There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non-reductive counterfactual theory of grounding along interventionist lines.

In this chapter, I review some issues in the metaphysics of causation that have been widely discussed by experimental philosophers. After I review the work investigating the effects of normality on causal judgment, I discuss the work on action-omission differences, temporal differences (late-preemption), and double-prevention scenarios. I review some explanations for the patterns of causal judgments that experimental philosophers observe in all of these cases. I then identify some new issues for the experimental philosophy of causation and experimental (...) metaphysics more generally. (shrink)

Fundamental Causation addresses issues in the metaphysics of deterministic singular causation, the metaphysics of events, property instances, facts, preventions, and omissions, as well as the debate between causal reductionists and causal anti-reductionists. The book also pays special attention to causation and causal structure in physics. Weaver argues that causation is a multigrade obtaining relation that is transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetric. When causation is singular, deterministic and such that it relates purely contingent events, the relation is (...) also universal, intrinsic, and well-founded. He shows that proper causal relata are events understood as states of substances at ontological indices. He then proves that causation cannot be reduced to some non-causal base, and that the best account of that relation should be unashamedly primitivist about the dependence relation that underwrites its very nature. The book demonstrates a distinctive realist and anti-reductionist account of causation by detailing precisely how the account outperforms reductionist and competing anti-reductionist accounts in that it handles all of the difficult cases while overcoming all of the general objections to anti-reductionism upon which other anti-reductionist accounts falter. This book offers an original and interesting view of causation and will appeal to scholars and advanced students in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of physics. (shrink)

Since Descartes’s division of the human subject into mental and physical components in the seventeenth century, there has been a great deal of discussion about how—indeed, whether or not—our mental states bring about our physical behavior. Through historical and contemporary readings, this collection explores this lively and important issue. In four parts, this anthology introduces the problem of mental causation, explores the debate sparked by Donald Davidson's anomalous monism, examines Frank Jackson's knowledge argument for the view that qualia are (...) epiphenomenal, and investigates attempts to employ the controversial concept of supervenience to explain mental causation. (shrink)

The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the precise relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. This book clarifies that relationship through an analysis of the best accounts of causation in metaphysics, and a critique of the confusion in legal doctrine.

The emphasis on the organization of entities and their activities and interactions has been labeled one of the most distinct contributions of mechanistic philosophy. In this paper I discuss the manner in which the organization of entities and their activities and interactions participates in bringing about phenomena. I present a well-known example from molecular biology—the functioning of the genetic switch in phage lambda—and discuss Marco J. Nathan’s notion of causation by concentration. Nathan introduces causation by concentration to account (...) for the irreducible causal role that the concentration ratio between two kinds of proteins possesses in the genetic switch mechanism in phage lambda. I discuss what the irreducibility of this causal role amounts to and provide a mechanistic interpretation of Nathan’s causation by concentration; that is, I explain this irreducible causal role as one organizational feature of this mechanism. The paper concludes that biological mechanisms need a causal pluralist framework [similar to Glennan’s account in (2009), (2010) and (2017) but slightly modified] where organizational features such as the concentration ratio have a causally relevant role, yet all the causally productive relations occur at the level of entities or individuals. (shrink)

To address what I call the “Uniformity”, “Capriciousness”, and “Reducibility” objections, recent agent-causation theories hold that agent-causation is a type of substance causation. Substance causation consists in substances producing effects by exercising or manifesting their powers. Importantly, these versions of agent-causation assume a realist metaphysics of powers, where powers are properties of substances that can exist unmanifested. However, the realist theories of powers that agent-causal theories have relied upon explicitly hold that powers—rather than their substances—are (...) causes. Substances are merely derivative causes, as the bearers of powers. Critics therefore argue that agent-causation is reducible to causation by the agent’s powers. In this paper, I argue that agent-causation is reducible to causation by the agent’s powers only if powers are self-exemplifying properties. I also offer reasons for why powers—especially agent-causal powers—are non-self-exemplifying properties, in support of the irreducibility of agent-causation. (shrink)

Bradford Skow examines important philosophical questions about causation and explanation. His answers rely on a pair of connected distinctions: the distinction between acting and not acting, and that between situations in which an event happens and when something is in some state.

