Causality' or 'causation' can also refer to a group of topics including the nature of the causal relation, causal explanation, and the status of causal laws. Historically, the term 'cause' has a broader sense, equivalent to 'explanatory feature'. This usage survives in the description of Aristotle as holding 'the doctrine of the four causes'. The members of Aristotle's quartet, the material, formal, efficient, and final cause , correspond to four kinds of explanation. But only the efficient cause is unproblematically a candidate for a cause that produces something distinct from itself.
Modern discussions tend to treat causality as exclusively or primarily a relation between events .
On this approach, examples of paradigmatic singular causal statements are 'The explosion caused the fire' and 'Her pressing of the button caused the opening of the door'. Paradigmatic general causal statements will be ones like 'Droughts cause famines'. Recasting ordinary causal statements in such forms is a Procrustean enterprise. She opened the door by pressing the button', which does not overtly report a relation between events at all. The interpretation of ordinary causal talk is the subject of dispute.