Full Idea
Primitivism arises from our failure to reduce causation, but also from causation being too central to reduce. The probability and process accounts are said to be inevitably circular, as they cannot be understood without reference to causation.
Gist of Idea
Causation is primitive; it is too intractable and central to be reduced; all explanations require it
Source
Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)
Book Reference
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.22
A Reaction
This is very tempting. The primitive view, though, must deal with the direction problem, which may suggest that time is even more primitive. Can we have a hierarchy of primitiveness? To be alive is to be causal.