The philosophical concept of causality, the principles of causes, or causation, the working of causes, refers to the set of all particular "causal" or "cause-and-effect" relations. A neutral definition is notoriously hard to provide since every aspect of causation has received substantial debate. Most generally, causation is a relationship that holds between events, objects, variables, or states of affairs. Causality presumes that all those things must have at least one cause, factor, or reason. It is also usually presumed that the cause chronologically precedes the effect. Finally, the existence of a causal relationship generally suggests that - all other things being equal - if the cause occurs the effect will as well (or at least the probability of the effect occurring will increase).

In natural languages, causal relationships can be expressed by the following causative expressions: i) a set of causative verbs make, create, do, effect, produce, occasion, perform, determine, influence; construct, compose, constitute; provoke, motivate, force, facilitate, induce, get, stimulate; begin, commence, initiate, institute, originate, start; prevent, keep, restrain, preclude, forbid, stop, cease; ii) a set of causative names agent, author, creator, designer, former, originator; antecedent, causality, causation, condition, fountain, occasion, origin, power, precedent, reason, source, spring; reason, grounds, motive, need, impulse; iii) a set of effective names creation, development, effect, end, event, fruit, impact, influence, issue, outcome, outgrowth, product, result, upshot. Causality is the centerpiece of the universe and so the main subject of ontology; for comprehending the nature, meaning, kinds, varieties, and ordering of cause and effect amounts to knowing the beginnings and endings of things, to uncovering the implicit mechanisms of world dynamics, or to having the fundamental scientific knowledge.

Causation in the history of Western philosophy

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Aristotle

In Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics, Aristotle stated: "All causes of things are beginnings; that we have scientific knowledge when we know the cause; that to know a thing's existence is to know the reason why it is". With this, he set the guidelines for all the subsequent causal theories by specifying the number, nature, principles, elements, varieties, order of causes as well as the modes of causation. Aristotle's account of the causes of things may be qualified as the most comprehensive model up to now.

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