Symposium: Can an Effect Precede Its Cause?
Author(s): A. E. Dummett and A. Flew
Source: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 28, Belief and
Will (1954), pp. 27-62
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Aristotelian Society
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SYMPOSIUM
"CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?"
By MR. A. E.
DUMMETT
I.-By A. E.
and MR. A.
FLEW.
DUMMETT.
THE thought that an effect might precede its cause appears
at first nonsensical. If the table is laid, then that can only
be because someone has laid it. Perhaps if the world were
different, the plates could have got there by themselves,
without any assignable cause; but that they should be there
by reason of something that was to happen after they got
there seems incomprehensible. In the first place, they are
there now because they werepreviously put there (or got
there somehow), and no one took them away. (Of course,
some things never stay where they are put, and nothing
stays wherever it is put. But the example conforms to a
picture we have of causation-of things going on as they are
unless interfered with.) Secondly, what can one imagine
anyone doing later, whether the plates are there then or not,
to bring about their being there now? Whateverhe does,
we wantto say, will bepointless:for if theyare therenow, nothing
will be neededto bringabouttheirhavingbeenthere,and if theyare
not therenow,nothingcan makethemhave beenthere.
Though the idea seems absurd, we are hard put to it
to say whence its absurdity derives. On the ordinary
Humean view of cause, a cause is simply a sufficient condition: it is merely that we have observed that whenever A
happens, B follows. But obviously we can also observe that
an event of a certain kind is a sufficient condition for an
event of another kind to have taken place previously; and
why should we not then call the later event the " cause "
of the earlier? It is of course a gross over-simplificationto
say that " cause " is synonymous with " sufficient condition ": but it is equally obvious that however we elaborate
on the notions of sufficient and necessary conditions, the
relation can hold as well between a later event and an earlier
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28
A. E. DUMMETT.
as between an earlier and a later. It now appears as though
it were a straightforwarddefining property of a cause that
it preceded its effect. This, however, seems too facile an
explanation. Why should we lay down temporal precedence
as a defining property of a cause? If we can observe that
an event of a certain kind is a sufficient condition of an
earlier event of some other kind, it does not seem to matter
much whether we choose to call the later event the " cause "
of the earlier or not: the question rather is why we should
not usethis observed regularity as we use those that operate
from earlier to later; why, when we do not know whether
or not the earlier event has occurred, we should not bring
about the later event in order to ensure that the earlier had
occurred.
In order to see what kind of absurdity, if any, there is in
supposing that an effect might precede its cause, we have
to look more closely at what is meant by saying that causes
precede effects. There is a well-known crux about this point.
If causes precede effects, it seems that there can never be any
certainty that a cause will bring about its effect; since during
the interval, something might always intervene to hinder the
operation of the cause. Moreover, the suppositionthat there
is a lapse of time between the occurrence of the cause and
its fruition in its effect appears irrational; for if the effect
does not take place immediately, what makes it come about
when, eventually, it does? On the other hand, if causes
are contemporaneous with their effects, we are faced with
the dilemma which Hume posed: for the cause of the cause
will in its turn be simultaneous with the effect, and we shall
be unable to trace the causal ancestry of an event back a
single instant in time.
The dilemma is resolved when we consider how the
picture which we have of causation is to be interpreted.
A cause operates upon a thing, and once it stops operating,
the thing then (i.e. subsequently) goes on in the same way
until some further cause operates upon it. The difficulties
about the temporal precedence of cause over effect are
removed once we remind ourselves that what counts as
" going on as before " is partly a conventional matter; that
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
29
is to say, it includes other things than complete absence of
change. The most familiar example of this is provided by
Newton's laws of motion. In Newtonian mechanics the
effect of a force is simultaneous with its being exerted; but
what requires to be explained by the action of a force is
not, as in Aristotelian mechanics, any deviation from a state
of rest, but a deviation from uniform motion in a straight
line. What we here regard as " going on as before " need
not itself be an unchanging state, but may also be a process.
Thus, although causes operate to bring about their immediate effects without any lapse of time, we are able to trace
the causal ancestry of an event back in time without an
arbitrary lacuna in our chain of explanations; for a cause
may initiate a process, which will be terminated when it
reaches an assignable point, and will then in its turn have
some further effect. The temporal direction of causation,
from earlier to later, comes in because we regard a cause as
startingof~a process: that is to say, the fact that at any one
moment the process is going on is sufficiently explained if
we can explain what began it. Causes are simultaneous
with their immediate effects, but precede their remote
effects.
This point has been somewhat obscured by the reiteration, in works of popular science, that, with perhaps one
exception, the laws of physics are indifferent to temporal
direction. This is doubtless so when one considers the
theory of the behaviour of a system of small particles or of
astronomical bodies; though its being so in no way affects
the fact that the concept of cause is bound up with one
rather than the other temporal direction. The simple
physical laws we make use of in everyday life are not,
however, reversible. Consider one shot in billiards, from
the moment when the ball is struck to the moment when all
the balls are at rest. Given the force with which the ball
was struck, and its direction, together with the coefficients
of friction and of elasticity, the masses of the balls, and so
on, it is a matter of elementary mechanics to determine the
motion of the balls. The physical laws needed to explain
the behaviour of billiard balls, given the forces applied to
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30
A. E. DUMMETT.
them by the cues, are comparativelysimple. If, however, we
imagine the whole sequence of events as taking place in
reverse, the theory needed to explain the behaviour of the
balls would have to be far more complex, and prediction
would depend on far more recondite observations. The
motion of each ball, between any two moments at which it
strikes the cush or another ball, is one of those processes
whose continuance needs no explanation--only its origin
and its (uniform) deviation from constant velocity; this
would be so whether events occurred in their normal or
in the reverse order. But if they occurred in the reverse
order, it would appear, on only ordinary observations, quite
inexplicable why each ball started moving when it did;
why each process got under way at all.
It remains a philosophical problem why we should thus
associate causality with the earlier-to-later direction rather
than with the opposite one. I shall not go further into this
question here, but simply accept it as a fact that it is so.
It is perhaps just worth observing that the above example
shows that how things in fact happen in nature makes it
much easier for us to begin to construct a system of causal
explanations than it would be if natural events took place
in the reverse order; by this I do not mean at all to suggest
that this is the main reason for our regarding causes as in
general preceding their effects.
If, then, the immediate cause is always simultaneous
with its effect, how do we decide which of two events is the
cause and which the effect? It is not the case that that one
is the cause which is the sufficient, and that the effect which
is the necessary, condition of the other: we often call
necessary conditions " causes ", and even things which are
not either sufficient nor necessary; and the two events might
each be the sufficient and necessary condition of the other.
We determine which one is the cause by deciding which one
can be already causally accounted for without reference to
the other. This statement is not viciously circular; our
system of causal explanations is constructed piecemeal, and
it is only when we already have a causal explanation of the
occurrence of one of two events, each the sufficient and
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31
necessary condition of the other, that we can decide which
of the two we are going to regard as the cause of the other.
In particular, if one of the two events is the arrival at a
given stage of one of those processes whose continuance, in
the currently accepted system of causal laws, is not regarded
as requiring explanation, that one is the cause of the other.
Where one of the two events is not a natural happening
which we simply observe, but a deliberate human action,
then it is that one which is the cause, and the other the
effect.
The question remains whether, given that in general
causality works in the earlier-to-laterdirection, we could not
recognise a few exceptions to this general rule. If we find
certain phenomena which can apparently be explained only
by reference to later events, can we not admit that in these
few cases we have events whose causes are subsequentto them
in time ? I think it is clear that we cannot. One event
is causally connected with another if it is either its
immediate cause or it is one of its remote causes. To be
its immediate cause, it must be simultaneous with it. If it
is a remote cause of it, then it is so in virtue of being the
immediate cause of the beginning of some process whose
continuance is not regarded as requiring explanation, and
whose arrival at a certain stage is in turn the immediate
cause of the event in question. (Of course, the chain may
be longer than this.) An event subsequent to the event whose
occurrence we were wishing to explain could fall into
neither of these two categories. A remote cause can be
connected to its remote effect only by means of a process
which it sets in motion, i.e. which begins at the moment
it operates and goes on after that: a subsequent event can
therefore be neither a remote nor an immediate cause.
