
“To give the act of being ex nihilo is exclusive of God, for only God is the Subsisting Act of Being, as well as the
only universal and omnipotent Cause. Let us consider this briefly:

25
 “a) He is the Subsisting Act of Being and Being by essence. Only the Absolute and Unlimited Being, the Fullness
of Being, can have the act of being of creatures as its proper effect. In contrast, a particular manner of being, with a
finite and participated esse, lacks the power to reach anything which transcends that restricted mode of being.
“b) He is omnipotent. We have already seen that creatures presuppose some substratum on which they act. To the
extent that this substratum is more or less distant from the act which it is to acquire, a more or less powerful efficient
cause is required to actualize the potency. For instance, to make a piece of iron red-hot, a thermal power greater than
what suffices to set fire to a piece of wood is needed, since the latter, compared to iron, is in much more proximate
potency to ignition. Since the act of being does not presuppose anything, an infinite power is needed to cause it. It is
not simply a matter of bridging a great gap between act and potency, but of overcoming the infinite chasm between
nothingness and being. Omnipotence is an attribute of God alone, since He alone is Pure Act which is not restricted
by any essence.
“c) He is the only universal cause. The act of being is the most universal effect, since it embraces all the
perfections of the universe in terms of extension and intensity. It includes the perfections of all beings (extension)
and all the degrees of perfection (intensity). Hence, no particular cause immediately affects the act of being; rather,
esse is the proper effect of the first and most universal cause, namely, God, who has all perfections in their fullness.
“God alone, then, is ‘the agent who gives being (per modum dantis esse), and not merely one that moves the agent
or alters (per modum moventis et alternantis)’(In IV Metaphysic., lect. 3).
“This does not mean that God creates continuously out of nothing. It means rather that in His creative act, God
created all being – whether actual or possible. This act gave rise not only to those beings God created at the
beginnning of time, but also to those that would come to be through natural and artificial changes in the course of
time”(T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 234-239).
Characteristics of the Causality of the First Cause (God):
Explaining the characteristics of the causality of the First Cause (God), Alvira, Clavell and Melendo write: “The
terms First Cause (God) and secondary causes (creatures) are equivalent to others which are also often used: cause
of being (esse) and cause of becoming (fieri); universal cause and particular cause; transcendental cause and
predicamental cause.
“The cause of the act of being is the first cause since it is presupposed by any other cause, just as being is
prerequisite to every other effect. It is an absolutely universal cause since it embraces each and every created
perfection, whereas particular agents only influence a certain type of effect. It is a transcendent cause for the same
reason, since its proper effect, being, transcends all the categories; in contrast, predicamental causes only produce
determinate modes of being.
“In contrast to secondary causes, the First Cause can be defined by the following characteristics: a) It is the cause
of the species as such, whereas secondary causes only transmit them. A man, for instance, cannot be the cause of
human nature as such, or of all the perfections belonging to it, ‘for he would then be the cause of every man, and,
consequently, of himself, which is impossible. But this individual man is the cause, properly speaking, of that
individual man. Now, this man exists because human nature is present in this matter. So, this man is not the cause of
man, except in the sense that he is the cause of a human form that comes to be in this matter. This means being the
principle of generation of an individual man…Now, there must be some proper agent cause of the human species
itself ; …This cause is God’(Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 65).
“b) It is also the cause of matter, whereas creatures only give rise to successive changes of the form. As we have
seen, in the production of any new effect, creatures presuppose a prior subject, which in the case of generation is
matter. Matter, which is the ultimate substratum of all substantial changes, is the proper effect of the causality of the
supreme cause.
“c) It is the most universal cause, in contrast to creatures, which are only particular causes. Acting, by way of
transforming, all secondary causes produce a type of particular effects, which necessarily presuppose the action of a
universal cause. Just as soldiers would achieve nothing for the final victory of the army without the overall plan
foreseen by the general and without the weapons and ammunition provided by him, no creature could exist or act,
and consequently produce its proper effects, without the influence of the First Cause, which confers the act of being
both on the cause and on the subject which is transformed.
“d) It is a cause by essence, whereas creatures are only causes by participation. Something has a perfection by
essence when it possesses it in all its fullness. In contrast, the perfection is only participated if the subject possesses
it only in a partial and limited way. Since everything acts insofar as it is actual, only that which is Pure Act or
Subsisting Act of Being can act and cause by essence. Any creature, however, which necessarily has the act of being
restricted by its essence, can only cause by participation, that is, by virtue of having received the act of being and in
accordance with the degree it is possessed.

