Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association

Volume 81, 2007

Freedom, Will, and Nature

Infinite Causal Chains and Explanation

Many cosmological arguments for the existence of a first cause or a necessary being rely on a premise which denies the possibility of an infinite regress of some particular sort. Adequate and satisfying support for this premise, however, is not always provided. In this paper I attempt to address this gap in the literature. After discussing the notion of a causal explanation (section I), I formulate three principles which govern any successful causal explanation (section II). I then introduce the notions of a caused being, a causal network, and a causal chain, and argue that (roughly) an infinite causal chain cannot be explained merely by reference to the causal activities of the members of that chain (section III). In a sequel to the present paper, I employ this result to construct two closely related arguments for the existence of a necessary being.