---
title: "Causality"
chunk: 10/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:15:23.266430+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Karma is the causality principle focusing on 1) causes, 2) actions, 3) effects, where it is the mind's phenomena that guide the actions that the actor performs. Buddhism trains the actor's actions for continued and uncontrived virtuous outcomes aimed at reducing suffering. This follows the Subject–verb–object structure.
The general or universal definition of pratityasamutpada (or "dependent origination" or "dependent arising" or "interdependent co-arising") is that everything arises in dependence upon multiple causes and conditions; nothing exists as a singular, independent entity. A traditional example in Buddhist texts is of three sticks standing upright and leaning against each other and supporting each other. If one stick is taken away, the other two will fall to the ground.
Causality in the Chittamatrin Buddhist school approach, Asanga's (c. 400 CE) mind-only Buddhist school, asserts that objects cause consciousness in the mind's image. Because causes precede effects, which must be different entities, then subject and object are different. For this school, there are no objects which are entities external to a perceiving consciousness. The Chittamatrin and the Yogachara Svatantrika schools accept that there are no objects external to the observer's causality. This largely follows the Nikayas approach.
The Vaibhashika (c. 500 CE) is an early Buddhist school which favors direct object contact and accepts simultaneous cause and effects. This is based in the consciousness example which says, intentions and feelings are mutually accompanying mental factors that support each other like poles in tripod. In contrast, simultaneous cause and effect rejectors say that if the effect already exists, then it cannot effect the same way again. How past, present and future are accepted is a basis for various Buddhist school's causality viewpoints.
All the classic Buddhist schools teach karma. "The law of karma is a special instance of the law of cause and effect, according to which all our actions of body, speech, and mind are causes and all our experiences are their effects."

=== Western philosophy ===

==== Aristotelian ====

Aristotle identified four kinds of answer or explanatory mode to various "Why?" questions. He thought that, for any given topic, all four kinds of explanatory mode were important, each in its own right. As a result of traditional specialized philosophical peculiarities of language, with translations between ancient Greek, Latin, and English, the word 'cause' is nowadays in specialized philosophical writings used to label Aristotle's four kinds. In ordinary language, the word 'cause' has a variety of meanings, the most common of which refers to efficient causation, which is the topic of the present article.