Critique of Marxist Philosophy Part 2

The Meaning of Causality

Al-Sadr states that there are four theories which resulted from attempts to answer the question: Why do things require causes? (1) The first theory, adopted by some Marxist theoreticians, states that an existent requires a cause for its existence. According to it, causality is a general law of existence as confirmed by scientific experiments. To regard the law of causality as an inductive principle, al-Sadr points out again, is an error. It is not within the scientific possibilities of experiment to indicate that the secret of the requirement for a cause lies at the heart of existence in general. The principle of causality is a purely philosophical principle and so also are the issues concerning it and the theories that treat its limits.

(2) The second theory, which al-Sadr calls "the theory of creation", asserts that things need causes for coming into existence. Thus if a thing exists continuously and always and has not come into being after not having existed, there will be no need in it for a cause, nor will it enter the realm of causality. While the first theory goes too far in generalizing causality, the second theory goes too far in restricting it.

(3) & (4) The other two are the theories of "essential possibility" and "existential possibility". These two theories assert that what makes things need their causes is possibility. They differ from each other due to their different notions of possibility, which relate to a difference regarding quiddity and existence. Since a discussion of this difference lies outside the scope of the book, al-Sadr limits himself to the discussion of the theory of existential possibility, advanced by Mulla Sadra, which asserts the fundamentality of existence.

According to this theory, causality is a relation between two existences: the cause and the effect. If, for example, B is an effect of A, does B have an existence independent of A? The answer is in the negative. Causality requires that the effect does not have a reality prior to its link with its cause; otherwise, it will not be an effect. Moreover, B is not something that has a link or relation to the cause; rather it is the very linkage, in the sense that its being and existence become a conjunctive being and relational existence. The discontinuity of its linkage to its cause means destruction of it and an end of its being, for its being is represented in that linkage. A relational entity cannot be detached from the thing to which it is essentially linked or related. Moreover, all being is not governed by the principle of causality. Rather, this principle governs the relational existents, whose reality embodies linkage and relation.

Here Martyr al-Sadr points out that the Marxists fluctuate between the dialectical model and causality while explaining phenomena. That is, while they regard internal contradiction as a sufficient explanation of every phenomenon in the universe, they also take recourse now and then to the cause-effect relation for explaining some phenomena by external causes. A relevant caw is the Marxist assertion that the means of production make up the social infrastructure, whereas all other aspects of society, including the intellectual and political conditions, the considered superstructural. This means that the relation between the superstructure and the means of production is a cause-effect relation. Here, there is no contradiction but causality.