Imagination and the puzzles of iteration
infinite regress it engenders: if A causing B (call it C) has a cause, D, then E, the causing of C by D, is itself an event, and has a cause, F, and so on ad infinitum. But it isn't the infinity of the chain that engenders misgivings; not every infinite regress is vicious. Rather, we cannot even countenance the first element. The question 'What caused the causing of B by A?' is nonsensical. Does A cause the causing in addition to causing B? Or, to be more precise, does A cause B via the causing? Of course, the question 'What caused A?' ('Why did Jones pull the trigger?') is quite straightforward, but the reading we are now considering concerns the causing as distinct from the cause (and the effect). And this reading doesn't engender a coherent question.