My aim is twofold: first, to root out the metaphysical assumptions that generate the problem of mental causation and to show that they preclude its solution; second, to dissolve the problem of mental causation by motivating rejection of one of the metaphysical assumptions that give rise to it. There are three features of this metaphysical background picture that are important for our purposes. The first concerns the nature of reality: all reality depends on physical reality, (...) where physical reality consists of a network of events.1 The second concerns the nature of causation, and the third concerns the conception of behavior. I try to vindicate a robust idea of mental causation. (shrink)

Consider the following claims: -/- 1. The drought caused the famine. -/- 2. Drowsy driving causes crashes. -/- 3. How much I water my plant influences how tall it grows. -/- 4. How much novocaine a patient receives affects how much pain they will feel during dental surgery. -/- The metaphysics of causation asks questions about what it takes for claims like these to be true—what kind of relation the claims are about, and in virtue of what these relations (...) obtain. (shrink)

Chapter 1. The causal relata. Ordinary talk suggests that entities from different ontological categories can cause and be caused: Kathy's throw, the fact that Kathy threw, and Kathy herself can all cause the window to break. But according to the majority view, causation exclusively relates events. This chapter defends the contrary view that the causal relata are as miscellaneous as ordinary talk suggests. A question remains: is there an ontological kind K such that causal relations on entities of that (...) kind are somehow more fundamental than causal relations on the non-Ks? I argue that there is such a kind: facts. I defend this claim against objections. ;Chapter 2. Causation by omission. Ordinary talk also suggests that omissions can be causes. For example, if Barry promised to water Alice's plant, didn't water it, and the plant then dried up and died, then Barry's not watering the plant---his omitting to water the plant---is a cause of its death. But there are reasons to think that either there is no causation by omission, or there is far more of it than common sense allows. I argue that neither disjunct is acceptable, and propose that we avoid the dilemma by embracing the view that causation has a normative component. The proposal faces the objection that causation is a paradigmatic example of a natural, and so entirely non-normative, relation. I argue that the objection can be defused once we are clear about the kind of normativity that plays a role in causation by omission. ;Chapter 3. Causation and the Making/Allowing Distinction. Common sense morality suggests that it can matter morally whether an agent makes an outcome occur or merely allows it to occur. For example, it is far worse to pinch your little brother than to allow him to be pinched. I argue against the assumption that the making/allowing distinction is exclusive: in fact, the categories of making and allowing overlap. I go on to offer a positive account of makings, and a positive account of allowings. (shrink)

This book introduces the reader to Whitehead’s complex and often misunderstood metaphysics by showing that it deals with questions about the nature of causation originally raised by the philosophy of Leibniz. Whitehead’s philosophy is an attempt at rehabilitating Leibniz’s theory of monads by recasting it in terms of novel ontological categories.

This paper pulls together three debates fundamental in metaphysics and proposes a novel unified approach to them. The three debates are (i) between bundle theory and substrate theory about the nature of objects, (ii) dispositionalism and categoricalism about the nature of properties, and (iii) regularity theory and production theory about the nature of causation. The first part of the paper (§§2-4) suggests that although these debates are metaphysical, the considerations motivating the competing approaches in each debate tend to (...) be epistemological. The second part (§§5-6) argues that the two underlying epistemological pictures supporting competing views lead to highly unsatisfying conceptions of the world. The final part (§§7-10) proposes an alternative epistemological picture, which I call ‘introverted empiricism,’ and presents the way it provides for a more satisfying grasp of the ultimate nature of objects, properties, and causation. It is a consequence of this alternative picture that there is a kind of intimate self-understanding that underlies our understanding of the deep nature of reality. (shrink)

The return of interest in panpsychism reflects a shift towards process metaphysics. To propose that qualia are present throughout nature is a radical break with the mechanistic worldview inherited from the nineteenth century. That break is much needed as it is becoming clear that the values implicit in that worldview have helped create a serious ecological crisis. Here, following Bohm and Peirce, an elaboration of process metaphysics is proposed based on a semiotic view of causation. This in turn, taken (...) together with insights from biosemiotics, is used to propose a worldview of unbroken wholeness in which consciousness is ubiquitous and exists at scales well beyond the range of human experience. It is suggested that this will help to recover some of the ecological sensitivies found in prescientific traditions, which are lost in a purely mechanistic worldview. (shrink)

