ARNOLD BRECHT'S POLITICAL THEORY REVISITED Political ...

168 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER
"assumption" of the reality of causality." Brecht insists that
"philosophical doubt of causality is not itself considered a good
enough ground under Scientific Method for challenging empirical
evidence, any more than is the philosophical doubt of reality" (80).
But what does the term "evidence" mean here? The context is a
discussion of "explanation," not of specific observations or "facts."
He appears to be understating the implications of the mandatory acceptance
of the common sense assumption of causality. It appears
that we are required to accept explanations couched in terms of
"cause" and "effect" despite the fact that such relations are presumed
to be unobservable and whose real existence, like reality as a
whole, is presumed to be unconfirmable to a "scientifically" respectable
degree. We must "follow" common sense in this as in the
assumption of the reality of the things which we "observe"-not
because we can justify our doing so, but rather "because" no sufficient
justification, one way or another, is possible. But, again, while
we "follow" common sense in this regard, we are too sophisticated
really to "swallow" what it offers.
Human motivation is accounted "a special type of causation,
distinguished by two particular characteristics":
The first is that scientific observation, in the form of self-observation, has more
direct access here to the process of causation than in physical and chemical reactions.
The second is that the cause-effect relation presents itself as less compelling,
less necessary, here than there. Free will seems to interfere at times.
Sometimes, free will seems even to be able to start a new line of causation (81).
The advantage of direct access to causality in the sphere of human
motivation is therefore offset by the fact that causation here is less
compelling, less mechanical. If it is less compulsive or mechanical is
it to that extent not in accord with the principle of causality? That
is, is the "causal" explanation provided by Brecht's Scientific Method
merely mechanical after all? Brecht does not see the need to discuss
this issue in this context. He merely concludes that the reading of
human motivations remains a dark area fraught with uncertainty,
along with all other types of causality. The introspective evidence is
27. He describes it as a two-fold assumption: "(1) that under like conditions an
event of the nature of a will always be succeeded by an event of the nature of b, and (2)
that this is to be ascribed to some influence or impact of a on b." He states that they are
arrived at inductively; "they are not immediately observed" (80).