26
 “Consequently, God alone has causal power in an unlimited way, and for this reason He alone can produce
things from nothing (create them) by giving them their act of being. Creatures only possess a finite and determinate
causal capacity proportionate to their degree of participation in the act of being. Besides, for their proper effects,
they presuppose divine creative action which gives the act of being to those effects.
“Creatures produce their proper effects, which are only ‘determinations of being,’ insofar as they are conserved
by God. ‘That which is some kind of thing by essence is the proper cause of what is such by participation. Thus, fire
is the cause of all things that are enkindled. Now, God alone is Being by essence, while other beings are such by
participation, since in God alone is Esse identical with His essence. Therefore, the act of being (esse) of every
existing thing is the proper effect of God. And so, everything that brings something into actual being does so
because it acts through God’s power’(Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 66)(T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T.
MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 239-241).
The Relationship Between the First Efficient Cause (God) and Secondary Efficient Causes (Creatures):
Illustrating the relationship between the First Efficient Cause (God) and secondary efficient causes (creatures),
Alvira, Clavell and Melendo write: “The being and the causality of creatures are, as we have seen, based totally on
God who is the First Cause and the Cause by essence. This entails a relationship of total subordination, and not
merely of parallel concurrence in which God’s power and that of creatures would combine to produce a single
effect. To illustrate the relationship between God’s efficient causality and that of creatures, we can recall the
relationship between the principal cause and an instrumental cause, instead of that between two partial causes which
are extrinsically united to attain a single result (as two horses joining forces to pull a carriage). Just as a paint brush
would be unable of itself to finish a painting, a creature would be devoid of its being and its power to act if it were to
be deprived of its dependence on God.
“Nonetheless, some clarification has to be made regarding this matter: a) A created instrumental cause is truly
dependent on the agent only with respect to the action of the instrument, whereas the creature is also subject to God
with regard to its own act of being.
“b) A creature possesses a substantial form and certain active powers which truly affect it in a permanent way;
these are the root of its activity, to such an extent that in natural activity, the actions of secondary causes are
proportionate to their causes. In an instrument, however, in addition to the form it has, by which it can produce its
own non-instrumental effects, there is also a new power present in a transient manner, capable of producing an
effect disproportionate to the instrumental cause. Hence, in the stricter sense, creatures are called instruments when
they are used by God to produce effects which exceed their own capacities, especially in the realm of grace. They
are called secondary causes when they act in the natural order.
“Three consequences can be drawn from the total subordination of secondary causes to the First Cause: a)
Compared with the secondary cause, the First Cause has a greater influence on the reality of the effect.
Analogously, a painting is more correctly attributed to the artist than to the paint brush or palette which he used. ‘In
the case of ordered agent causes, the subsequent causes act through the power of the first cause. Now, in the order of
agent causes, God is the first cause…thus, all lower agent causes act through His power. The principal cause of an
action is that by whose power the action is done, rather than that which acts; thus, the action springs more strictly
from the principal agent than from the instrument. Therefore, compared with secondary agent causes, God is a more
principal cause of every action’(Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 67).
“b) Both the First Cause and secondary causes are total causes of the effect in their own respective order, since
the effect is entirely produced by each of them, and not partly by one and partly by another. ‘The same effect is not
attributed to a natural cause and to divine power in such a way that it is partly done by God, and partly by the natural
agent; rather, the effect is totally produced by both, in different ways, just as the same effect is wholly attributed to
the instrument and likewise wholly attributed to the principal cause’(Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 70).
“As we have seen, the proper and adequate effect of a secondary cause is the form (substantial or accidental), and
creatures receive a particular degree of participation in the act of being through the form. The immediate proper
effect of God, however, is the act of being of all things, and through the act of being, His own power influences all
the perfections of creatures. The all-encompassing character of divine causality arises from the special nature of esse
as the act of all acts and the perfection of all pefections of a created substance. ‘Since any creature as well as
everything in it shares in its act of being…every being, in its entirely, must come from the first and perfect cause’(In
II Sent., d. 1, q. 1, a. 2).
“Therefore, divine Providence embraces everything which exists in the universe. It includes not only the
universal species but also each individual, not only the necessary or predetermined activity of inferior beings but
also the free operations of spiritual creatures. It extends not only to the most decisive actions of free creatures (those
which alter the course of mankind’s history) but also to their seemingly unimportant daily activities, since both

