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Full Idea
The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the presupposition that free will is the cause of every effect: it is only from this that we derive the feeling of causality.
Gist of Idea
We derive the popular belief in cause and effect from our belief that our free will causes things
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §667)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.352
A Reaction
It may be that our first experiences of causation involve the wil, though I don't see why babies shouldn't also observe. Nietzsche is muddling the epistemology with the ontology.
| 4553 | We derive the popular belief in cause and effect from our belief that our free will causes things [Nietzsche] |
| 8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
| 8366 | The very notion of a cause depends on agency and action [Wright,GHv] |
| 8362 | We give regularities a causal character by subjecting them to experiment [Wright,GHv] |
| 8337 | Some says mental causation is distinct because we can recognise single occurrences [Mackie] |
| 3535 | All observable causes are merely epiphenomena [Kim] |
| 15213 | Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden] |
| 8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
| 18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
| 10384 | If two different causes are possible in one set of circumstances, causation is primitive [Schaffer,J] |
| 10386 | If causation is primitive, it can be experienced in ourselves, or inferred as best explanation [Schaffer,J] |