How effects depend on their causes, why causal transitivity fails, and why we care about causation

Philosophical Studies

Volumn 133, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 349-390

  Björnsson, Gunnar ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG   (Sweden)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33947631306     PISSN: 00318116     EISSN: 15730883     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11098-005-4539-8     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. See, e.g., Phil Dowe's 'What's Right and What's Wrong with Transference Theories,' Erkenntnis 42 (1995) 363-374.
2. 'Causation,' Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973) 556-567.
3. Reprinted in Philosophical Papers, Vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 159-172.
4. 'Postscripts to "Causation,' In: Philosophical Papers, Vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 172-213.
5. Trumping Preemption,' Journal of Philosophy 97(4) (2000), 165-181.
6. Schaffer's "law of magic" says that it is the first spell of the day that matches the enchantment irrespective of other spells. I have changed the example to get rid of some considerations having to do with time, considerations that are irrelevant to the structure of the example.
7. 'Causation: Influence versus Sufficiency,' Journal of Philosophy 99(2) (2002), 84-101.
8. 'Causation as Influence,' Journal of Philosophy 97(4) (2000), 182-197.
9. See Peter Menzies' 'Counterfactual Theories of Causation,' in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2004 Edition), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2004/entries/ causationcounterfactual/.
10. 'Causation as Influence,' op. cit., p. 191.
11. 'Causation and the Price of Transitivity,' Journal of Philosophy 97(4) (2000), 198-222.
12. 'Causation and the Price of Transitivity,' op. cit., p. 207.
13. 'Aspect Causation,' Journal of Philosophy 97(4) (2000), pp. 235-256.
14. Typical intuitions about Reversed Contrived Switching also contradicts John L. Mackie's suggestion that an effect is a condition that is necessary in the circumstance for the effect as it came about. See pp. 44-46 of The Cement of The Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).
15. 'Causation and the Price of Transitivity,' op. cit., p. 201.
16. 'Causation as Influence,' op. cit., pp. 194-195.
17. 'The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs,' Journal of Philosophy 98(6) (2001), 273-299.
18. 'The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs,' op. cit., pp. 286-287. For example, notice that Hitchcock-causation is relative to a choice of alternatives to c, much as Lewis-causation IV is relative to an interpretation of 'not-too-distant alterations' of c. Unlike Lewis, however, Hitchcock might not demand that alternatives come in 'substantial' ranges.
19. The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs,' op. cit., pp. 288-289.
20. 'Causation: Influence versus Sufficiency,' op. cit., p. 95.
21. In 'De Facto Dependence,' Journal of Philosophy 99(3) (2002), 130-148, Stephen Yablo makes an interesting suggestion that seems to avoid many of the problems suggested here. I believe that his account fails to account for the difference between Merlin's and Morgana's spells, but reasons of space prevent me from pursuing that argument here.
22. Early attempts to define causation in terms of action are provided by Douglas Gaskins in 'Causation and Recipes,' Mind 64 (1955), 479-487,
23. and Frank Ramsey in 'General Propositions and Causality,' in The Foundations of Mathematics, (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1965), pp. 237-255.
24. But most famous, perhaps, is Georg Henrik von Wright's argument that the concept of cause involves that of action. See his Explanation and Understanding (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, Chapter 2).
25. More recent attempts include that by Peter Menzies and Huw Price in 'Causation as a Secondary Quality,' The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1993), 187-203.
26. Criticism has been leveled by Jaegwon Kim in his 'Review of Explanation and Understanding,' Philosophical Review 82 (1973), 380-388;
27. by Judith Jarvis Thomson in Acts and Other Events (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977);
28. by Paul Horwich in Asymmetries in Time (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1987, pp. 139-140);
29. and by Ernest Sosa and Michael Tooley in their introduction to Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
30. The principle doesn't hold where there is failure of content identification. Knowing that Mr. Stevens is at home but unaware that Todd is no other than Mr. Stevens, there is clearly a sense in which one might employ a representation of Todd's being at home without activating one's belief that Stevens is at home. However, such failures play no role in our judgments about the cases discussed in this paper.
31. This is how one might counter McDermott's objection to attempts to make a difference between Merlin's and Morgana's spells in terms of lawful sufficiency. See 'Causation: Influence versus Sufficiency,' op. cit., pp. 89-90.
32. 'Causation and the Price of Transitivity,' op. cit., pp. 209-210.
33. 'De Facto Dependence,' op. cit., p. 146.
34. 'Causation,' op. cit., p. 159. The quotes are from Hume's Enquiries concerning Human Understanding, Section VII, Part II.
35. Versions of this paper have been presented at the philosophy departments of Stockholm University and the University of Connecticut, and at CENSS 2002 in Ghent, Belgium. On these and other occasions, many people have provided useful comments, but I want to give special thanks to Ned Hall, Christopher Hitchcock, Lars-Göran Johansson, Ruth Millikan, Dugald Murdoch, Paul Needham, Jun Olivier, Johannes Persson and Stephen Yablo. The writing of this paper was made possible by grants from The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education and from The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.