Causality

direct investments (FDI) in the 1990s. During the last thirty years, a great number of empirical studies focused on the role of FDI in economic growth in developing countries. However, there seems to be no agreement with regard to the direction of causality between these two variables. This study focuses on the causal effect of FDI in Brazilian’s economic growth based on an econometric study with panel data collected during the last three decades, which was a phase in which many of the…

Firstly, it is difficult to establish causality from correlation. Even the strong R2 values and P values fail to prove this all important question. Therefore, whether one accepts the conclusions of Wilkinson and Pickett to some extent depends on whether or not one wants to be convinced. This is…

Plato’s Timaeus details the creation and making of the cosmos. In many ways it mirrors Aristotle’s account of causality as described in his Physics and Metaphysics. Aristotle believes all things have 4 causes and Plato’s description of the creation is very similar to these causes. The material, formal, efficient and final causes are seen clearly in Timaeus as the elements, model, craftsman and the good, which all cause the cosmos. Timaeus says that the Cosmos came into being by a craftsman. The…

Culturally Specific Causal Cognition There are over seven billion people in this world that continue to occupy all corners of the earth and it is just recently, with the aid of technology, that they are fully able to connect with the vast variety of people, and explore other cultures with much ease. However, why is culture so important in shaping the way people interact with their surroundings? Why are humans so unique while so similar biologically? Psychologists are now able to answer those…

A dilemma is considered a situation in which you have to make a difficult choice. Vaughn states that free will is when "at least some of our choices and actions are not decided for us or forced upon us but are genuinely up to us." (Vaughn, pg.333) Free will is such a dilemma because for humans, it is natural to think that events are caused by previous events, but then again, it is natural to think that we act freely as well, yet together, these plausible beliefs cannot be true. The two general…

argues is because nature is constructed by a free uncaused cause (that which has no external constraint). This uncaused cause started the causal chain and therefore to gain relative freedom compared to other determined things one must understand causality. Relative freedom is the only attainable state because the only thing that is fully free is the infinite, uncaused cause substance…

puppet, beings have limited free-will in this movement. We are governed by space and time, and cause and effect. Every past decision and action is essentially the antecedent of present decisions and actions; hence, history is merely a product of causality. In War and Peace, Tolstoy’s depiction of the war of 1812 proves that history is not created by a few great men, but by the actions of the masses. Tolstoy compares human history to a clockface, every individual representing its gears, wheels,…

Causality is the structure of cause and effect, the relationship completely. For A must come before B, A being the cause and B the effect. This is one of the necessary conditions that need to be met, for causation to be applicable. At least three, need to be met altogether, such as temporal priority over cause and effect, and continuity. These conditions also have to happen at the same time, or it is not credible. David Hume has many theories towards causation, and looks for concrete causes and…

The important question of free will is as follows; Are humans really ever able to control their actions and decisions? Richard Taylor a 20th century philosopher has written a relevant and thought provoking article entitled Fate, where in he attempts to answer this question. Taylor believes in the philosophical doctrine of fatalism, a view closely related to hard determinism. There is a clear and concise difference between these two theories. Fatalism can be defined simply as: “the belief that…

different future.” The sole purpose of indeterminism is to prove determinism wrong. Indeterminism states that there are such things as uncaused events, in fact they deny the idea of universal causality and that life is not simply just a chain of events one causing another. Here they do not believe that every causality is already predetermined nor is it the only possible outcome. It is understood that there are possibilities of different outcomes during the same events. The idea of uncertainty is…