Written by John Lounsbury
We are often cautioned that correlation is not necessarily causation. Yet such logic (connecting correlation with causation) is often accepted in our everyday life, even in courts. (Example: He had a gun, he pointed the gun, I heard a shot, the victim fell dead.) Groucho Marx famously said when recounting being caught in a compromising situation: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?”
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This week we have 26 minutes devoted to five very deep-thinking individuals who discuss causation, from the mental construct on one hand to a fundamental primitive physical relationship on the other. These five individuals discuss causation from the purely philosophical viewpoint, the scientific view, and from the theological perspective. It becomes apparent that the boundaries between these different approaches do not exist – they overlap and intertwine with exquisite complexity.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn starts the video asking “What is reality?” If we cannot define reality then the question of causation never arises. The reality question seems simple but we will find that to be a deceiving perception. Ultimately the question about reality is at the heart of the question “What is causation?” As we find in this brief video, “What is causation?” raises a lot more questions that are fundamental to both our abstractions and our existential being.
Below are briefs excerpted from Wikpedia for the five persons Kuhn interviews in this Closer to the Truth episode. Click on any name for the full Wikipedia page for that individual.
Simon Blackburn FBA (born 12 July 1944) is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his efforts to popularise philosophy. He has appeared in multiple episodes of the documentary series Closer to Truth. During his long career, he has taught at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Richard Granville Swinburne[a] FBA (born 1934) is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been an influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in the philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.
Robin Le Poidevin (born 1962) is a Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Leeds whose special interests include agnosticism,[1] philosophy of religion and metaphysics.[2] He joined the Department of Philosophy at Leeds in 1989 having completed postgraduate studies at both Oxford and Cambridge, obtaining his MA from the former and his PhD from the latter.[3] He is also the current vice president of The British Society for the Philosophy of Religion.[4]
Huw Price (/hjuË praɪs/; born 17 May 1953) is an Australian philosopher,[3] formerly the Bertrand Russell Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, Cambridge,[4] and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.[5]
He was previously Challis Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Time at the University of Sydney,[6] and before that Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh.[7] He is also one of three founders and the Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and the Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.
Price is known for his work in philosophy of physics and for his brand of “neo-pragmatism“[8] and “anti-representationalism,” according to which “all utterances must be looked at through the lens of their function in our interactions, not the metaphysics of their semantic relations.”[9]
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (born 1955) is an American philosopher specializing in ethics, epistemology, neuroethics, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of cognitive science. He is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.[1]
Sinnott-Armstrong is a proponent of Contrastivism, the idea that all claims of reasons are relative to contrast classes.[4] He says that “[the contrastivist] approach applies to explanation (reasons why things happen), moral philosophy (reasons for action), and epistemology (reasons for belief), and it illuminates moral dilemmas, free will, and the grue paradox“.
This video is from the Closer To Truth TV series which presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. The host is Robert Lawrence Kuhn who created and wrote the series, working with award-winning filmmaker Peter Getzels who co-created, produced and directed the programs.
Here is a thought-challenging 26 minutes – be prepared to pay attention and enjoy:
Source: YouTube
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