PHI 1101 Lecture 6: Chapter 6

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 1101
• Professor: Sardar Hosseini

Document Summary

Causation was probably one of the rst arguments that philosophers thought about. Thales (the father of philosophy) apparently the rst human being who thought about causation, the origin of knowledge, philosophy in the 18th century. Paid attention mostly to the concept of causation. They thought that the planet was made of earth, air and water, later on aristotle added re and anything beyond the moon is ether (this was proven wrong) All these philosophers (thales, his students, aristotle) were curious to know what elements caused existence. This is the original / most fundamental reasoning behind causation. Now, scientists and philosophers do not think of causation to gure out who the universe is created by. It is now not the most fundamental background for inquiry. There is more scienti c interest in the notion of causation (less philosophical) The world around us is a messy web of causes and effects.