Nature of Analytical Causality: A New Proposal for the Classification of Causality in Islamic Philosophy

The present article is an attempt towards explaining the nature of a neglected type of causality, i.e. analytical causality. Clarification of the meaning of causality is the first step. Two premises are raised in this regard. Firstly the distinction between "concept", meaning, extension, and reality is made. Then it is explained that the principal field of research for philosophers here is the meaning. Secondly a single affair is capable of applying to multiple meanings. According to these two premises, analytical causality seems not only reasonable but necessary. Although not asserting analytical causality as a type of causality, Islamic philosophers have frequently used the word "causality" in cases where no existential otherness is present between the cause and effect.Based on the rule of "there is no concomitance without causality" recognized unanimously by Islamic philosophers, it is possible to justify the following examples as those of analytical causality: the concomitance between subjective considerations as fact- themselves, that of existence and quiddity, that of the two necessary beings by themselves (names and attributes of God with His essence), and that of the two impossible beings by themselves (circularity in argument and priority of a thing to itself). In spite of equivocal homonymy, external and analytical causality are distinct as being primary intelligible or secondary one, being an example of two opposites or not, and their domain. Proposing analytical causality requires further explanation towards classification of causality finally dealt with in the article.