Abstract

The main goals of this dissertation are to characterize and to criticize separatism, which is the ontological view on which the empiricist's view of causation is based, and to present a view of causation based on non-separatism that is committed neither to an occultist notion of causal powers nor to the principle of the nomological character of causation . ;Broadly speaking, separatism is the view that the world consists of basic entities with independent non-relational natures. In particular separatism maintains that the types of causal transactions in which individual entities participate are external to their nature. In contrast, the non-separatist view presented in this dissertation identifies entities and properties as components of composite systems. Investigation of such systems and the nature of the internal relations between their components leads to a conception of causation which is neither Humian nor occultist. ;Chapter 1 develops the claim that NCC in conjunction with non-reductionism about mental types implies that mental types cannot contribute to an explanation of how the effect was brought about. However, examples of deviant causal chains show that intentional explanations do indicate the way the action was brought about. Therefore, in order to preserve non-reductionism and to account for the content of such explanations, together with the separatist conception on which it is based need to be rejected. ;Chapter 2 investigates the Humian conception of causation in relation to epistemological and ontological versions of separatism; it also investigates different conceptions of the content of singular causal claims that are not based on NCC and proposes a non-separatist account of such content. ;Chapter 3 develops a non-separatist account of causal powers. On this account causal powers are individuated holistically within a complex system of causal powers. This account of the individuation of powers allows a realist but non-occultist conception of causal powers. ;Chapter 4 investigates the problems that deviant causal chains pose for a conception of intentional causation, and offers a non-separatist solution which relies on a particular conception of the rational/dynamic unity of the system of causal powers that underlies the action.