I consider the idea of a structure of fundamental physical particles being causal. Causation is traditionally thought of as involving relations between entities—objects or events—that cause and are affected. On structuralist interpretations, however, it is unclear whether or how precisely fundamental particles can be causally efficacious. On some interpretations, only relations exist; on others, particles are ontologically dependent on their relations in ways that problematize the traditional picture. I argue that thinking about causal efficacy in this context generates an (...) inevitable pattern of reasoning. To assess the cogency of a given structuralist proposal one must take a stand with respect to a significant metaphysical challenge. Two options then emerge: skepticism about the form of structuralism at issue; or a dissolution of the challenge by means of a contentious ontological primitive. I contend that the choice between these options cannot be forced on scientific or philosophical grounds alone. (shrink)

Questions about the metaphysics of causation may be usefully divided as follows. First, there are questions about the nature of the causal relata, including (1.1) whether they are in spacetime immanence), (1.2) how fine grained they are individuation), and (1.3) how many there are adicity). Second, there are questions about the metaphysics of the causal relation, including (2.1) what is the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences connection), (2.2) what is the difference between sequences related as cause (...) to effect, and those related as effect to cause or as joint effects of a common cause direction), and (2.3) what is the difference between sequences involving the cause, and those involving mere conditions selection). (shrink)

Causation is at once familiar and mysterious. Neither common sense nor extensive philosophical debate has led us to anything like agreement on the correct analysis of the concept of causation, or an account of the metaphysical nature of the causal relation. Causation: A User's Guide cuts a clear path through this confusing but vital landscape. L. A. Paul and Ned Hall guide the reader through the most important philosophical treatments of causation, negotiating the terrain by (...) taking a set of examples as landmarks. They clarify the central themes of the debate about causation, and cover questions about causation involving omissions or absences, preemption and other species of redundant causation, and the possibility that causation is not transitive. Along the way, Paul and Hall examine several contemporary proposals for analyzing the nature of causation and assess their merits and overall methodological cogency.The book is designed to be of value both to trained specialists and those coming to the problem of causation for the first time. It provides the reader with a broad and sophisticated view of the metaphysics of the causal relation. (shrink)

Contrary to Hume, science has found many ways in which things connect with other things in the world. Causal metaphysics, however, has failed to add anything factual to the relations discovered by science. It is at best an exercise in labeling that may have practical uses.

This paper aims to discuss two realist conceptions about causation in the light of the general theory of relativity. I first consider the conserved quantity of causation, which explicitly relies on the energy conservation principle. Such principle is however problematic within GTR, mainly because of the dynamical nature of the spacetime structure itself. I then turn to the causal theory of properties, according to which properties are such that insofar as they are certain qualities, they are powers to (...) produce certain effects. In order to be compatible with GTR, such theory has to assume non-trivial global conditions on the spacetime structure; such assumptions seem to deprive the „singularist‟ non-Humean feature of this theory of causation. The question of the possible causal nature of spacetime properties is addressed in the conclusion. (shrink)

This paper reexamines the case for a proportionality constraint on causation. The general idea behind the proportionality constraint is that causes need the right amount of detail. The cause needs to be detailed enough to be sufficient for the effect yet general enough to be fully relevant to the effect. The case for the proportionality constraint mainly rests on some examples. Suppose we are searching for the cause of an injury: “being hit by a red bus” is too detailed, (...) “being hit” isn't detailed enough, but “being hit by a bus” is about right. This sort of example has undeniable intuitive appeal. However, this intuitive appeal needs to be examined with more care before jumping to conclusions about the metaphysics of causation and the mereology of causal relata. Here, I reexamine the case for a proportionality constraint on causation and compare several pragmatic explanations of our intuitions about Yablo’s examples, in particular a pragmatic explanation that notices the loose use in our naming of causal relata and a pragmatic explanation that appeals to a contrastivist account of causation. (shrink)

This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency, written by established and leading authors ...

