Plurality of causes
Plurality of causes
The doctrine according to which identical events can have two or more different causes. “It is not true that the same phenomenon is always produced by the same causes,” declared J. S. Mill, author of the doctrine. Quite the contrary, “many causes may produce some kind of sensation, many causes may produce death.” Mill’s position was not taken in support of the doctrine of free will or of that of chance, but rather in opposition to an old contention of the physicists, among whom Newton stated that “to the same natural effect we must, as far as pssible, ascribe the same cause.” The subsequent controversy has shown that Mill’s position was based on the confusion between “the same phenomenon” and “the same kind of phenomena”. It is doubtless true that the same kind of phenomena, say death, can be produced by many causes, but only because we take the phenomenon broadly, nevertheless, it may remain true that each particular phenomenon can be caused only by a very definite cause or by a very definite combination of causes. In other words, the broader we conceive the phenomenon, the more causes are likely to apply to it. — R.B.W.