causality

English

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causality

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Latin as if *causalitas, from causalis (“causal”), from causa (“cause”). By surface analysis, causal +‎ -ity = cause +‎ -ality.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kôz, IPA^(key): /kɔːˈzæl.ɪ.tɪ/,
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɔˈzæl.ɪ.tɪ/,
• (Canada, cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /kɑˈzæl.ɪ.tɪ/,
• Rhymes: -ælɪti

Noun

causality (countable and uncountable, plural causalities)

1. The agency of a cause; the action or power of a cause, in producing its effect.
2. The relationship between something that happens or exists and the thing that causes it; the cause and consequence relationship.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 94:

     But how do transformations like the evolution of language take place? A scientist looks for a cause inside time; a mystic knows that causality is essentially a process that is outside time-space.

   • 2011 February 1, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction‎, Wesleyan University Press, →ISBN, pages 102–103:

     But some discussion of the complex relationship between “allohistory” and sf is appropriate here, as the genres overlap in certain ways. Classical allohistory— such as Trevelyan's "What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo?" and Churchill's "If Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg" —is a rigorously consistent thought-experiment in historical causality.

Synonyms

• causation

Derived terms

• non-causality
• noncausality
• retrocausality

Related terms

• causal
• causative
• noncausative

Translations

References

• “causality”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “causality”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.