The blog's title is derived from the legend of Franz Von Sickigen, a marauding Knight - who, in 1523, after receiving a mortal wound during a siege of his own castle by troops of Archbishop of Trier, is said to have remarked as he lay on his deathbed, "NOUGHT WITHOUT CAUSE". His saying so was probably as much about stressing the worthiness of the cause as an 'ideal'- in the sense of a higher purpose for which he was sacrificing his life, as about the relentlessness necessity of a predetermined destiny. These utterances, actually in a manner of speaking, stand at the borderline of Christian notion of fatality and scientific notion of necessity- wherein the word (‘Cause’) is often used to explain a state of affairs in a syllogistic – “ If this.....then that” – form. On the other hand, the word ‘cause’. As representing a higher purpose – as an ‘ideal’, represents a basis of a belief that justifies a particular form of action which in turn is expected to bring about into reality they said ‘ideal’. Sickigen died in the peace that was brought on by the belief that he had served a divine cause which was his destiny. However, we as makers of our destinies can neither – like him- have the luxury to rest in a naive faith in a ‘cause’ as in a divine destiny, nor can we be guided solely by the scientific notion of necessity – which in fact is the justification of those who benefit by the present scheme of things. For us, the word ‘cause’ will have a real meaning only to the extent that it manifest itself in our own actions- as praxis, to stop the present assault on the nature and people in the name of the progress. We only thus be the cause of a future –of which otherwise at present we are only helpless witnesses. On a deeper analysis, the so called- scientific causal necessity appears to be only the effect of looking at nature and society in a particular, i.e. instrumental, way – a perspective which hurts our common sense, the sense of common people. Thus instead of a necessity that one willy-nilly accepts, our cause will have to materialize as praxis – entailing both a responsibility as well as freedom – to understand the world in order to change it.
