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Causality and Retribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Hans Kelsen
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Extract

If we are to accept the results of modern physics and the significance ascribed to them by eminent exponents of this most exact of all natural sciences, we are in the midst of an important transformation of our conception of the universe. The notion that the law of causality absolutely determines all events has been shaken, and if this law is not to be entirely eliminated from scientific thinking, its formulation must at least be essentially modified. In the course of this controversy the question arises as to the source of the belief that events are determined by an absolute law, that is, the origin of the assumption, which we take for granted, that each event must be the necessary effect of a cause according to an inviolable law. We must try to show how the belief in causality has arisen in the evolution of human thought.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 1941, pp. 533 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1941

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References

1 This principle is in most cases designated by the term “reciprocity.” I prefer the term “retribution” because it better expresses the social and especially the moral and legal character of the principle in question.

2 Karl Joel, Geschichte der antiken Philosophie. Vol. I, 1921, p. 269.

3 Aristotle, Physics III, 4, 203 b, 6 sq.

4 Joel, Der Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Mystik., 1906, pp. 66 sq.

5 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 750 sq.

6 Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th Ed., Vol. I, 1934, Fr. 25.

7 See John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Third Edition, 1920, pp. 50 sq. Burnet says “the current statement that the term was introduced by him (Anaximander) appears to be due to a misunderstanding.”

8 Diels, Fr. 1, cf. Burnet, l.c., p. 52.

9 See Wilhelm Capelle, Die Vorsokratiker, 1938, p. 75.

10 Werner Jaeger, Paideia, and Ed., Vol. I, 1936, pp. 217 sq. says, that the law the idea of which is expressed in the fragment of Anaximander is the law of the “Polis,” the Greek State.

11 Diels, Fr. 53.

12 Diels, Fr. 80, Burnet, l.c., 137.

13 Capelle, l.c., p. 127.

14 Diels, Fr. 1.

15 Diogenes Laertius IX, 7.

16 Emile Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, 1916, p. 621.

17 Diels, Fr. 2.

18 Diels, Fr. 114; Burnet, l.c., p. 139.

19 Diels, Fr. 94; Burnet, l.c., p. 135.

20 Capelle, l.c., p. 39.

21 In Euripides' Medea, 410/411, the law of gravity appears as a legal norm. The order of nature and the legal order are identical. In consideration of Medea's criminal plans the chorus says: “Upward aback to their fountains the sacred rivers are stealing; Justice is turned to injustice, the order of old to confusion.” Tragedies of Euripides. In English Verse. By Arthur S. Way. London, 1894, Vol. I, p. 78.

22 The inviolability of the universal law as the unshakable will of a deity of justice whose function is retribution, is to be found also in the Babylonian epic of creation. 23 Diels, Fr. 1.

24 Diels, Fr. 8; Burnet, l.c., p. 175/6.

25 Aeschylus, Prometheus, 531/2.

26 Diels, Fr. 115; Burnet, l.c., p. 222.

27 Cicero, De re publica III, 11, 19.

28 Plutarchi Stromat., 7, Hermann Diels, Doxographi Gracci, 1919, p. 581.

29 Plato, Protagoras, 13, 324 St.

30 Aetios, I, 26, 2.

31 Diogenes Laertius IX, 7-8; 31, cf. Diels, Herakleitos, Fr. 10.

32 The Hibeh Papyri, edited by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, 1906, Part I, 16 pp., 62 sq.

33 Diels, Fr. 164.

34 Capelle, l.c., p. 410.

35 According to Aristotle, On coming into being and passing away. 1. 7, 323 b 10.

36 Pliny, N. Hist. II, 14 (Diels, 55 A 76).

37 Aristotle, Physics II, 4, 195 b 36 sq.

38 See Diels, Fr. 83.

39 See Jaeger, l.c., p. 220.

40 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1894, p. 46.

41 Ernst Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung, 1897, pp. 443, 496.

42 Philipp Frank, Das Kausalgesetz und seine Grenzen, 1932, pp. 136 sq.

43 See Max Verworn, Die Frage nach den Grenzen der Erkenntnis, 1908, pp. 15 sq. 44; Fritz Mauthner, Wörterbuch der Philosophie, 1910, I, Bd. Art. ‘Ursache’; ‘Bedingung’; ‘Konditionismus.‘

44 See E. Zilsel, Über die Asymmetrie der Kausalität und die Einsinnigkeit der Zeit. Die Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 15, 1927, pp. 280 sq.

45 H. Reichenbach, Das Kausalproblem in der Physik. Die Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 19, 1931, pp. 713 sq.

46 Pierre-Simon Laplace, Essai philosophique sur les probabilités. Paris, 1921, p. 3.

47 Nicolas Malebranche, De la recherche de la verité. Nouvelle édition par M. F. Bouillier, Paris, 1879. Tome premier, p. 319.