This explanation why an effect cannot precede its cause
does not, however, end the matter. We may observe that
the occurrence of an event of a certain kind is a sufficient
condition for the previous occurrence of an event of another
kind; and, having observed this, we might, under certain
conditions, offer the occurrence of the later event, not indeed
as a causal, but as a quasi-causal explanation of the occur-
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A. E. DUMMETT.
rence of the earlier. There are three such conditions which
would have to be fulfilled if it were to be reasonable to offer
such a quasi-causal explanation. First, the occurrence of
the earlier event, which was to be explained by reference to
that of the later event, would have to be incapable, so far
as we could judge, of being (causally) explained by reference
to simultaneous or preceding events; there must be no
discoverable explanation of the earlier event which did not
refer to the later. Secondly, there would have to be reason
for thinking that the two events were not causally connected;
i.e. there must be no discoverable way of representing the
earlier event as a causal antecedent (a remote cause) of the
later. Thirdly, we should have to be able to give a satisfactory (causal) account of the occurrence of the later event
which contained no reference to the occurrence of the
earlier. If these three conditions were fulfilled, and there
really was good evidence of the repeated concomitance of the
two events, then the quasi-causal connection between them
would be a fact of nature which we could do no more than
observe and record.
These three conditions would be satisfied, for example,
in the following case. A man is observed regularly to wake
up three minutes before his alarm-clock goes off. He often
does not know when he goes to sleep whether or not the
alarm has been wound, nor for what time it has been set.
Whenever the alarm has been set and wound, but fails to go
off because of some mechanical accident, which is later
discovered, he always sleeps till very late. One morning
he woke up early, when the alarm-clock had not been
wound, but an acquaintance, who knew nothing about this
queer phenomenon, came in and, for some quite irrelevant
reason, set off the alarm-clockjust three minutes after the
man had woken up. In such a case it would be reasonable
to overcome our prejudice against the possibility of giving
a quasi-causal account of some happening, and say that the
man wakes up because the alarm-clock is going to go off,
rather than to dismiss the whole thing as a coincidence.
Such a quasi-causal kind of explanation suffers,however,
from severe limitations. It can never appear as satisfactory
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
an explanation as a causal account properly so called. If
we observe that an event A of a certain kind is a sufficient
condition of the occurrence of a later event B, we may frame
the hypothesis
that A is the cause of B; but we shall not have
a full causal explanation until we have discerned the causal
mechanism which connects the two. That is to say, the
hypothesis is that event A is the remote cause of event B;
but we have not got a causal explanation until we can say
of what processA is the immediate cause, and by what means
a certain stage in this process P comes to be the immediate
cause of B. Moreover, the assertion that events of the same
kind as A are the causes of events of the same kind as B
(or of processes of the same kind as P), is regarded as not
only more firmly based, but as more of an explanation,the
more general the " kinds " in question can be represented
as being: we want our causal laws to connect as wide a range
of phenomena as possible. Nothing of this kind can be
attained in the case of a quasi-causal explanation, where the
event whose occurrence constitutes the explanation is
subsequent in time to that whose occurrence is to be
explained. It is not here possible to display the mechanism
of the quasi-causal connection: because the kind of connecting link we want can connect only earlier to later. If
in certain fields (say that of psychic phenomena) we find
ourselves forced to be content with such quasi-causal
explanations, we cannot hope to find, as we do in other
sciences, more detailed explanations of the quasi-causal
connection between the two events, or to frame a general
theory to account for a wide range of such phenomena: we
simply have to state the connection as a brute fact, not
susceptible of further explanation. It is for this reason, I
think, that psychic phenomena are so baffling in the sense
that it appears impossible to propose any kind of general
hypothesis that could serve as a starting-point for further
experiments and for developing a theoryto account for the
phenomena: if no genuinely causal explanation can be given,
then it is in the nature of the case impossible to develop the
science in the ordinary way.
Of the truth of this last assertion,that we could not build
D
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A. E. DUMMETT.
a system of quasi-causalexplanations, or find a link between
a quasi-cause and its quasi-effect, I must admit to some
uncertainty. It seems conceivable that we should discover a
connecting link in some process which begins simultaneously
with the quasi-effect and ends simultaneously with the
quasi-cause; the origin of this process being causally
inexplicable, but the intensity and manner of its origin being
always calculable given the manner of its termination. To
see this, we may imagine that billiard balls regularly
behaved as we should see them if we took a film of a game
of billiards and played it in reverse.' It then seems that we
could give a quasi-causal account of their behaviour
precisely analogous to our ordinary causal account of the
normal behaviour of billiard balls. The balls, we should
say, start moving at moments, in directions and with
velocities such that one of them will strike the cue with the
appropriate force and in the appropriate direction.
To the idea that it might on some occasions be reasonable
to offer the occurrence of some event as an explanation of
the occurrence of an earlier event we feel a strong a priori
objection. This objection can be formulated as follows: If
it were ever reasonable to explain the occurrence of some
event by reference to the occurrence of a later event, then
it might also sometimes be reasonable to bring about the
occurrence of some event with the intention of guaranteeing
the occurrence of a previous event. Now to act in such a
way might not seem absurd in the case in which the previous
event is subsequent to the action: e.g. it might not seem
absurd to set an alarm-clock one evening with the intention
that someone might wake up the following morning before
the alarm went off. But to suppose that the occurrence of
an event could ever be explained by reference to a subsequent event involves that it might also be reasonable to
bring about an event in order that a past event should have
occurred, an event previous to the action. To attempt
1 The
difficulty of making sense of this supposition lies in the unintelligible
behaviour of the players. This difficulty can be eliminated by imagining a
suitably constructed machine to wield the cue. It is not here worth while to
elaborate the example in this way.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
to do this would plainly be nonsensical, and hence the idea
of explaining an event by reference to a later event is
nonsensical in its turn.
But why should it appear absurd to do something in
order that something else should have happened? A false
but plausible answer to this is the following: What is absurd
is not the doing of a particular kind of action, but the
describing of it in a particular way. Just as, when we wish
an event of a certain kind, C, to take place in the future,
and we believe that an event of another kind, B, is a
sufficient condition of C's taking place subsequently, we
bring about B with our wish in mind; so, analogously, when
we wish an event of a third kind, A, to have taken place in
the past, and we believe that B is a sufficientcondition of A's
having taken place previously, we bring about B with our
wish in mind. The difference between the two cases lies,
the argument runs, not in what we do but in how we
describe it. In the former case, we should say that we were
bringing about B in order that C should occur; in the latter
case, that, by seeing whether we could bring about B, we
were finding out whether A had occurred.
That this answer is incorrect can be seen from the
following example. Someone who believes in magic has
some extremely plausible grounds for doing so; he has
noticed, after careful observation, that his spells and
incantations are invariably followed by the results in order
to produce which he carries them out. He has among his
spells a formula for producing good weather in a particular
place on a particular day; this formula works without fail,
and the results frequently produce consternation among the
meteorologists. An occasion arises when he has a reason
for wanting the weather at, say, Liverpool, to have been
good on the previous day, but he does not know whether
there was or not; he therefore recites his spell, putting in
yesterday's date. Subsequently he finds out that there was
fine weather at Liverpool on that day; and he finds that
whenever he recites the formula with a past date, not knowing
what the weather was like on that date, later investigation
proves the weather to have been fine then. It is clear that
D2
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A. E. DUMMETT.
the magician will not describe his action in reciting the spell
as " finding out whether the weather was fine " on the day
in question. This form of description is appropriate only in
a case in which there is some question of our not being able
to bring about the event which we hold to be a sufficient
condition of the event we wish to have occurred. By
contrast, the normal case of bringing about an event which
we hold to be a sufficient condition of a subsequent event
which we hope will takeplace is that in which there is no question of our not being able to bring about the earlier event.
