Anscombe challenges Humean-theory-of-causation and argues that the ordinary concept of causality does not correlate with the ideas of necessity nor universality (it’s not a must).
Note: Anscombe is rejecting the very idea of causal necessity both anti-realist and realist versions.
Anscombe highlights the connection between Causality and necessity, beginning from Aristotle until the popular Humean-theory-of-causation. She notes that even opposers to Hume’s did not question the connection between causality and necessity, but instead reinforced it.
Anscombe’s argument against causal necessity
…we have found certain diseases to be contagious. If, then, I have had one and only one contact with someone suffering from such a disease, and I get it myself, we suppose I got it from him. But what if, having had the contact, I ask a doctor whether I will get the disease? He will usually only be able to say, ‘I don’t know — maybe you will, maybe not’.”
Anscombe’s idea against causal necessity is that while it may be true that, in an individual case, that contact with a carrier caused the disease; it’s not true to say that contact with a carrier necessarily leads to disease. in other words, it’s not a true generalization to say that contact with a carrier always leads to diseases.
Even if causal claims were true in many individual cases, that does not mean they will be universal generalizations (generalizations with no exceptions), and so the causes in question do not neccessarily bring about the effects, like Humean-theory-of-causation insists.
See Hume-vs-Anscombe-on-causation for Humean view full cause
Definition of cause from Anscombe’s view
Considering that we are prepared to say that “particular A causes a particular B” but denying that “A necessarily causes B” and that “A-like things always and invariably causes B-like things”, then what do we mean by calling A cause of B?
”… causality consists in the derivateness of an effect from its causes. This is the core, the common feature, of causality in its various kinds. Effects derive from, arise out of, come of, their causes …
If A comes from B, this does not imply that every A-like thing comes from some B-like thing or set-up or that every B-like thing or set-up has an A-like thing coming from it, or that given B, A had to come from it, or that given A, there had to be B for it to come from. Any of these may be true, but if any is, that will be an additional fact, not comprised in A’s coming from B.”
Anscombe defines Causality “A causes B” as “B derives or comes from A”. This as such does not imply necessity or universality. Even if it was true that “every B-like thing comes from some A-like thing” or “given that A, B had to come from it”, these would be additional facts and not comprised in B coming from A.
Response against Hume’s regularity in causation
Humean-theory-of-causation epistemology leads to the view that we never perceive causation in individual cases; the idea of causality only emerges when we see repeated instances of similar conjunctions.
Anscombe argues instead that the concept of Causality is something we abstract from a variety of narrower concepts that we apply to everyday individual instances.
- e.g. push, carry, scrape, hurt — all causal concepts that we recognize in individual cases from which we abstract the general concept of causality
Counter argument
thought experiment: imagine a world where every time a knife meets an onion, a different effect occurs. It would then be less clear whether the knife “causes” the onion to split because the effect is not regular or predictable. Our confidence that the knife causes onions to split seems to rely not just on one case, but on the fact that in real life, this happens reliably and repeatedly. Without regularity, we would be uncertain about what counts as a causal relationship. Thus, Anscombe’s view maybe underestimating the role of regularity in our understanding of causation.
Anscombe’s argument against the notion of Full Cause
Going back to the disease example, Anscombe goes against the notion that there is a full cause that explains why contact with a carrier does not neccessarily cause disease.
“This comment betrays the assumption that there is such a thing to know [as the full cause of getting the disease]. Suppose there is: Still, the question whether there is does not have to be settled before we can know what we mean by speaking of the contact as cause of my getting the disease.”
See Hume-vs-Anscombe-on-causation for the full background on this argument.
Are Causal generalizations true?
[Neo-Humeans] realize that if you take a case of cause and effect, and relevantly describe the cause A and the effect B, and then construct a universal proposition, ‘Always, given an A, a B follows’ you usually won’t get anything true.”
Anscombe goes on to give the example of “Always, when one billiard ball impacts another, the second moves off in the direction of the impact.” This proposition is a causal generalization that isn’t actually true, for example, billiards against the wall.
The only way to make generalizations true:
You have got to describe the absence of circumstances in which an A would not cause a B. But the task of excluding all such circumstances can’t be carried out.”