Self-determinacy
According to Langan, traditional views of causation are based on a dichotomy. This dichotomy consists of "extrinsic causation" (determinacy) in which objects are determined by some prior and/or external cause, or randomness, in which objects are seemingly brought into existence without any prior cause. There is, of course, that view that randomness is simply ignorance of the causal factors at work with respect to some phenomena, but Langan seems to think that this isn't really randomness in an objective sense. In fact, Langan seems to express the view that the idea of "objective randomness" (i.e. randomness independent of any external and/or prior cause) is simply ridiculous. Thus, Langan proposes self-determinacy, in which an object determines its own cause from within itself. This is central to Langan's thesis that the universe is a self-deterministic system, and it is not the result of determinacy, randomness or any combination thereof.