The form of description," trying to find out whether . . .
has occurred ", is appropriate to quite different circumstances. For instance, it is a necessary condition of the
light's going on that a broken light-bulb has been replaced;
I can thereforesay that by seeing whether I can put the light
on or not, I find out whether the bulb has been replaced,
because the former is a sufficient condition of the latter.
The case of the magician is quite different. The reciting of
the spell is not like an experiment which may have alternative results; there is no question of his not being able to
recite the spell, if the weather was not fine. The reason why
we should not recognise the possibility of the magician's
trying to recite the spell and failing is precisely that we
cannot account for the fact that the recital of the spell
appears to be a sufficient condition of the weather's having
been fine by an ordinary causal hypothesis. If there were
a causal explanation, this would consisteither in the weather's
being a remote cause of his deciding to recite the spell, by
some unconscious mechanism, in which case whether or not
it was fine will already be shown by his having the intention
to recite it; or else in the weather's being a remote cause of
the state of affairs which made it possible to recite the spell.
We should naturally try first to find a causal explanation of
one of these two types; but if neither was available, i.e.
if it was genuinely the recital of the spell which was a
sufficient condition of the weather's having been fine, then
we should not recognise a possibility of the magician's trying
to recite the spell and failing. We should not in this case
describe him as trying to find out whether the weather had
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been fine, but as reciting the spell in order that the weather
should have been fine.
Strictly speaking, although we shall not normally expect
the magician to try to recite the spell and fail, if we accept
his belief that the spell is a quasi-cause of previous fine
weather, we cannot completely rule out the possibility. If,
however, he does on some occasion try to recite it and fail,
then we shall have to find something to account for his
failure, other than the fact that the weather was not fine.
By contrast, my failure to switch on the light might be
accounted for precisely by the fact that the light-bulb had
not been replaced.
The objection was raised that we should never allow the
occurrence of an event as an explanation of the occurrence
of an earlier event, because this would involve that it might
be reasonable to do something in order that something else
might have taken place in the past. The question then
arose: whence the absurdity of this latter idea ? The answer
suggested was that the absurdity lay not in the action but
in this method of describing it; that we should describe such
an action as "trying to find out whether the past event
had occurred ". This answer was seen to be wrong because
such a form of description would presuppose that we
recognised a possibility of someone's trying and failing to
perform the action in question, and this in turn presupposed
that we could give an ordinary causalaccount of the connection between the earlier and the later event. This observation in turn prompts another argument designed to give
expression to our a priori objection to the idea of a quasicausal connection.
This argument runs as follows: Just because, in the case
of the magician, there is no question of his failing to recite
the spell, we cannot allow that the spell can be a sufficient
condition of the weather's having been fine. Either the
weather was fine, or it was not. If it was not, then if its
having been fine were a necessarycondition of the magician's
reciting the spell, it would follow that if he were to try to
recite the spell, he would fail. Therefore, by not recognising
as a possible contingency any circumstance which we should
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A. E. DUMMETT.
describe by saying, " He tried to recite the spell, but failed,"
we are in effect denying that the weather's having been fine
can be a necessary condition of his reciting the spell. By
not recognising the possibility of his trying to recite it and
failing, we are thereby admitting that if the weather had not
been fine, he could still recite the spell.
The fallaciousness of this argument arises from its
inappropriate use of a contra-factual conditional; for where
we are concerned with a regularity which works counter to
ordinary causal regularities,our normal methods of deciding
the truth of a contra-factual conditional break down. That
the argument, as it stands, has no weight, can be seen from
the fact that an argument of precisely equal validity can be
constructed to show the futility of relying upon a causal
sequence when we wish to bring about an event in the
future: namely, when we perform an action, about which
there is no question of our not being able to do it, which is
a sufficient condition of a subsequent event which we wish
to see take place. In exact analogy, one might say: Either
the event in question is going to take place or it is not.
Suppose that it is not going to take place: then to admit that
there is no question of one's not being able to perform the
action just is to admit that the action cannot be a sufficient
condition of the event's coming about. It just is to admit
that, if the event is not going to take place, one could still
perform the action.
When one hears these two arguments, one is inclined
to object that, although apparently analogous, they are not
genuinely so. Both start with a tautology-the one with,
"Either the event has taken place, or it has not", the other
with, " Either the event is going to take place, or it is not ".
But, one wants to say, in the two cases the two alternatives
presented by the tautology bear differently upon the issue.
Admittedly thefuture event eitheris or is not going to takeplace;
but the point is that whether it does or not depends, in part, on
whether or not the action in question is performednow; whereas
in the case of the past event, its having happenedor not does not
dependon what happensnow-it has already either happeenedor
not happened.
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It does not need much perspicuity to see that this objection, which we naturally feel very strongly, begs the question;
for the question precisely was whether the occurrence of an
event could in any way " depend " on whether or not a
subsequent event occurred. One assumes, when one thinks
of an event as having taken place, that all possible determinations of it have already been used up, and that therefore it is no use doing anything now designed to make it have
happened. When, on the other hand, we think of a future
event, we do not have the picture of all determinations of
it being alreadyused up. The argument, in the case of the
past event, gets its strength from this picture that we
naturally use-of the past as fixed, and the future as fluid;
and this makes the argument valueless, for what it was
intended to do was not to appeal to but to justify this
picture.
The flaw in the argument is the step from " The event
is a necessarycondition of the action " to" If the event has not
taken place, then there is a possibility of trying and failing
to perform the action ". This becomes clear when we
consider the case in which the event is subsequent to the
action. If the event is not going to take place, and if the
action is a sufficient condition of the event, then the
action will not be performed. From this it does not follow
that we have to recognise a possibility of an unsuccessful
attempt to perform the action. It may simply be that, in
all cases in which the event is not going to take place, the
action just is not performed. More strictly: we can never
rule out altogether the possibility that someone might try
and fail to perform the action; but in recognising a causal
connection, we preclude ourselvesfrom explaining the failure
to perform the action on the simple ground that the event
is not going to occur. Similarly, if the event precedes the
action, then if the action is a sufficient condition of the
event, and if the event has not occurred, it follows that the
action will not be performed. But from this it does not
follow that someone may try to perform the action and
fail; it may just be that he does not perform it. More
strictly: we cannot altogether rule out the possibility that
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A. E. DUMMETT.
he will try to perform it and fail; but by recognising a
quasi-causal connection between the action and the event,
we are ruling out the possibility that there will be no other
way of accounting for his failure to perform it than by
reference to the fact that the event has not taken place.
That is to say, we assume both that the event's nonoccurrence will not be accepted as an explanation of his
failure, since we can establish no causal connection between
them; and that if he does fail, we shall be able to find an
ordinary causal explanation of his failure which does not
refer to the non-occurrence of the event. That we should
make these assumptions follows from the conditions presupposed by saying that there was reason to believe in a
quasi-causal connection between the action and the event.
There is an immense temptation, which must be overcome, to look for an a priori reason why an event can be
counted as a sufficient condition of a previous event only
in cases where the later event can be called " the means of
finding out whether the earlier event had occurred ", i.e. in
cases where an ordinary causal account can be given of the
connection between them; and to give such a reason by
saying that past events are already determined. The
difficulty of sustaining this objection lies in the problem of
elucidating " is determined ". If it means that it is already
true that a given event has or has not happened on a given
past date, the answer is that there is no tense here to the
expression " is already true ": the expression " is true ",
attached to a statement whose time-specification is not
token-reflexive, is tenseless; moreover, it is also true that
any given future event either will or will not happen, so that
the argument proves too much. If " determined " means
" causally determined ", the conclusion follows, but the
premiss is not necessarily true: we should not, I think,
accept a quasi-causal account of the occurrence of some
event for which we could give a perfectly satisfactorycausal
account; but the whole argument for the possibility of a
quasi-causal explanation rests on the assumption that there
may be found to be some past events of whose occurrence
we can give no causal account. If we make " is determined "
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CANAN EFFECTPRECEDE
?
