Russell: la noción de causa
Juan Camilo Espejo-Serna
Universidad de la Sabana
Rechazo de tres definiciones de causaldiad
CAUSALITY, ( I ) The necessary connection of events in the timeseries. . .
"CAUSE (notion of). Whatever may be included in the thought or perception of a process as taking place in consequence of another process. . . .
CAUSE AND EFFECT. ( 1 ) Cause and effect . . . are correlative terms denoting any two distinguishable things, phases, or aspects of reality, which are so related to each other that whenever the first ceases to exist the second comes into existence immediately after, and whenever the second comes into existence the first has ceased to exist immediately before."
CAUSALITY, ( I ) The necessary connection of events in the timeseries. . . ¿necesidad?
"NECESSARY. That is necessary which not only is true, but would be true under all circumstances. Something more than brute compulsion is, therefore, involved in the conception; there is a general law under which the thing takes place."
"NECESSARY is a predicate of a propositional function, meaning that it is true for all possible values of its argument or arguments."
Russell parece confundir una afirmación universal con una afirmación necesaria. ¿En qué consiste la diferencia?
Russell rechaza la primera definición con base en su entendimiento de qué es una verdad necesaria
Russell rechaza la segunda definición porque es una definición i) psicológica y ii) circular
CAUSE AND EFFECT. ( 1 ) Cause and effect . . . are correlative terms denoting any two distinguishable things, phases, or aspects of reality, which are so related to each other that whenever the first ceases to exist the second comes into existence immediately after, and whenever the second comes into existence the first has ceased to exist immediately before." ¿Cómo entender la relación de 'existencia inmediatamente después'?
Russell cree que la noción de causa es ociosa
In spite of these difficulties, it must, of course, be admitted that many fairly dependable regularities of sequence occur in daily life. It is these regularities that have suggested the supposed law of causality; where they are found to fail, it is thought that a better formulation could have been found which would have never failed.
...What I deny is that science assumes the existence of invariable uniformities of sequence of this kind, or that it aims at discovering them.
...
The principle "same cause, same effect," which philosophers imagine to be vital to science, is therefore utterly otiose.
All philosophers, of every school, imagine that causation is one of the fundamental axioms or postulates of science, yet, oddly enough, in advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word "cause" never occurs.
... The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.
Rechazo de máximas filosóficas sobre la causalidad
"Cause and effect must more or less resemble each other."
"Cause is analogous to volition, since there must be an intelligible nexus between cause and effect."
"The cause compels the effect in some sense in which the effect does not compel the cause." (asimetría)
"A cause cannot operate when it has ceased to exist, because what has ceased to exist is nothing."
"A cause cannot operate except where it is."
El remplazo de las máximas
Una relación general entre eventos
2) Sin presuponer que se cumple antes de ser observada
3) Se cumple incluso para el día y la noche (Reid).
4) "In the fourth place, such laws of probable sequence, though useful in daily life and in the infancy of a science, tend to be displaced by quite different laws as soon as a science is successful.
There is no question of repetitions of the "same" cause producing the "same" effect; it is not in any sameness of causes and effects that the constancy of scientific law consists, but in sameness of relations. And even "sameness of relations" is too simple a phrase; "sameness of differential equations" is the only correct phrase. It is impossible to state this accurately in non-mathematical language; the nearest approach would be as follows:
"There is a constant relation between the state of the universe at any instant and. the rate of change in the rate at which any part of the universe is changing at that instant, and this relation is many-one, i.e. such that the rate of change in the rate of change is determinate when the state of the universe is given."
If the "law of causality" is to be something actually discoverable in the practice of science, the above proposition has a better right to the name than any "law of causality" to be found in the books of philosophers.
"Ley de la causalidad" modificada
- No es apriori
- Sin diferencia entre pasado y futuro
- Condiciones de verificación particulares
- Asume PUN. No como "misma causa, mismo efecto" sino como mismidad de leyes
Vamos a empezar a ver la relación entre preguntas sobre la causalidad y preguntas sobre las acciones
¿Es compatible el determinismo con la libertad?
Determinismo
Una descripción completa del estado del universo en un instante dado junto con descripción de las las leyes causales del universo implica una descripción completa del estado del universo en un instante posterior.
Ej: Si sabemos la posición del marcador y las leyes que gobiernan la gravedad, sabemos donde estará el marcador en tres segundos.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre una ocasión en donde alguien levanta mi mano contra mi volutad y una ocasión en donde yo levanto mi mano por volutad propia?
Una respuesta:
Cuando yo levanto mi mano por voluntad propia la causa del movimiento de mi mano son mis estados mentales. Cuando alguien más levanta mi mano contra mi voluntad la causa del movimiento de mi mano no son mis estados mentales (es la otra persona y sus estados mentales).
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre una acción libre
y una acción que no lo es?
Una respuesta:
Una acción libre es causada por mis estados mentales. Una acción que no es libre tiene otras causas.
¿Es compatible el determinismo con la libertad?
Compatibilismo: Sí.
Incompatibilismo: ¡No!
Compatibilismo
"No hay problema. Aunque mis acciones puedan ser predecidas eso no implica que no sean libres. Ser libre no implica ser impredecible.
Incompatibilismo
"Si mis acciones son libres es porque yo pude haber actuado de otra manera. Pero si mis acciones ya están determinadas entonces no podría haber actuado de otra manera. Así, si el determisno es verdadero yo no soy libre."
¿Es compatible el determinismo con la libertad?
¿Qué tipo de noción de la causalidad se presupone?
Próxima lectura
-
Davidson, D. 'Acciones, razones y causas.' (★)