The Three Elements Involved in Causality and Their Correspondence

Abstract

Causality is the most basic connection, rule, logic and fact of the phenomenal world, so finding the causal connection between things and utilising it to achieve the goal of avoiding harm and ultimately attaining happiness are the fundamental motivation for all human intellectual activities. This paper first points out that any causal inference in any field can and should be analysed from three dimensions: cause, condition and result. And then it introduces the six-causes doctrine, ten-causes doctrine, four-conditions doctrine and five-effects doctrine in Buddhist philosophy. This provides a complete analytical framework for causal reasoning, and any causal analysis in any field can be integrated into this comprehensive framework for study.