What Is a Cause?

Abstract

This chapter reviews how concepts of causality have been defined throughout history and how they have influenced the approaches and methods described in this book. It shows that causation is a surprisingly diverse concept that can be legitimately addressed in various ways. The chapter reviews concepts primarily from philosophy concerning questions like “What do we mean that something caused something else?" (metaphysical questions) and “In what sense can we say that causes exist?" (ontological questions). Anyone doing causal assessments needs to understand the maxim, “correlation is not causation, " while simultaneously recognizing the value of correlation as a fundamental tool for exploring data and generating evidence of causation.