ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Critique of Marxist Philosophy Part 2 The Meaning of Causality Al-Sadr states that there are four theories which resulted from attempts to answer the question: Why do things require causes? (1) The first theory, adopted by some Marxist theoreticians, states that an existent requires a cause for its existence. According to it, causality is a general law of existence as confirmed by scientific experiments.

To regard the law of causality as an inductive principle, al-Sadr points out again, is an error. It is not within the scientific possibilities of experiment to indicate that the secret of the requirement for a cause lies at the heart of existence in general. The principle of causality is a purely philosophical principle and so also are the issues concerning it and the theories that treat its limits.

(2) The second theory, which al-Sadr calls "the theory of creation", asserts that things need causes for coming into existence. Thus if a thing exists continuously and always and has not come into being after not having existed, there will be no need in it for a cause, nor will it enter the realm of causality. While the first theory goes too far in generalizing causality, the second theory goes too far in restricting it.

(3) & (4) The other two are the theories of "essential possibility" and "existential possibility". These two theories assert that what makes things need their causes is possibility. They differ from each other due to their different notions of possibility, which relate to a difference regarding quiddity and existence.

Since a discussion of this difference lies outside the scope of the book, al-Sadr limits himself to the discussion of the theory of existential possibility, advanced by Mulla Sadra, which asserts the fundamentality of existence. According to this theory, causality is a relation between two existences: the cause and the effect. If, for example, B is an effect of A, does B have an existence independent of A? The answer is in the negative.

Causality requires that the effect does not have a reality prior to its link with its cause; otherwise, it will not be an effect. Moreover, B is not something that has a link or relation to the cause; rather it is the very linkage, in the sense that its being and existence become a conjunctive being and relational existence.