ITSCAUSE
41
equivalent to a disjunctionof which one limb is " is present "
-as does Mr. David Pears in his version of this argument2then indeed we now have a tensed verb, and have created,
though not pointed to, an asymmetry between past and
future; but our argument is again circular, for there is now
no force in the suggestion that an event which is in this sense
already determined can be no further determined: since on
this argument any past event has by definition been deter-'
mined, the argument merely asserts what it purported to
prove, that an event cannot be determined by a subsequent
one.
What is true is that if the magician knows that the
weather was fine on the date in question, he will not bother
to recite the spell; and if he knows that it was not fine, he will
not recite it either-in this sense, it is true and relevant to
say, " You can't change the past ": the tautology, " What
has happened, has happened ", has a genuine function here.
So, if he knows what the weather was like, the recital of the
spell will be either fruitless or redundant. Here it is of no
consequence that this argument too can be paralleled for
the future. It is of course true that if anyone knewwhether
or not something was going to happen, he would do nothing
now designed to make it happen, for this would be either
redundant or fruitless; in this sense, you cannot change the
future either: what will happen, will happen. This is,
however, irrelevent, because, in the nature of things we
cannot have the necessary knowledge about what is going
to happen in the future; all our knowledge about the future
is based upon our knowledge of what is the case now,
coupled with our reliance on certain causal regularities, so
that in no case could what happened now seem irrelevant
to what we thought was going to happen. With our
knowledge about what has happened in the past, it is quite
different: we have our memories, and we also have deductions from what is the case now, based upon our belief in
certain causal regularities. Thus the fact that, if we had
2 In
Time, Truth and Inference(Aristotelian Society Proceedings, 1950-51).
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42
A. E. DUMMETT.
reasons for thinking that an event had, or that it had not,
happened in the past, we should never do anything now
designed to make it have happened, depends on the fact
that, even if we knew of any quasi-causal regularities, we
should always rely upon them less than on our methods of
finding out what happened in the past.
The objection to the idea of quasi-causation now takes a
new form. Even if the magician does not know whether
or not the weather was fine on the date in question, he can
always find out whether it was, and so save himself the
trouble of reciting the spell; for once he has found out, he
will see the recital of the spell as either fruitlessor redundant.
The effectivenessof the spell cannot, however, depend on the
magician's ignorance of some fact which he can discover if
he wants to; the spell must therefore be either fruitless or
redundant whether he knows what the weather was or not.
It is in all cases irrational to try and make something have
happened, whether at the time we know or do not know
whether it has.
The fallacy in this argument lies in the assumptionthat
whether or not a supposedcause or quasi-causeis " effective "
is a fact of nature independent of what we may know or not
know. The only relevant facts of nature are what the
weather was like, and whether the magician recites the spell
or not, on this and other occasions: if in certain circumstances we quite reasonably assert that he did not recite
the spell, we are entitled to add that, this being so, had the
circumstancesbeen such as to lead us to suppose, reasonably,
that he did recite it, this supposition would neverthelesshave
been false. It is not in this sense a fact of nature that the
spell was or was not effective: if it is in certain circumstances
reasonable to say that it was effective, that is all thereis to
the question whether it was right or wrong to say so. By
this I do not mean to exclude the possibility that we might
at some time reasonably say that it was effective, and later
have reason for going back on this. I mean only that it is
a fallacy to argue that, given that if he knew that the
weather was fine, he would reasonably say that the recital
of the spell was redundant, it follows that if it was fine but
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
43
he did not know this, the recital of the spell would still be
redundant, even though he would not think it was.
To see this, we must compare with the effectiveness of
quasi-causes the effectiveness of causes. A quasi-cause
appears redundant when we know that the wished-forquasieffect has taken place, because we rely on memory and causal
regularities more than on quasi-causal regularities. We can
however conceive of someone who had precognition as well
as memory: by this I do not mean crystal-gazing, but a
faculty exactly analogous to memory. Such a person would
presumably rely on his precognitions even more than on his
belief in causal regularities: he would therefore regard as
either redundant or fruitless an action designed to bring
about an effect which he precognised to be going, or not to
be going, to happen. He would rightly regard the action
as ineffective; and we, who lack the faculty of precognition,
might equally reasonably regard it as effective. One cannot
argue that because the man with precognition rightly
regards it as ineffective, it therefore is ineffective, even
though we do not realise that it is. Nor would it follow
that the man with precognition would give up all belief in
causality, or stop trying to bring about future events
altogether. He can still perform actions in order to bring
about future events whose occurrence or non-occurrence he
does not precognise: his impression of the fruitlessness or
redundance of causes need extend only so far as his precognitions. In just the same way, the magician, although
he has memory, may legitimately attempt to make any event
have taken place of which he does not know whether or not
it did take place. The magician's belief in the effectiveness
of the spell is an illusion produced by his ignorance of the
past in just that sense, and no more, in which our ordinary
belief in casual regularities is an illusion produced by our
ignorance of the future.
Imagine that I find that if I utter the word " Click! "
before opening an envelope, that envelope never turns out
to contain a bill; having made this discovery, I keep up the
practice for several months, and upon investigation can
unearth no ordinary reason for my having received no bill
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44
A. E. DUMMETT.
during that period. It would then not be irrational for me
to utter the word " Click! " before opening an envelope in
order that the letter should not be a bill; it would be superstitious in no stronger sense than that in which belief in
causal laws is supersititious. Someone might argue: Either
the envelope already contains a bill, or it does not; your
uttering the word " Click! " is thereforeeither redundant or
fruitless. I am not however necessarily asserting that my
uttering the word " Click! " changes a bill into a letter from
a friend; I am asserting (let us suppose) that it prevents
anyone from sending me a bill the previous day. Admittedly
in this case it follows from my saying " Click! " that if I had
looked at the letter before I said it, it would not have been
a bill; but from this it does not follow that the chances of
its being a bill are the same whether I say " Click! " or not.
If I observe that saying " Click! " appears to be a sufficient
condition for its not being a bill, then my saying " Click! "
is good evidence for its not being a bill; and if it is asked what
is the point of collecting evidence for what can be found out
for certain, with little trouble, the answer is that this
evidence is not merely collected but brought about. Nothing
can alter the fact that if one were really to have strong
grounds for believing in such a regularity as this, and no
alternative (causal) explanation for it, then it could not but
be rational to believe in it and to make use of it.
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II.
By ANTONY FLEW.
A.
I SHALLnot follow Dummett directly and immediately:
but after starting from a different place, going off and around
by a route of my own, I hope ultimately to meet his main
arguments in head-on disagreement. Dummett raises our
question in the 'artificial' context of pure philosophical
speculation. It has also arisen 'naturally' out of perplexity provoked by reports of some recent experimental
researches.1 A writer in ScienceNews remarks:
" ' Straight' telepathy poses vast theoretical problems, but precognition-with its apparent implication
that causation can work backwards in time-seems to
violate one of the essential presuppositionsof science."2
Now not only is " precognition " a misnomer for the
phenomena in question-which is not a matter of present
concern: but the " apparent implication " is not one which
any phenomena whatever could have-for that the cause
must be prior to (or at least only simultaneous with) the
effect is not a matter of fact but a truth of logic. Against
this someone might impatiently concede " the current
meanings of ' cause ' and ' effect' make it tautological to
say that a cause must be prior to its effect ", but insist " to
leave the matter there would be to ignore what constitutes
the problem, i.e. the fact that in precognitive phenomena
the nature of the earlier event seems to be causally dependent
on that of the later event, rather than the contrary."3
Certainly the matter should not be left there: both
because we seem to have anomalous facts demanding
1 To
say nothing of any apparently irreducibly teleological phenomena
which may seem to raise similar problems.
2 "
Theoretical Implications of Telepathy " by Mrs. Margaret Knight in
No. 18 (Penguin, 1950), p. 13.
"
3 Some Philosophical Perspectives for Parapsychology " by C. W. K.
Mundle in Journal of Parapsychology,
Vol. XVI, p. 265.
