Causal closure

Physical causal closure is a metaphysical theory about the nature of causation in the physical realm with significant ramifications in the study of metaphysics and the mind. In a strongly stated version, physical causal closure says that "all physical states have pure physical causes" — Jaegwon Kim, or that "physical effects have only physical causes" — Agustin Vincente, p. 150. Those who accept the theory tend, in general although not exclusively, to the physicalist view that all entities that exist are physical entities. As Karl Popper says, "The physicalist principle of closedness of the physical ... is of decisive importance and I take it as the characteristic principle of physicalism or materialism." Physical causal closure has stronger and weaker formulations. The stronger formulations assert that no physical event has a cause outside the physical domain — Jaegwon Kim. That is, they assert that for physical events, causes other than physical causes do not exist. (Physical events that are not causally determined may be said to have their objective chances of occurrence determined by physical causes.) Weaker forms of the theory state that "Every physical event has a physical cause." — Barbara Montero, or that "Every physical effect (that is, caused event) has physical sufficient causes" — Agustin Vincente, (According to Vincente, a number of caveats have to be observed, among which is the postulate that "physical entities" are entities postulated by a true theory of physics, a theory of which we are ignorant today, and that such a true theory "will not include mental (or in general, dubious) concepts" (Note 5, p. 168).) or that "if we trace the causal ancestry of a physical event we need never go outside the physical domain." — Jaegwon Kim. Weaker forms of physical causal closure are synonymous with the causal completeness, the notion that "Every physical effect that has a sufficient cause has a sufficient physical cause." That is, weaker forms allow that in addition to physical causes, there may be other kinds of causes for physical events.