Causal Pluralism in Vasubandhu and Plato

Abstract

Abstract While causation is central to the philosophy of both Buddhism and Platonism, understanding Plato’s and Vasubandhu’s accounts of causation requires stepping back from the modern mainstream view that causes are conditions on which effects depend, whether these are necessary and/or sufficient conditions. Some philosophers and psychologists have recently argued that we have, in addition to this concept of cause as “dependence,” a concept of cause as “productive,” viz., as a power to produce an effect. These causal pluralists claim that both concepts are needed to account for the full range of our causal judgments. This chapter argues that Vasubandhu’s generic account of cause in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya embraces the two concepts insofar as it counts both producers and absences as causes, and that his discussion of the Buddha’s two formulas for dependent origination distinguishes dependence from productive causes, while Plato elaborates in the Phaedo a productive concept of cause on the model of a craft, promoting craft-intelligence to the role of the cause and subordinating dependence conditions to the role of the craftsman’s necessary materials and tools.