Proximate And Ultimate Causation
A proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the "real" reason something occurred.
- Example: Why did the ship sink?
- Proximate cause: Because it was holed beneath the waterline, water entered the hull and the ship became denser than the water which supported it, so it couldn't stay afloat.
- Ultimate cause: Because the ship hit a rock which tore open the hole in the ship's hull.
In most situations, an ultimate cause may itself be a proximate cause for a further ultimate cause. Hence we can continue the above example as follows:
- Example: Why did the ship hit the rock?
- Proximate cause: Because the ship failed to change course to avoid it.
- Ultimate cause: Because the ship was under autopilot and the autopilot's data was inaccurate.
Separating proximate from ultimate causation frequently leads to better understandings of the events and systems concerned.
Read more about Proximate And Ultimate Causation: In Ordinary Affairs, Toward Ultimate Factors in Ordinary Affairs, In Biology, In Sociology
Famous quotes containing the words ultimate and/or causation:
“One perceives that again and again she has destroyed her life when it was forming into shapes of happiness because of her loyalty to the early misery, her conviction that that has the sanction of ultimate reality, and that beside it all other things are trivial.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical mediation.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)