The things that philosophers talk about can be divided into two categories, although no doubt

there's a bit of a gray zone in between. The first category is things that pretty much

only philosophers talk about, such as the distinction between warrant and justification, or the distinction between

being and beings, or the difference between implication and presupposition.

Now, if you scarcely know what I mean by those examples, then I've chosen them well.

The second category is things that non-philosophers already talk about,

such as persons or intentions or political authority. Questions could, of course, be raised

about this distinction. For example, are philosophers only topics, are those topics legitimate?

Or when such a topic appears, does that reveal that philosophy has gone off the rails?

If they are legitimate, are they legitimate for themselves or are they legitimate

only insofar as they facilitate discussions of topics that aren't philosophy only?

Questions like this are parts of larger questions, like the question of the relationship between philosophical thinking and other kinds of thinking, which is in turn a part of the still larger question of the relationship between philosophy and the rest of life.

The topic of this present talk, causality or causation,

is definitely one of the questions that philosophers do not have a monopoly on.

Rightly or wrongly, ordinary people do think of the world as involving causation, causal networks. Things don't just

happen. They are made to happen by other things. The window doesn't just break. It's broken by a

tree branch in the wind or an errant baseball.

The car didn't just crash.

It crashed because the road was icy or because the driver was texting.

As we say, things happen for a reason.

There are many issues in the philosophy of causation, only some of which are relevant in this session. Here is what we'll be examining.

First, the difference between the Aristotelian-Tomist view and the Humian view.

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