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46
A. FLEW.
investigation-which is not our job; and because it raises
the question whether, supposing it does turn out that these
facts cannot be handled in terms of such notions as cause
and efect, it is possible to devise new but recognisably
analogous notions which might find application here-and
this can be our business. But it is important not to misrepresent the nature of the problem by confusing conceptual
questions with the empirical issues out of which they may
arise: a temptation to which both of the writers quoted have
here succumbed.4
To bring out the nature of our enquiry: imagine a people
among whom maiden aunts above a certain age were both
numerous and socially pivotal, while bachelor uncles of the
same age were unknown or unimportant. Their language
might have a single word niouph5to express the former
concept but none for the latter. So one of them might have
occasion to wonder whether there could be a male analogue
of the niouph; although niouphs were female, by definition.
And if the use of this word involved more than that of our
expression " maiden aunt "-presumably because reference
to some of the functions of these ladies among this people
had become incorporated in the definition of niouphs-this
might provide a philosophical puzzle.
Now analogues of causation, specieswithin the conceptual
genus, are certainly conceivable. That is to say, there are
certain features of the use of the word " cause " which could
be altered: without annihilating the use, depriving the term
of all sense; and without so changing that use, that sense,
-whether by the initial alteration itself or by consequent
adaptations required to avoid contradictions and other sorts
of logical absurdity-that what remains is not sufficiently
like the concept of causation to count as an analogue,
Thus if it is allowed that " the postulate of spatio-temporal
continuity in causal lines " is not really a postulate" required
4 I confess to labouring this point in my A New Approachto PsychicalResearch
(Watts, 1953), Ch. IX; at the cost of neglecting to point out the error of
attempting to revise these concepts on the lines suggested by Dummett.
5 This rather inappropriate Hebrew word is borrowed from Locke (E.H.U.,
Bk. III, Ch. VI, ?? 44 ff.).
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
47
to validate scientic method ",6 nor yet an heuristic maxim
generally and usefully followed by scientists, but is involved
in the meaning of" cause " itself: then clearly we can point
at once to two elements in that which could be dropped,
singly or together, to form new analogous notions. Russell
once discussed the idea of mnemiccausation:a cause in this
sense could operate over a time gap; and this notion may
find application if the search for the engram is ever
abandoned.7 We might invent the concept of PK causation:
a cause in this sense could operate across a space gap; and
this might find application if unsupported objects ever
moved about, otherwise unacountably, as and when and
only as and when someone 'willed' them to move, and
if this phenomenon, like gravitational attraction, was not
weakened or suppressed by the interposition of any sort of
screen between 'willer' and object. If on the other hand
this alleged postulate is not involved in the meaning of
" cause ": then analogous notions could be created by simply
either or both of its elements to the present meaning
adding
"
of
cause "; so long of course as " continuity " was not
interpreted preposterously strictly.s We do not here have
to decide whether spatio-temporal continuity is or is not
involved in the present concept; or to commit ourselves as
to whether that is already determinate in this direction;
or to consider the suggestion that there are two such
concepts one involving and one not involving this.9 This
paragraph is intended only to show that analogues of
causation are conceivable, and to suggest that there is
nothing peculiarly catastrophic about such speculations.10
6
Russell, Human Knowledge,p. 506. This description is of course to be
understood in terms of his general position: that inductive procedures have
to be justified ultimately as based on various assumptions about the nature
of the universe, which fortunately happen to be substantially correct as far
as we can see; rather than as being (or being based on) orderly and systematic
methods of enquiry with which it would be rational to approach any universe
whatever (cf. Reichenbach, Feigl, Waismann, Toulmin, etc.).
7 Analysisof Mind, Ch. IV (the index is seriously deficient here).
8 Vide inter alia Dummett, pp. 00-00 and Russell, " On the Notion of
Cause ", ad init.
1 See R. G.
Collingwood's Metaphysics(O.U.P., 1940), Part C.
10 These analogues are perhaps all to be regarded as species of a higher,
categorial, genus: and indeed there may be something catastrophic about the
idea that some part of experience cannot be subsumed under this. (See Kant:
but cf. Warnock in Logic and LanguageII.)
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48
A. FLEW.
So now what about the main and quite determinate
temporal defining properties of causes and effects: could we
produce a further analogue of causation by exchanging
these ? The first reaction is the Irishism: " The effect can
never precede the cause, because if it does then it's not the
effect but the cause." The implication being that the two
terms form a pair of logical twins, distinguishablein meaning
solely by their opposite correlative temporal defining
properties: and that to exchange these would be possible
but merely silly, enough indeed to generate many a comedy
of errors. It is, I think, this move to which Dummett is
referring when he speaks of "a straightforward defining
property ": and which he rightly rejects as " too facile an
explanation " (p. 00).
It is too facile because there is a further and inestimably
important difference between the two notions, one which
itself entails the temporal one. Causes bring about their
effects: and if a cause is something which can itself be
brought about by human agency, then it provides a lever
which can be used to produce the effect."1 This being so any
attempt to invent a new sense of " cause " in which causes
can be said to produce effects which preceded them must:
either be frustrated by contradictions; or end in a fraud.
For either it will commit us to the contradiction that what
has been done might be undone: i.e. not that something
might sometimes be done now to right the present consequences of what has been done or left undone; but that
what has been done might itself now be undone-which is
a piece of nonsense. Or by complicated consequent
readjustmentsin the use of the word and of its usual logical
associates, this fatal contradiction may be avoided; but only
at the price of producing a notion which could scarcely be
counted as a variety of causation; because a cause in any
such sense would not always operate, bring about, and so
11 This point is developed briefly by D. F. Pears in " Time, Truth, and
Inference " (P.A.S., 1950-1): at greater length by S. E. Toulmin in his book
on the philosophy of physics, ambitiously entitled The Philosophyof Science
(Hutchinson, 1953), pp. 119 ff: and still more fully by R. G. Collingwood
earlier, loc. cit.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
49
on-but at most only if and when it preceded or was
contemporary with its effect.12
(Notes.-(i) This is not to say that a notion generated in
this way could not conceivably find some useful application.
Indeed its very shiftiness might commend it: though
philosophers would need to recognise it as a pseudo-rather
than a quasi-cause. (ii) Though, in order to get anything
said at all, we are confining attention to the generic " cause "
and " effect " it is important to realise how much of our
conceptual equipment is saturated with these notions: they
are for instance involved in the meaning of most transitive
verbs, so many of which are words for species or modes of
causing.)
B.
" On the ordinary Humean view of cause, a cause is
simply a sufficient condition: it is merely that we have
observed that whenever A happens B follows . . . however
we elaborate on the notions of sufficient and necessary
conditions, the relation can hold as well between a later
event and an earlier as between an earlier and a later "
(p. 00). From this and from the observation quoted earlier,
Dummett draws the conclusion: not that this " ordinary
Humean view " needs to be revised and supplemented, but
that he might invent a new notion of (quasi-)cause, by
reversing the time direction of the present one.
(i) Now, it is significant that Hume presents " cause "
as an observer's
not as an experimental
enquirer'sor an agent's
a paralytic's eye
his
called
be
concept:13
might irreverently
12 Mundle (P.A.S., Suppl. Vol. XXIV, pp. 223-5) and Flew (loc. cit.,
pp. 127-8) have both, rather unenthusiastically, pointed to possible developments on this line.
13 Notice in the Treatise,Bk.I.P. III, ?? 2-6: " contiguity and succession
are not sufficient . . . unless we perceivethat these . . . are preserved in
several instances " (O.U.P. edition, p. 87); our remembrance
of their constant
conjunction " (p. 88); " experiencewhich informs us that such particular
objects . . . have been constantly conjoined . . ." (p. 90); but then, incongruously, " certain objects which have been always conjoined together and
which in all past instances have been found inseparable(p. 93). Again in ? 14:
" I turn my eye on two objects . . . and examine them in all the situations
of which they are susceptible " (p. 155)-as so often Hume in the " experiments " are mental ones or just " experiences ". In the E.H.U. in treating
the example of " the shock of two billiard balls ... After he has observedseveral
instances of this nature he then pronounces them to be connected " (O.U.P.
edition, p. 75. Italics mine throughout).
