How to debunk the first cause argument without trying too hard

[Neo-Scholastic]

(See also Hume's analysis of cause and effect for another example of why our understanding of the nature of 'cause' is incomplete.)

Hume's analysis of cause and effect has been a major setback in philosophical progress and is itself one 'cause' of today's confusion. Hume mistakenly presents both cause and effect as discrete events. For example, Hume would say that the event of the brick being tossed is the cause of the event of the window breaking. This of course is nonsense. The cause is not an event. If you ask anyone what caused the window to break, they would tell you the brick caused it; not, the event of the brick being tossed. Hume wants us to ask, 'what connects the two events?'. That is the wrong question. The explanation of efficient cause rests on the relationship between a substantial form, like a brick, and the actualization of a dispositional property , like the shattering of glass.