27
 “2. Principal cause and instrumental cause. The principal efficient cause exercises its
own activity with the aid of another cause which subserves that activity. The writer, for example,
exercises his activity with the aid of pen or pencil. The instrumental efficient cause operates
(exercises its causality) under the movement and direction of a principal cause. The pen or pencil
which serves the writer is an instrumental cause. Notice that the whole effect (in our example, the
finished piece of writing) is attributable to both the principal cause and the instrumental cause,
but in different respective ways. The writer wrote the whole letter; so did the pen. But the letter
is, first and foremost, the writer’s; as an expression of thought it must be attributed to the writer
alone; no one would praise the pen for high sentiments or graceful phrasing. But the letter is
attributable to the pen as used by the writer, and as having a fitness or suitability to serve the
writer in the activity of writing. The instrument thus has its efficient causality in its disposition or
fitness to serve a certain use, and this causality is actually exercised only under the transient
application of the instrument to its use by the activity of the principal cause.”55

Regarding the principal cause and the instrumental cause,56 Alvira, Clavell, and Melendo
state: “We have so far stressed that the efficient cause is always superior to its effects.
Experience clearly shows, however, that there are certain effects which surpass the perfection of
the causes which produce them. A surgeon’s knife, for instance, restores health to a patient; a
combination of uttered sounds enables a man to convey his thoughts to another man. As we can
easily see, the enormous efficacy of these causes stems from the fact that they are employed as
instruments by some other higher cause.

“An instrumental cause is a cause which produces an effect not by virtue of its own form,
but on account of the motion or movement conferred on it by a principal agent. A principal
cause, in contrast, is a cause which acts by its own power.

kinds of actions share in the actuality of the esse of the person doing them. This act of being is the immediate effect
of divine efficient causality.
“c) The subordination of secondary causes to God does not diminish the causal efficacy of creatures; rather it
provides the basis for the efficacy of their activity. God’s action increases and intensifies the efficacy of subordinate
causes as they progressively get more closely linked with God, since a greater causal dependence entails a greater
participation in the source of operative power. This is somewhat like the case of a student who faithfully follows the
instructions of the professor guiding him in his studies, or that of the apprentice who conscientiously does what the
accomplished artist tells him. They experience greater efficacy in their activity.
“Secondary causes have an efficacy of their own, but obviously they have their power by virtue of their
dependence on higher causes. A military officer, for instance, has authority over his subordinates because of the
power invested in him by higher officers of the army; the chisel transforms the marble because of the motion
imparted to it by the artist.
“Hence, ‘the power of a lower agent depends on the power of the superior agent, insofar as the superior agent
gives this power to the lower agent whereby it may act, or preserves it, or even applies it to the action’(Summa
Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 70). Since God not only confers operative power on secondary causes but also maintains
them in their being, and applies them to their effects, their efficacy is multiplied as they become more submissive to
divine action.
“The great significance of this profound reality can be seen in practical activity, especially in the sphere of
human freedom. Submission to God’s law does not in the least diminish the quality of men’s actions. On the
contrary, it invigorates them and confers on them an efficacy that surpasses natural standards”(T. ALVIRA, L.
CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 241-244).
55
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., pp. 318-319.
56
Cf. J. S. ALBERTSON, Instrumental Causality in St. Thomas, “The New Scholasticism,” 28 (1954), pp. 409-435.

28
 “A distinction has to be made between two effects of an instrumental cause, namely, that
stemming from the instrument’s own form (proper effect) and that arising from the influence of
the principal cause (instrumental effect). The proper effect of a paint brush, for instance, is the
transfer of paint to the canvas; its instrumental effect, however, is the landscape scene impressed
on the canvas by virtue of the skill of the painter, who is the principal cause.

“The action of the instrument as an instrument is not different from the action of the
principal agent, since the power which permanently resides in the principal agent is acquired in a
transient manner by the instrument insofar as it is moved by the principal agent. The skillful
painter always has the ability to do an excellent work, but the paint brush only has it while it is
being used by the artist.