E
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50
A. FLEW.
view. Only after the main business of showing that causal
necessity is no sort of logical necessity does he go on, more
or less as afterthought, to offer " Rules by which to judge
of causes and effects "14 and to note that causes offer levers:
" the only immediate utility of all sciences, is to teach us
how to control and regulate future events by their causes.
Our thoughts and enquiries are ... every moment employed
about this relation ". 15 But even then these " Rules " (the
substance of which was refined and developed by Mill into
his " Four Methods of Experimental Inquiry "16) are formuand only after
lated for an observernot for an experimenter:
disclaiming the intention of " delivering a long system of
rules and preceptsto direct our judgement "17 does he have
anything to say about experiment (in what can be taken as
the sense of physical as opposed to mental experiment); and
this amounts to little more than the Baconian advice to vary
the circumstances and to persist in the work. (Incidentally
these " Rules " are surely much less like tips for spotting
winners, ways of discoveringwhich dogs the syndicate has
doped, then parts of the meaning of " winner."
Insofar as
someone fails to follow these rules, resort to these methods,
and to regard questions about what was or would be the
result of such resort as relevant to causal issues, he reveals
that his grasp of the concept of cause is to that extent
deficient. The failure to present inductive logic as an
analysis of concepts contributes considerably to the continuing misunderstanding of those who do " informal
logic ,"18). The fact that causes are and must be (even if in
practice unpullable) levers, and are often practically
important as such, is merely noticed: and not made, as it
should be, central to the whole account.
(a) It is no doubt owing to this neglect by Hume, which
was perhaps for his purposes not without justification, that
his successorshave till very recently also failed to do justice
14 Treatise,Bk. I, Part III, ? 15.
15E.H.U., ? VII, Part II,
p. 76.
" the means which mankind
1e A Systemof Logic, Bk. III, Ch. VIII:
possess
for exploring the laws of nature " (Hafner edition, p. 221).
17
Treatise,p. 175.
18 Ryle, " Ordinary
Language ", Phil. Rev., 1953.
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51
CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE?
to the diagnostic and hence contextual'9 character of
cause .
" Wherever questions are asked about causes, some
event ... has a spotlight turned on it: the investigation
of its causes is a scrutiny of its antecedents in order to
discover what would have to be different for this sort
of thing to happen otherwise-what in the antecedents
God or man would need to manipulate in order to
alter the spotlighted event:"?20
though sometimes, of course, especially in social affairs, the
spotlight is on some event or series of events and the
investigation is into the ramifications of effects. Even
now comparatively little has been said about the logical
link between " cause " and " cure ": and how disputes
about real or truecauses are not always and only concerned
merely with what would have or have had to be different
for this to be or to have been different; but sometimes
involve moral and interest preferences between alternatives
both of which would admittedly be causes in this sense.21
Again there is still an inclination to use as if it was entirely
ordinary the rather artificial phrase " causal law." Not that
there are not general rules like " Whenever it makes that
noise it's because the sand has got in." But this particular
phrase, unless a determinate meaning is prescribed for it,
encourages confusions between such tips, which are causal
and say what is the consequence of what, and those physical
laws, which being functional not causal are " indifferent to
time direction "; and say that pressure varies inversely
with volume and so on.
(Incidentally why should logicians like Mill be lambasted
for devoting so much attention to the concept of cause in
19 But granted a certain context it is surely as wrong to follow Dummett in
denying " that whether or not a supposed cause is ' effective ' is a fact of nature
independent of what we may or may not know " as it would be to say that
motion is similarly subjective, just because it makes no sense to talk of absolute
motion. Unless of course you are prepared to deny not merely causal but
spatio-temporal and a lot of other properties to ' things-in-themselves ".
20 Toulmin, loc. cit., pp. 120-1.
21 But see P. L. Gardiner, Historical Explanation (O.U.P.,
1952), Pt. III,
esp. pp. 99 ff., also pp. 9 ff. and p. 24; A. G. N. Flew, " Crime or Disease"
Brit. Journ. Sociology, 1954 (3) (c); and R. G. Collingwood, Metaphysics,
Ch. XXXI.
E2
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52
A. FLEW.
works on induction and scientific method: just because " in
advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word
' cause ' never occurs " ?2
Mill, for instance, described his
" Methods " as " the means which mankind possess for
exploringthe laws of nature " (italics mine): and even
advanced physicists,whatever may be true of their theoretical
papers, still surely cannot do without this concept in their
experimental work, any more than they or anyone else can
do without it in other occasions of practical life. " Our
thoughts and enquiries are every moment employed about
this relation ".)
(b) Another result of Hume's adopting the standpoint
of a meditative observer here is that he is thereby led to
neglect the important difference between observational and
experimental evidence; and hence to present causal reasoning as much less reputable than it can be. We (should) want
to protest that we are not, as he seems most of the time to be
suggesting, confined to noticingthat A and B always come
together, and in that order: but can check our guess that A
is the cause of B by bringingaboutA and seeing whether B
follows; and if we are right we can regularly produceB by
bringing about A. Now even if we agree with Hume that
nevertheless all our evidence for any causal statement is
always ultimatelya variation on the themes: Whenever (so
far) A then as a matter of fact B and never (so far) as a matter
of fact B without A: still this is a distinction which we have
good reason to consider important. To make it appear
that all our evidence is ratheridly observationaland reflective,
is to make Russell's embarrassingsimile of the chicken's fatal
induction by simple enumerationseem far more apt than it is.
(ii) Hume's account of " the idea of necessary connection " is also significant for us. He notices " the terms of
eficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connection and
and we might
productive
quality,are all nearly synonymous""23:
add that the idea whose pedigree he wants to trace is
contained in the meaning of innumerable verbs of doing,
affecting, effecting, producing, pushing, transitive moving,
22
23
Russell, " On the Notion of Cause " in Mysticism and Logic.
Treatise,p. 157.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE?
53
holding up, and so on; because and in so far as all these
are species of the genus causing. Indeed what he is looking
for is whatever seems so far to have been left out of his
analysis of cause. Hume hunts for some impression to be the
original of this idea, finding " nothing but an internal
impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our
thoughts from one object to another".24 As an afterthought
he considers the objection that " An act of volition produces
motion in our limbs ... Hence we acquire the idea of power
or energy; and are certain that we ourselves ... are possessed
of power."''25 He succeeds in proving that you could not
know what was causing what, that your " volitions " were
producing effects, merely by inspecting the cause events
" entirely loose and separate",26 recognising an "influence
of the will we know by consciousness""2: for, among others,
the decisive reason that we have to learn that " the will [has]
an influence over the tongue and fingers, not over the heart
or liver."28 And only as a defensive footnote to this do we
have a mention of human activity, as involving irrelevant
sensations of effort: " the animal nisus, which we experience,
though it can afford no accurate precise idea of power, enters
very much into that vulgar inaccurate idea, which is formed
of it."29
But to present the concept of power, this supposed
from
residue, as almost a popular misconception-deriving
the felt force of habitual mental association,30 from a mis24Ibid, p. 165: notice while here the passage: "Though the several resembling
instances which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on each
other . . . yet the observationof this resemblance produces a new impression
on the mind . . . For after we have observedthe resemblance in a sufficient
number of instances we immediately feel a determination of the mind to pass
from one object to its usual attendant
. . . " (italics mine).
E.H.U., p. 64: the sketchy paragraph on this in the Treatise was added
only in the Appendix in Vol. III of the first edition; but Lindsay in the
Everyman
places it in the body of the text, without annotation.
21
Ibid., p. 74.
25
37
28
29
Ibid., p. 64.
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 67.
" This
again the standpoint of the contemplative spectator in:
connection . . . which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the
imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or
impression from which we form the idea . . . " (E.H.U., p. 75). And consider
the effects of abandoning it to join in a game of back-gammon (Treatise, B.I.,
P. IV, ?7).
30 Note
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54
A. FLEW.
construction of the experiences of volition, and from a
misguided attribution of the sensations of effort to the
inanimate-this should, I think, and usually does, leave
readers incoherently dissatisfied.
