The search for the causes of the armed social conflict and its diverse violences in Colombia remains the predominant tendency in the academic literature dedicated to the analysis of various aspects of the Colombian armed conflict and its social, cultural and political expressions. Although it has been a commonplace to refer to the 'structural causes' or 'objective causes' and 'underlying causes' to explain the armed conflict and its related violences, some authors have questioned the coherence of such concepts. Nevertheless, the article suggests that these are important concepts and that, although it is necessary to scrutinize them critically, they can still be used, with some philosophical and theoretical caveats, to illuminate certain aspects of the armed social conflict in Colombia. With the aim of casting light upon the notion of structural/objective causes and its potential usefulness, the article analyses two classic studies of the causes of political and social violence in Colombia: La violencia en Colombia and Colombia: violencia y democracia.