Causality, Effectiveness, Determinism

The author describes his conception of the relationship of such philosophical concepts as causality, effectiveness and determinism. The notions of material causality and teleonomic causality are compared. The study shows the difference between the doctrines of monocausalism and conditionalism. Causality is interpreted as a special case of effectiveness, and effectiveness is defined as the essential attitude of changes on an output of nonequilibrium system to changes on its input. The principle of determinism is specified and expanded. The author's analysis proves that the principle of determinism must not be reduced to the idea of causality.