Metaphysics
What does it mean for one thing to cause another, and what kinds of explanation count as philosophical understanding?
Explanation is plural: material, formal, efficient, and final causes answer different why-questions.
Events arise through dependent origination; nothing has independent causal self-sufficiency.
Causation is known through patterns in experience rather than through direct insight into necessary connection.
Causality is a condition under which experience of objective events becomes possible for us.
Reality is fundamentally event-like, so causal becoming is more basic than static substance.
Causality organizes how philosophical systems explain change, agency, nature, and experience. Some traditions treat causes as real structures of being, others as conditions of intelligibility, and others as observed regularities or interdependent processes.
The problem matters because almost every other philosophical dispute presupposes a model of explanation.