The Metaphysics of Causality and Novelty

Abstract

I find myself in agreement with most of the points of Crosbys position that there are new things and new events in the world. Like him, I hold that determinists are mistaken, and I believe that time flows one way only. I ap preciate Crosbys amendment of Whitehead s category of the ultimate from creativity to creativity/destructiveness or, translating Spinozas term, nature naturing. And finally I applaud his clever, and I think successful, argument that the production of novelty, rather than being incompatible with causal action, is, indeed, a requirement for any such process. Most of the meat of philosophy, however, lies not in agreements but in their contraries. While I do have significant disagreements with Crosby, I want to state at the beginning that these deal with issues in Philosophy that I find among the most perplex ing, and so I hope I can expound them with at least a modicum of clarity. The major, underlying concern I have with Crosbys argument centers not on the concept of novelty nor on whether such occurs, but on the con cept of causality. It is in relation to causality that Crosby attempts to prove his case on the existence of novelty. He maintains that not only is novelty not opposed to causality, but novelty itself is a necessary condition for causality to exist at all. Very importantly, I believe he proves his point. However, if causality is a totally confused notion, then, in my opinion, proving that nov elty is necessary for causality to exist proves much less than Crosby intends. If I am correct, Crosbys argument is vitiated to a good extent because of its connection with causality at all. To see how this plays out, we can look at the simplest statement of this principle, Everything that exists must have a cause. But note that this tries to make causality clear by invoking the frustrating and paradoxical notion of thing. What is a thing, which is supposed to require a cause for its exis