Freedom and moral responsibility have one foot in the practical realm of human affairs and the other in the esoteric realm of fundamental metaphysics—or so we believe. This has been denied, especially in the metaphysics-bashing era occupying the first two-thirds or so of the twentieth century, traces of which linger in the present day. But the reasons for this denial seem to us quite implausible. Certainly, the argument for the general bankruptcy of metaphysics has been soundly discredited. Arguments from Strawson (...) and others that our moral practices are too deeply embedded in human life to rest on anything as tenuous as a metaphysical doctrine far from the thoughts of ordinary people would seem to prove too much: we can easily imagine fantastic scenarios far from the thoughts of ordinary people—involving, say, alien manipulation or massive deception—that, if true, would clearly undermine claims to freedom and responsibility. For still other philosophers, the separation of the moral life from (some) metaphysical issues is prescriptive, not descriptive: it is a recommendation that we revise ordinary moral thought by severing its allegedly problematic links to metaphysics. (Some philosophers appear to hover undecided between such a prescriptive project and a Strawsonian descriptive claim.) We suspect that the prospects of retaining the binding force of ordinary moral thought, were such a reconceived moral practice widely embraced, are bleak. A transition to something closer to moral nihilism seems at least as likely. In any case, our interest here is in descriptive metaphysics, not revisionary. -/- To say as we do that freedom and moral responsibility have a partly metaphysical character is not to suggest that they can be had only if some highly specific version of a particular metaphysical framework is correct. Instead, we suggest in what follows, it is a broadly neo-Humean metaphysics that is not hospitable to freedom (for reasons distinctive to the metaphysics), while a broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is. But we also think (and it is the main aim of our paper to show) that different versions of the neo- Aristotelian metaphysics lead to rather different metaphysical accounts of free and responsible action. Specifically, we will argue that (1) the most satisfactory account of human freedom within the broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is agent-causal, but that (2) two different versions of the general metaphysics will lead to important differences in the agent-causal account of freedom. Adjust the details of your general metaphysics, and the details of your account of freedom are transformed in significant ways. Action theory cannot properly be pursued in isolation from general metaphysics. (shrink)

According to the new mechanistic approach, an acting entity is at a lower mechanistic level than another acting entity if and only if the former is a component in the mechanism for the latter. Craver and Bechtel :547–563, 2007. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9028-8) argue that a consequence of this view is that there cannot be causal interactions between acting entities at different mechanistic levels. Their main reason seems to be what I will call the Metaphysical Argument: things at different levels of a (...) mechanism are related as part and whole; wholes and their parts cannot be related as cause and effect; hence, interlevel causation in mechanisms is impossible. I will analyze this argument in more detail and show under which conditions it is valid. This analysis will reveal that interlevel causation in mechanisms is indeed possible, if we take seriously the idea that the relata of the mechanistic level relation are acting entities and accept a slightly modified notion of a mechanistic level that is highly plausible in the light of the first clarification. (shrink)

The methodological nonreductionism of contemporary biology opens an interesting discussion on the level of ontology and the philosophy of nature. The theory of emergence (EM), and downward causation (DC) in particular, bring a new set of arguments challenging not only methodological, but also ontological and causal reductionism. This argumentation provides a crucial philosophical foundation for the science/theology dialogue. However, a closer examination shows that proponents of EM do not present a unified and consistent definition of DC. Moreover, they find (...) it difficult to prove that higher-order properties can be causally significant without violating the causal laws that operate at lower physical levels. They also face the problem of circularity and incoherence in their explanation. In our article we show that these problems can be overcome only if DC is understood in terms of formal rather than physical (efficient) causality. This breakdown of causal monism in science opens a way to the retrieval of the fourfold Aristotelian notion of causality. (shrink)

Causation is production, not dependence. It is not merely a matter of how two facts or events covary, but about what underlies that covariation. Furthermore, causation is unified (not fragmented or plural) and is a natural relation (in the world). To cause is to make something happen, to generate. The causal nexus (the web of causal influence) consists entirely of productive positive causes. With these fixed, the (causal) dependence relations are determined. -/- Dependence belongs to the theory of (...) explanation. Causal dependence is an explanatory notion: A causally explains B, in virtue of a causal relation between cause C and effect E. Confusing causation and explanation in this way underlies two related errors: the identification of omissions as causes and the embrace of causal pluralism. -/- A proper understanding of causation as production can better make sense, both of the metaphysics of causation itself, and of the special role that causation plays in explanation, responsibility, and rational planning. Each of these has a special causal species (causal explanation, causal responsibility, etc.), in which dependences play an important role, but one that is distinct from the role played by causation itself. -/- Morality and the law also attribute significance to causation, especially in terms of responsibility and liability. We are responsible for that which we cause. The law and common-sense morality both see an important distinction between active and omissive harming. Liability traditionally attaches more easily for active causing of harm than it does for omissions and failures to prevent harm (where the law requires a special duty). -/- A production theory of causation and an understanding of how omissions are not properly causal makes better sense of the role of causation in liability. This requires refinement, since, the law does, selectively, apply liability to omissions and preventions. Crucially, however, and on a view that identifies omissions as causes, puzzlingly, liability for omissions requires a preexisting duty to perform. My account explains the law’s differential treatment of proper causal liability and this latter omissive liability, and, in the process, offers a novel theory of non-causal liability in terms of corrective justice, that is dependence-driven, for cases involving omissions. I argue that cases of liability for omissions are cases in which the liability is not properly causal; rather, when a duty is owed by a defendant to a plaintiff, the defendant has a second-order duty in corrective justice to place the plaintiff in the position she would have been had defendant comported with his duty. As such, what the defendant owes is not the damage “caused” by the omission, but to make good on the obligation that the defendant owes to place the plaintiff in the position in which she has a right to be. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Richard Swinburne’s case for the conception of substance causation, identified with the substances-powers-liabilities account of causation, versus the conception of event causation, identified with alternative accounts. I specify the place of Swinburne’s argument in the debates about agent causation, and uncover reasons to be sceptical about the claims that substance causation is a genuine alternative to event causation, and that it helps to comprehend the specifics of the causation (...) involved in free agency. I also advance considerations in favour of the relations-between-universals account of causation that can make it preferable to the SPL account. (shrink)