(a) Now part of what Hume is doing is offering a phenomenalist logical analysis of casuality, arguing that all the
evidence we ever could have for any causal statement is in
the end of the ' material implication' form. And however
much we protest at the failure to distinguish observational
from experimental evidence still even the latter is of this same
form. One can only tell which 'volitions' and other
performancescause what, if anything, ultimately by noticing
what follows what; however much we refine on this basic
theme. Just as most will be, and rightly, dissatisfied with
any phenomenalist analysis of material things: so they will,
equally rightly, be dissatisfied with such an analysis of
causality. Hume tries to meet this by challenging us to say
whatmore is involved in saying A causes B beyond saying A
'materially implies ' B: and then harries the suggestion
that it is saying that A has a power to produce B except in
the sense that when we contemplate either we feel the force
of habitual associationto the other. Butjust as no collection
of seems-statementsever entails any it is a materialthingstatement, so no collection of materialimplication-statements
ever entails any cause-statement:it would never involve
contradiction, though it would often be very silly, to accept
no matter how many of the former, and yet to say " But
perhaps it is only a coincidence ". G. J. Warnock has
brought out the situation well in the seems-is-caseby comparing it with the relations between the evidenceand the
verdictin a trial: no evidence ever entails nor is it the same as
a verdict; though one can have collections of evidence which
constitute the best possible justification for particular
verdicts.31 This important gap shows up well between two
definitions of " cause " which Hume quite wrongly makes
out to be equivalent:
" an object,followed by another,and whereall the objects
similarto thefirst arefollowedby objectssimilarto thesecond.
31
Berkeley(Pelican, 1953), pp. 181-186.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE?
55
Or in other words where,if thefirst objecthad not been,
thesecondneverhadexisted."32
(b) But another part of what Hume is doing is offering a
sketch for a psychological explanation of how we come to
have the ideas of cause,power,etc.; for, notoriously,he tended
to confuse psychological questions with questions of logical
analysis.33 And though his phenomenalist logical analysis,
was, for the reasons given, defective his psychological sketch
if supplemented by a little more emphasis on doing,would
seem to be roughly on the right lines. (On this see Mishotte,
Piaget, etc.)
By now it should be clear that " on the ordinary Humean
view of cause " unsupplemented the insistence on a past to
future time direction in causal relations must indeed appear
arbitrary; for there is no reason why-the-not-as-a-matter-offact-A-and-not-B relation between events mustobtain only
in cases where A precedes B; while the habitual association
of ideas certainly doeswork from effects to causes as well as
from causes to effects (Philip Marlowe's mind moves as
inevitably from the corpse to the gun as the other way
about).34 But this, we considered,was a reasonto re-examine
" the ordinary Humean view of cause "
C.
We can now begin to examine some, but only some, of
the ingenious results of Dummett's mistaking it for an
indication of the possibility that he might devise a new
notion of (quasi-)cause.
(i) In the light of what has been said about certain weaknesses in Hume's account,35it is significant that Dummett's
first example, about the alarum-clock, suffersfrom the same
faults, almost to the point of caricature. The observers of
this slug-abed are mere observers: indolently disinclined to
32 E.H.U., p. 76 (italics Hume's): Selby-Bigge notes the non-equivalence,
See also Collingwood, loc. cit., pp. 318-9.
pp. xvii-xviii.
83 See Collingwood, loc. cit., p. 309: also Annis Flew, Philosophy, 1953,
passim.
34
E.H.U., p. 77: " an objectfollowed by another.and whoseappearancealways
conveysthe thoughtto the other"; on this definition there does indeed seem nothing
reversing the time direction.
against
35See B
(i), especially B (i) (b).
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56
A. FLEW.
experiment; but frivolouslyready for a revolution in science.
On the strength of simply observing
a correlation between his
and
the
waking
subsequent sounding; markingthat this is
maintained even when he does not know that and for when
it has been set, even when it is only set off by a person who
happenedto drop in; and simply noticingthat he sleeps on
whenever the alarum fails to go off: without any experiments
to see whether the correlation survives the isolation of the
clock, its surprise setting in isolation, its replacement by
others, and so on: it is supposed to be " reasonable to overcome our prejudice . . . and say that the man wakes up
because the alarum clock is going to go off, rather than to
dismiss the whole thing as a coincidence ".
But suppose all this neglected experiment is done and
yet the correlation survives intact. First, there is at least
a third possibility: one could say that it was indeed a
coincidence, since it was a certainly " notable concurrence
of events or circumstances""36
and the question " What is the
explanation? " is ruled out (ex hypothesi-Dummett's
Condition Two); yet not dismiss it, but use the slug-abed's
waking as a sign of the imminent sounding of the alarum.
But notice that this decision is a decision to bet on an
induction by simple enumeration: in which the possibility
of causal connection, which would usually serve as some
justification of the bet, has been excluded (Condition Two);
and in which the possibility of connecting this isolated
regularity with anything else not subsequent to the awakenings by finding conditions under which such signs are, or
are most likely to be, vouchsafed is also excluded (Condition
One).37 Second, reluctance to say that a correlation of such
a high order of statistical significance does not in fact point
to (somesort of) causal connection is in this case reinforced:
because it is almost impossible to accept that Condition Two
has been satisfied ex hypothesi,since in practice it would be
so hard to decide when to abandon the search, and since in
the example as Dummett states it even the most obvious
O.E.D.: cf. Journal of the S.P.R., No. 677, pp. 198-201.
37 About the possibilities of relevant systematic connections with the future
and of intervening links I too " must admit to some uncertainty ". But
if my main theses are correct we can afford to neglect these.
36
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
57
lines of enquiry have not been blocked; because the sounding
of an alarum is an object so often associated with awakening
that we have a strong prejudice for answering the question
" Why did he wake ? " by referenceto alarums; and perhaps
because the phrase " wakes up because the alarm clock is
going to go off" is quite unobjectionable if " because " is
used normally, since it would be taken to mean that the
sleeper picked up some sensory cue which was a sign of
what was just about to happen. Third, quasi-causal
correlationswould have a peculiar elusivenessto experimental investigation; the conscientiousexperimentermust sooner
or later try to bilk Nature by frustratingthe payment of the
quasi-cause to which the quasi-effect, of which he has
possession, owes its existence. If he gets no quasi-effects,
he cannot begin. If he gets them and succeeds, then he
had not really got genuine ones. Only if he gets them and
continually fails will they seem genuine: (though this perhaps
raises minor complications about Condition Three). Fourth,
we must not forget that any 'explanation' in terms of
causes, in any new sense of the word, will at best not be
precisely what we were asking for when we protested " But
surely such a correlation can'tbe a coincidence, there must
be a (causal) connection ": but a substitutecarefullywrapped
in the old verbal packet. At best it will surely only be a
soothing way of adopting what we called " a third possibility ". Fifth, any attempt to suggest that pseudo-causes
operate,that is, are (and could be used as) levers to control
the past, as real causes operate, that is do (and can be used
to) bring about effects, must be radically absurd.
(ii) But it is this, the logically absurd as opposed to the
equivocally soothing,38horn of the dilemma which Dummett
grasps. He asks: " But why should it appear absurd to do
something in order that something else should havehappened? ", and proceeds to consider "A false but plausible
answer ". Here is no place for speculations about philosoof absurdity
phical pathology. The reason for this appearance
is simple and sufficient. It is absurd.
38
See A passim and C (i) ad.fin.
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58
A. FLEW.
Consider Dummett's new way not to pay old debts.
Granted certain conditions " It would . . . not be irrational
... it would be supersititiousin no stronger sense than that
in which belief in casual laws is superstitious". But,
someone might argue, irrational and superstitious is precisely what this would be nothing else whatever but:
" Either the envelope already contains a bill, or it does
not; your uttering the word 'Click' is therefore either
redundant or fruitless". Yet even this would be far too
charitable: for it suggests analogies with savages trying
to prevent an eclipse or encourage the reappearance of the
occluded sun or moon; whereas the proceedings are really
only comparable with the efforts of a madman to find an
unmarried husband by refusing to learn who is married
and who is not.39
(iii) Dummett of course, refuses to accept this short
answer40: stating that to do so would be to succumb to
"an immense temptation, which must be overcome, to look
for an a priori reason why an event can be counted as a
sufficient condition of a previous event only in cases where
the later event can be called 'the means of finding out
whether the earlier event had occurred' (i.e. when the
later is an inevitable consequence of the earlier) ".
