Fra metafisica, scienze della natura e scienze della vita : percorsi della causalità nella filosofia scozzese del common sense

Between Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy and Life Sciences. Aspects of Causality in the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense. The Article focuses mainly on the internal development of the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense through an analysis of the idea of causality as propounded by prominent figures such as Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown. It also takes into consideration their place in the scientific and medical context of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Author contends that in natural philosophy their view of causality is quite uniform in endorsing the experimental-inductive paradigm, according to which causes are considered to be the laws or rules that regulate natural phenomena. In contrast, the demarcation between the metaphysics of efficient causes and the epistemology of physical causes or laws seems to be more problematic, particularly in morals and in the life sciences.

The debate initiated by these authors eventually contributed to shape the idea of causality in a more modern and quasi-positivistic way. [Publishers' text].