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1.There is a cause for the existence of something.

2.There is causality.

3.There is a cause for the existence of causality.

4.Let's assume the cause A for the existence of causality.

5.A -> existence of causality.

6.It is contradictory to say that A, which is a cause within causality, exists before causality exists.

7.A does not exist.

8.Statement 7 contradicts statement 3.

9.Statement 3 is derived from statement 1.

10.Statement 1 is incorrect.

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  • "4: Let's assume the cause A for the existence of causality" seems to contradict "6: It is contradictory to say that A, which is a cause within causality, exists before causality exists". Or... at the least it does not seem to follow. Commented May 14, 2023 at 12:06
  • You have not justified number 6. In number 4, you said that A is the cause of causality, then in number 6, you assume that A is "within" causality, but you have offered no justification for this assumption. Commented May 14, 2023 at 12:29
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    Cause of something and cause of existence are not the same. Gravitation causes the stone to fall but does not stones to exist. Commented May 14, 2023 at 15:32
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    Maybe God is both the creator of cosmos (cause of existence) and its legislator (creator of laws governing causality). Commented May 14, 2023 at 15:33
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    Please write full sentences.
    – Daron
    Commented May 14, 2023 at 20:07

3 Answers 3

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Note: The OP's question is basically Kant's third antinomy which contradiction led to his formulation of transcendental apperception to resolve.

One approach to refutation of the contradiction follows here, as summarised in J. Backman's The Absent Foundation, page 12

As Heidegger emphasizes in his 1949 foreword to “On the Essence of Ground,” while the ontological difference and the nothing are not mutually “equivalent” (einerlei), they nevertheless belong together as the self-same issue (das Selbe) for thinking—as Being.

Being aka nothing – in contradistinction to beings which exist – is the ground, or ab-grund, literally 'ground-less', translating as 'void', in which beings come to presence. The beings themselves exist on the basis of reason and understanding according to Kant's unity of transcendental apperception. Being, the ground, does not depend on reason; (hence 'nothing is without reason').

pages 15 - 16

Here he also notes that in 1929 he did not listen attentively enough to the wording of Leibniz’s principle.48 To say that nothing is without reason or ground is assuredly a metaphysical statement, but if instead we emphasize the word nothing (nihil), we get: nothing is without ground. Being as the no-thing-ness is the ground, more precisely, the absent ground, which itself has no ground.

Reinterpreting the OP's problem:

Re. 7. [cause A for the existence of causality] does not exist.

Being (as nothing), does not exist.

3. There is a cause for the existence of causality.

Being is the ground of beings and hence causality.

8.Statement 7 contradicts statement 3.

No contradiction.

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  • "Being, the ground, does not depend on reason" what is the meaning of this sentence?
    – Dimer
    Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 8:41
  • I'm using a translator, so I don't understand the language well. Is there a "cause for the existence of causality" or not?
    – Dimer
    Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 8:48
  • Re: "Being, the ground ..." Beings (the conditioned = thought) come from Being (the unconditioned = unthought). The unconditioned is Ab-grund void/without-ground or without-reason (literally). From p 14-15 of Absent Foundation (linked above): "The temporal freedom of transcendent Dasein is the origin of the principle of ground or reason ... However, as this ground freedom is the void [Ab-grund] of Dasein. And as Heidegger puts it in the late 1930s, "As void [Ab-grund], Being ‘is’ at once the nothing [das Nichts] as well as the ground." Being is the "void" (Ab-grund), the absent foundation Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 10:19
  • Re. "cause for existence of ..." synonymous with "the reason for ..." puts me in mind of The Principle of Reason : "Does not the reason of reasons press forward beyond itself to the reason of reason of reasons? ... If thinking takes this path to reason, then surely it can't help but fall intractably into groundlessness." "Drängt der Grund des Grundes nicht über sich hinaus zum Grund des Grundes des Grundes? ... Ginge das Denken diesen Weg zum Grund, dann müßte es doch unaufhaltsam ins Grundlose fallen." 17-18 heidegger.ru/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Band-10.pdf Best in your language. Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 10:39
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Causality is a description about the way that processes evolve, not a process. Insofar as causality has an associated process, the associated process is the idea of causality. Ideas are a particular pattern of thoughts.

In light of this, 4 is a priori false (at a minimum, thinking about anything requires something that thinks) unless A is identical to "a person thinking about causality". Thus 5 is either false or tautological (A implies A). If 5 is false, 6-10 are meaningless. If 5 is tautology, 6 is false (tautologies can't be contradictions) and 7-10 are meaningless.

David Gudeman's comment that you have not justified 6 is correct but unnecessary, since the claim that 5 is a contradiction cannot be true regardless of justification.

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What is causality? Causality is a why question to predicate.

So, if you have statements with predicate in core only, you ll got a chaine of statements glued by logic, that called sophistics. And you ll got disprove of the predicate in the end. “O friends, there are no friends” - or something like that.

Because the problem, that you didn't frame the area where the rule(your statement) works. If the rule is everywhere - it has no cause to be.

So, what should you do?

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