Aside: Questions of the meaning of words are always problematic. Why?
Two broad approaches to causality - that there are 'connections' between things, and that there are not.
Can there be patterns in events, but nothing bringing those patterns about?
When you observe billiard balls colliding, what you see is a sequence of events, but not any actual 'push' or 'force'.
· One tempting conclusion: causes are not observable.
· David Hume's conclusion: the concept of cause must be understood as
making a remark about patterns among events. (A word whose meaning is not tied
to what is observable cannot be meaningful.)
(a) The principle of causality is true a priori
(b) Causality makes it possible to think of an 'external' world.
VP