“Consequently, the effect of the instrumental action has to be attributed to the agent
rather than to the instrument. Strictly speaking, miracles are not attributed to saints but to God,
just as literary work is not attributed to the author’s typewriter but to the author himself.

“It is quite obvious, however, that in order to obtain certain effects the agent needs
suitable tools. To cut something, for instance, a sharp hard instrument is required. One should
keep in mind that the instrument achieves the instrumental effect through its proper effect. Once
a saw has lost its sharpness, it will not anymore be suitable for cutting and cannot be utilized for
furniture-making.

“Instrumental causality has considerable importance not only in daily life, but also in the
supernatural dimension of human life in relation to God, who makes use of the natural actions of
creatures as instruments to obtain supernatural effects. This is why instrumental causality is dealt
with quite extensively in Theology.”57

“3. Total cause and partial cause. By reason of the scope of their influence, efficient
causes may be either total or partial. A total cause is the complete cause of the effect in any given
order, whereas a partial cause only produces a portion of it. For this reason, partial causes are
always coordinated. Each of the horses in a team, for instance, is a partial cause of the movement
of the carriage or of the plow. Men are partial causes of peace in society, since it is attained
through the good will of individuals.”58

“4. Coordinated cause and subordinated cause. A coordinated cause is the same as a
partial cause and thus accounts for only part of the effect. A subordinated cause is a cause which
depends upon another cause. If such a cause depends upon another cause in the very exercise of
its causality, it is called an essentially subordinated cause. Such a cause produces the whole
effect, but in dependence upon the other cause. For instance, the chisel of a sculptor is a cause
which exercises influence upon the whole statue, but is dependent upon the sculptor in the very
exercise of its causality. If a cause depends upon another cause, but not in the exercise of its
causality, it is said to be accidentally subordinated to this cause. For example, a man depends on
his father as upon upon a superior cause for his existence, but in the act of begetting a son he

57
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 205-207.
58
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., p. 204.

29
does not depend upon him; hence he is only accidentally subordinated to his father, insofar as the
act of begetting a son is concerned.”59

“5. Universal cause and particular cause. This classification refers to the coverage or
extension of the causal influence or the set of specifically distinct effects to which it extends. A
cause is universal if it extends to a series of specifically distinct results; it is particular if it is
restricted to a single type of effects. In the strict sense, God alone is a universal cause, since He
alone is an efficient cause who creates and sustains in existence every kind of creature. In a
wider sense, however, a cause is universal if its causal efficacy extends to all the specifically
distinct effects within a given sphere. In the construction of a building, for example, the architect
is a universal cause with respect to the many other agents (carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers,
etc.), who work together to build the structure.

“In a different sense, a universal cause is a cause which produces a given effect from a
more universal point of view. God, for instance, produces all things from the supremely universal
point of view of being. A particular cause, in this sense, is a cause which achieves its effect from
a more limited point of view. A man, for example, produces a cabinet in so far as it is a cabinet,
but not insofar as it is a being.

“The more actuality a cause has (that is, the more perfect it is), the greater its operative
power is, and the wider the field of influence it has. As we ascend in the hierarchy or degrees of
being in the universe, we find a greater causal influence. The causal influence of plants goes
further than that of inanimate things. In the case of man, through his intelligence, he achieves a
wide span of effects inconceivable in the world of lower living things and of inanimate things,
which are rigidly directed towards a determinate kind of effect. God, who is supremely Perfect
Act and is, therefore, at the peak of efficient causality, infinitely transcends all causal influence
of creatures as regards both intensity and extension.”60

“6. Physical cause and moral cause. A physical efficient cause is one that produces an
effect by its own physical activity. A moral efficient cause (which is not an efficient cause
properly so called, but as such by an extension of meaning) is one that exercises an influence on
a free agent (that is, a free actor, doer, performer) by means of command, persuasion, invitation,
force of example. The free agent who is moved to action by such influences is the physical
efficient cause of the action; the one who exercises such influences over the physical cause is the
moral efficient cause of the action.”61

“7. Per se cause and per accidens cause. A per se efficient cause is one that tends by
nature or intention to produce the effect that actually is produced. Fire is the per se efficient
cause of light and heat; it tends by its nature to produce light and heat. A hunter who shoots a
rabbit is the per se efficient cause of the killing, because he intends it. A per accidens efficient

59
H. J. KOREN, Introduction to the Science of Metaphysics, B. Herder, St. Louis, 1965, pp. 247-248.
60
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 204-205.
61
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., p. 319. Koren observes that “a physical cause produces its effect by direct action towards
this effect; e.g., the carpenter is the physical efficient cause of the table he produces. A moral cause produces an
effect by proposing a purpose to the physical cause; e.g., a customer, by offering money, induces the carpenter to
make a table”(H. J. KOREN, op. cit., p. 248).

