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Mario Bunge on Causality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Richard Schlegel*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University

Extract

The physics of the past half-century has thoroughly discredited the simple atomistic view that an ultimate explanation of all natural processes may be found in a mechanism of cause-and-effect relations among such clearly defined entities as point-like particles. And yet, physics and the other sciences continue to find nature to be orderly and lawful. How do we reconcile this breakdown of what once seemed to be the causal basis for the order of nature with the continued discovery of new manifestations of that order? The subject book [3] of this paper, written by the Professor of Theoretical Physics and Philosophy of Science at Buenos Aires University, may be considered to be a response to this question. There are many other things too in the book: it provides a much needed collecting, and sorting, of various questions that have been asked and answers that have been given with respect to causality. (The book could well serve as a textbook for a course on this topic.) There are statements in the book that may be justifiably criticised, as I hope later to show; but in all I believe that Professor Bunge has given us a work that makes a contribution of importance to philosophical discussions of causality.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1961

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References

[1] Bohm, David. “A Suggested Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Terms of Hidden Variables,” Physical Review 85, 166, 180 (1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Born, Max. Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance, Oxford Univ. Press, 1949, p. 86.Google Scholar
[3] Bunge, Mario. Causality : the Place of the Causal Principle in Modern Science, Harvard University Press, 1959. 353 pp. + bibl. + index.Google Scholar
[4] Hanson, N. R.Five Cautions for the Copenhagen Interpretation's Critics,” Philos. of Science 26, 325 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Rojansky, Vladimir. Introductory Quantum Mechanics, Printice-Hall, N.Y., 1938, pp. 227230.Google Scholar