ABSTRACT
Psychological causality is defined as the intuitive sense of causation based on a voluntary action. In contrast to physical causality based on known physical forces, psychological causality is based on participation – the sense of unity between entities that are connected not by any physical medium but by similarity or contagion. Experiments are described that show the presence of psychological causality in the minds of modern-educated individuals. The origins of participatory causation are discussed and linked to the nature of language and social suggestion. Empirical evidence of the presence of participatory communicative causality in modern people is reviewed. It is argued that participatory causality cannot be described in cause–effect or formal logical terms and belongs to the domain of the Inexplicable. Like physical causality is shaped by the intuitive sense of causation, so in the domain of communication deductive reasoning is formed from participatory causation via replacement of participatory identification by a logical syllogism.