30
cause is one that produces an effect ‘by accident,’ since it is either not such a cause as naturally
produces this effect, or the effect is not intended. A man drilling a well for water strikes oil; the
drilling is not by nature calculated to bring up oil in each case, but, in this case, it does so per
accidens. A man digging a grave uncovers buried treasure per accidens. A hunter shoots a dog,
mistaking it for a rabbit; he is the per accidens cause of the killing of the dog, because he did not
intend it. The term per se means ‘of itself’; and the term per accidens means ‘by accident.’ A
cause which of itself (that is, by its nature, or by the intention of a free agent) produces an effect
is the per se cause of that effect; a cause which happens to produce an effect, although the cause
is not naturally ordinated to the producing of this effect, or – in case of a free agent acting as
physical or moral efficient cause – is not intentionally directed to the producing of this effect, is
the per accidens, or the accidental cause of the effect.”62

“8. Proximate cause and remote cause. A proximate (or ‘next door’) efficient cause
admits no medium between itself and its effect. A remote (or ‘farther off’) efficient cause has
one or more mediate causes between itself and the effect. A thief is the proximate cause of the
theft; the man who ordered the thief to steal, or showed him how to do it, is the remote cause. A
disease may be the proximate cause of death; the contagion or infection which induced the
disease is the remote cause. There is here an axiom of value for philosopher and moralist: causa
causae est causa causati which is translated literally as, ‘The cause of a cause is the cause of
what the latter produces.’ We may translate the axiom freely thus, ‘The remote cause is a true
contributor to the effect of the proximate cause.’ Of course, the degree or measure of the
contribution will depend upon the actual influence which comes through to the ultimate effect
from the remote cause. A moral efficient cause is always a remote cause of the ultimate effect.
Our little Catechism lists the ‘nine ways of being accessory to another’s sin,’ and therein presents
for our consideration a series of moral and remote efficient causes, and indicates that
responsibility for the ultimate effect rests upon the remote cause as well as upon the proximate
cause: causa causae est causa causati. Another way of expressing the truth of this axiom (as
touching free agents) is this: qui facit per alium, facit per se, ‘He who does a thing through an
agent or proxy or representative, does it himself.’”63

“9. Necessary cause and free cause. A necessary cause is one that is compelled by nature
to produce its effect when all conditions for it are fulfilled. Fire under dry chips is the necessary
cause for flame. The sun is the necessary cause of daylight. A free cause is one that can refrain
from producing its effect when all conditions for it are fulfilled. A hungry man with appetizing
food before him may still refuse to eat.”64 Concerning determined cause and free cause, Alvira,
Clavell and Melendo state the following: “A determined cause is a cause which produces its

62
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., pp. 319-320. Koren states: “A cause is called direct (per se) if it tends to produce a certain
effect either naturally or freely. For example, the act of digging naturally tends to produce a hole, and the digger
freely intends to produce a hole. By an accidental cause is usually meant a cause which produces some effect other
than that which was freely or naturally intended. For instance, the act of digging a hole may be the accidental cause
of a treasure trove”(H. J. KOREN, op. cit., p. 248).
63
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., pp. 320-321. Koren writes: “The proximate cause is the cause from which the effect
proceeds immediately. The remote cause acts upon another cause and thus produces the effect mediately. For
instance, if I boil water, the proximate cause of the boiling is the heat of the kettle, and the fire applied to the kettle
is a remote cause”(H. J. KOREN, op. cit., p. 248).
64
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., p. 321. Koren: “A necessary cause is determined by its very nature to act in a definitive
way, whereas a free cause has control over its actions”(H. J. KOREN, op. cit., p. 248).

31
proper effect as the result of the mere ‘vitality’ of its nature. These causes are sometimes called
necessary causes, in another divergent sense. A plant, for instance, spontaneously produces its
flowers and fruit. Consequently, in the absence of any impediment, these causes necessarily
produce their effects and can never act in a different way.