Now there is a trap here, and a very subtle one. Dummett
has fallen into it. Remember that he accepts as substantially
correct and complete " the ordinary Humean view of cause ",
that a cause is simply a " sufficient condition ". He is
therefore tempted, and in his own eyes justified, to use
"sufficient condition " as a synonym for " cause ". Thus
"by seeing whether I can put the light on or not, I find
out whether the bulb has been replaced, because the former
9 Cf. If the weather " magician knows that the weather was fine on the
date in question, he will not bother to recite the spell; and if he knows that
it was not fine, he will not recite it either . . . So, if he knows what the
weather was like, the recital of the spell will be either fruitless or redundant ".
Ignorance is power.
40 Others recently have likewise mistaken the unalterability of the past for
a contingent fact: see R. M. Hare, " Imperative Sentences " in Mind, 1949,
pp. 25-27 ending "I shall therefore assume that a logician is entitled to
construct imperatives in all tenses." He has radically revised this position in
Languageof Morals (O.U.P., 1953) App.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE ?
59
is a sufficient condition of the latter": (Why does it
go on now? Because the bulb has been replaced). This
eases the passage from causein the old sense to quasi-cause.
If " sufficient condition " in the " temptation "-passage is
taken as =" cause " then there is an a priori reason, and
so no temptation: but if it means not as a matter of fact
B and not A then indeed there is no a priorireason, for the
correlation might also be a coincidence; but then the
temptation is different, to mistake this for a causal statement.
There are of course similar possibilities of ambiguity with
"determined " and necessary "condition " ; while " is
already determined " is also used as equivalent to " has
already happened " plus reminders that the past is unalterable and has had its causes.
Dummett next objects to the a priorireason
" that past events are already determined. The
difficulty of sustaining the objection lies in the problem
of elucidating 'is determined '. If it means that it is
already true that a given event has or has not happened
on a given past date then the answer is that there is
no sense here to the expression 'is already true': the
expression' is true ' attached to a statement whose timespecification is not token-reflexiveis tenseless; moreover
it is also true that any given future event either will or
will not happen, so that the argument proves too much".
This is an extraordinary argument, explicable perhaps in
terms of a too-hasty study of Pears' brilliant operations with
the notion of "absolutely transparentlogical wrappings ";41
for surely " is already true " has here the necessaryfunction
of desperately underlining the " has or has not happened ".
And as for the claim that it proves too much because " it is
also true that any given future event either will or will not
happen " it is hard to see much that can usefully be added
to what Pears has already said about this ancient puzzle.
14D. F. Pears " Time, Truth and Inference ", P.A.S., 1950-1.
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60
A. FLEW.
Dummett comes to what is, I think, substantially the
reason thus underlined a little later, though curiously he
presents it as a thirdinterpretation.
"If we make 'is determined' equivalent to a
disjunction of which one limb is ' is present' . . then
indeed we now have a tensed verb [And just what was
" ?-A.F.] and have created though not
" happened
to
pointed an asymmetry between past and future, but
our argument is again circular, for there is now no force
in the suggestion that an event which is in this sense
determined can be no further determined: since on this
argument any past event has by definition been determined, the argument merely asserts what it purported
to prove, that an event cannot be determined by a
subsequent one ".
Here Dummett is right in noticing that the argument
which concludes that a cause could not operate backwards,
that the later could not determine (cause) the earlier,because
what has happened has happened and no lever moved now
could produce a change now in what has been before:
depends solely and directly on the meaning of the past tense
and therefore has only doubtful claims to be more than an
assertion: but wrong, for reasons which Pears has sketched
and entitled,42to ask for a longer line between premise and
conclusion in this case: and wrong too to suggest that there
is anything arbitrary about insisting that what is done
cannot be undone; that is, is done.
As Dummett, I think, feels that this is mere dogmatism,
there does not seem to be much more that can be done:
except to refer again to Pears' paper; and perhaps to
suggest remedial exercises in nightmarish imaginings compound of Wonderland and 1984, to bring out the meaning
of the past tense.
(iv) " It is of course true that if anyone knewwhether
or not something was going to happen, he would do nothing
now designed to make it happen, for this would be either
redundant or fruitless; in this sense you cannot change the
42
loc. cit.,
Part III.
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CAN AN EFFECT PRECEDE ITS CAUSE?
61
future either: what will happen will happen "; (italics
Dummett's).
If" knew" is going to be interpreted normally then this
is false: for if the Headmaster knows what he is going to do
to Smith this does not make his effortsredundant or fruitless;
and if he idly does nothing then he didn't really know. I
may in this sense know something which is going to happen,
and know that my activities will be instrumental in bringing
it about, and hence that they will not be either redundant
of fruitless. But perhaps " knew" is to be interpreted as
having " precognition . . . I do not mean crystal gazing,
but a faculty exactly analogous to memory ". Then
this faculty would have to be, like memory, fallible; so if I
'remember-forwards' then I am not in principle in any
better position than if I make a properly based knowledge
claim on the usual grounds; and still there is no reason to
say that my effortsbecome redundant or fruitlessjust because
I know the results they will achieve. What Dummett is
after must surely be a third interpretation, a sort of
Prichardian knowledgeof the future, a knowledge claim
which it is somehow logically impossible to question without
imputing dishonesty. But memory itself does not provide
this sort of knowledge of the past: so an exact analogue
working the other way would not do the impossible trick
for the future. And yet in one sense memory is necessarily
inerrant: for when it was mistaken it was not remembering,
but 'remembering' (cf. knowing and 'knowing'). And
so while " Dummett remembers that p happened " does,
" Dummett claims he remembers that p happened and is
not lying " does not, entail " p happened ". Confusion of
the senses in which memory is and is not infallible tempts
us to think that memory (and precognition) must involve
that past (and future) are somehow entailedby present
events.43
Notice however that if we were to have such a faculty
of looking glass memory,44and if furthermore, and unlike
of memory in Philo43 I have tried to say a little more about these aspects
sophy, 1951, and Journal of the S.P.R., No. 681.
44 Throughthe LookingGlass, Ch. V.
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62
A. FLEW.
memory, it was never in fact to be wrong, and if human
nature was to remain otherwise unaltered under the " two
sovereign masters,pain and pleasure" :45 thenthe worldwould
have to be so changedthat all our effortsto bringaboutor avoid
anything'precognized'to be going to happento us wouldhaveto
be madeas a matteroffact redundant
orfruitless.
It is these further suppositions and not the mere
supposition of precognition " exactly analogous to memory "
which would put us all always into the hopeless situation of
Oedipus over the prophecies: and it is the failure to notice
this which has made the logical possibility of such precognition seem a factual revelation of actual human helplessness,
suggesting the analogy of people helplessly watching the
projection of an already exposed film the 'future' parts of
which are (but necessarily)
fixed already and uninfluenceable
But
even
us.
all
these
by
suppositions together, with their
would
not make all causes (rememnecessary consequences,
ber the Headmaster) fruitless or redundant: it would
involve only and alarmingly, what is not as things are the
case, that we should be helpless to avoid or bring about
what was going to happen to us as we now are to prevent
or encourage eclipses; (and perhaps that people in this situation from birth could not learn the meaning of" cause ").
This is, unfortunately, not the place to go through
variations on this theme: such an exploration might bring
out a lot about, for instance, the differences between the
standpoints of agent and spectator and the interrelations of
our functions as doers and knowers,helping us to make more
of Kant's insights here; which surely involve something
which will have to be incorporated into even a sketch-map
of the territory in which the freewill puzzles arise.
45Bentham, Principlesof Morals and Legislation,Ch. I.
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