Abstract

How might one tackle the subject of causation with the least amount of preformed conceptions – and arrive by a series of well-motivated conceptual decisions at a concept of causation that captures the “heart of the matter”? This essay is a sustained attempt to answer this question. On the way, causal predicates of various degrees of importance are defined and causal principles of various degrees of plausibility discussed, all of this in the service of approaching, step by step, “the heart of the matter.”