“In contrast, a free cause is a cause which produces its effect with mastery over its own
operation, thus being able to produce it or not, by virtue of its own decision. A man, for instance,
can decide to go for a walk or refrain from doing so. Free causes have mastery over the goal
which they seek, because they know it and tend towards it by their own will.

“The effects of determined causes somehow pre-exist in their respective causes in such a
way that the movement of the cause of itself allows one to foresee its effects. The study of the
nature of a living organism enables a person to know how it will act subsequently, taking into
account its contingency. Free causes, in contrast, are not determined towards a single end. They
may or may not act, and they may act in a particular way or another. Knowledge of their nature
does not enable one to foresee their effects. This is true in the case of the activity of men and of
angels, and of God’s activity with regard to the created world.”65

10. Univocal cause and analogical cause. “A univocal cause produces an effect of the
identical species to which itself belongs. Human parents are the univocal causes of their children.
An equivocal cause produces an effect which belongs to a different species than that to which the
cause belongs. Thus, ‘April showers bring May flowers’; the human sculptor produces a non-
human statue.”66 Regarding the difference between univocal cause and analogical cause, Alvira,
Clavell, and Melendo state the following: “This classification of causes refers to the degree of
likeness of the effect to its cause. A univocal cause produces an effect of the same species as
itself. One tree produces another tree, etc. An analogical cause produces an effect of a different
and lower species than itself, although there is always some likeness to itself. God is an
analogical cause of creatures: the act of being which He gives them does result in a likeness to
God, since it is a participation of that act which He has by essence. However, since the creature’s
act of being is restricted by an essence, the created esse is infinitely distinct from that of God.
Man is an analogical cause of the artifacts he produces (a bed, a poem, a car), since these are of a
species different from man. Artificial things are subdued likenesses of the human spirit, since
their forms (received in matter) are similar to the spiritual forms which the artisan conceives in
order to do his work.”67 Clavell writes in Metafisica (2006): “Causa univoca e causa analoga.
Tale distinzione considera il tipo di somiglianza degli effetti rispetto alle loro cause. Il puledro
assomiglia al cavallo – causa univoca – per la forma posseduta naturalmente da entrambi, che le
fa avere la stessa essenza ed appartenere alla stessa specie. Una cattedrale, invece, non
assomiglia all’architetto – causa analoga –, ma all’idea esemplare che questi ha concepito nella
propria mente.

“La causa univoca è quella che produce un effetto della sua stessa specie, un albero ne
genera un altro, ecc. La causa analoga produce un effetto di specie diversa e inferiore alla causa,
anche se ad essa somigliante. L’uomo è causa analoga degli artefatti che costruisce – un letto,

65
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 208-209.
66
P. J. GLENN, op. cit., p. 321-322.
67
T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., p. 205.

32
una poesia, un torchio –, poiché questi ultimi non sono della stessa specie umana. Tuttavia, le
cose artificiali sono similitudini – sebbene degradate – dello spirito dell’uomo, dato che sono
oggetti la cui forma materializzata assomiglia alle forme spirituali concepite dall’artista per
realizzare la propria opera.

“L’intera attivita naturale del mondo fisico è determinata ad un tipo di effetti e alle volte
è univoca, mentre l’azione originata dallo spirito è analoga. Questi diversi tipi di causalità, però,
possono darsi in uno stesso agente. Di fatto, l’uomo per natura genera sempre un altro uomo e
ne è causa agente univoca; e può al contrario produrre effetti diversissimi in quanto artista o
artefice, e in questo modo è anche causa analoga.

“Dio è causa analoga delle creature, poiché dà loro un essere che, in quanto
partecipazione di quello che Lui possiede per essenza, è simile a Dio ma allo stesso tempo, in
quanto contratto dall’essenza, si distingue infinitamente dall’essere divino.”68

“11. Natural cause and rational cause. A natural efficient cause (called agens per
naturam, that is, ‘Acting by its nature’) is any necessary cause in the physical order. A rational
efficient cause (called agens per intellectum, that is, ‘Acting with understanding’) is a free cause,
a cause which acts with knowledge and free choice.”69

68
L. CLAVELL and M. PÉREZ DE LABORDA, op. cit., pp. 291-292.
69
P. GLENN, op. cit., p. 322.

33