Causality of Middle Term in Propter-quid Demonstration and its Broader Meaning of Analytic and External Causation

Causality is usually taken to be understood as external causation and so in propter-quid demonstration (reasoning from cause to effect) in which philosophers speak of the causality of middle term to reach conclusion it is understood in the same way. Accordingly Allama Tabatabae deemed this sort of proof to be impossible in “First philosophy” because its subject-matter is “being qua being” beyond which there is nothing to act as its cause and so there is no way to use the sort of argument in which the middle term is the external cause for the conclusion. In criticizing this position the present article is to put emphasis, among other points, on the view that the causality in question has a broader meaning to conclude both external and analytic causality. In this way by making reference to the words of great thinkers which can shed light on the nature of causality of middle term in propter-quid proof which should interpreted as analytic rather than external and the demonstrations used in “first philosophy” are of this type.