The world contains not only causes and effects, but also causal relations holding between causes and effects. Because causal relations enter into the structure of the world, their presence has various modal and probabilistic consequences. Causation and “necessary and sufficient conditions” do often go hand in hand. Causation, however, is a robust ingredient within the world itself, whereas modalities and probabilities supervene on the nature of the world as a whole, and on the resulting relations between one possible (...) world and others. Some modalities, therefore, are essentially causal; but causation is not essentially modal.19. (shrink)

This article uses causation to show that panpsychism and emergentism share far less than most philosophers suppose. It argues that panpsychism has features, among them its rationalism, that force what the article calls a strong account of causation. And that emergentism entails what the article calls a weak account of causation incompatible with any strong account. The article then ventures that panpsychism and emergentism form parts of two wide-ranging but incompatible metaphysical packages.

The trick, of course, is to pick your targets carefully: they should be central to the mainstream of contemporary philosophy, not marginal. Watkins has certainly done that. The target he has chosen is the problem of causation. His three-part aim is, first, to embed Kant’s theory of causation in its 18th century pre-Critical and especially Leibnizian setting; second, to argue that Kant’s Critical theory of causation is not in fact a reply to Hume, and that Kant’s metaphysics (...) of causation depends as much on the Third Analogy of Experience and the Third Antinomy of Pure Reason as it does on the Second Analogy; and third, that reconsidering Kant’s Critical metaphysics of causation from a pre-Critical and rationalist point of view can contribute to a serious reconsideration of the theory of agent causation in the contemporary debate about free will. (shrink)

The paper argues for four claims: (1) The problem of mental causation and the argument for its solution in terms of the identity of mental with physical causes are independent of the theory of causation one favours. (2) If one considers our experience of agency as described by folk psychology to be veridical, one is committed to an anti-Humean metaphysics of causation in terms of powers that establish necessary connections. The same goes for functional properties in general. (...) (3) A metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is compatible with physics. (4) If combined with the argument for mental causes being identical with physical causes, that metaphysics leads to a conservative reductionism. (shrink)

There are, by now, many rival, sophisticated philosophical accounts of causation that qualify as ‘metaphysically reductive’. This is a good thing: these collective efforts have vastly improved our understanding of causation over the last 30 years or so. They also put us in an excellent position to reflect on some central methodological questions: What exactly is the point of offering a metaphysical reduction of causation? What philosophical scruples ought to guide the pursuit of such a reduction? (...) Finally, how should answers to these latter questions affect one’s assessment of the main contemporary approaches? That’s what we investigate in this essay. Section 1 lays out our presuppositions. Section 2 reviews a sample of philosophical accounts. Then comes the main event: Section 3 looks in detail at the foregoing methodological questions, closing with a reconsideration of our sample accounts, in light of what we’ve found. (shrink)

I argue that the orthodox account of probabilistic causation, on which probabilistic causes determine the probability of their effects, is inconsistent with certain ontological assumptions implicit in scientific practice. In particular, scientists recognize the possibility that properties of populations can cause the behavior of members of the populations. Such emergent population‐level causation is metaphysically impossible on the orthodoxy.

Descartes is often identified as having fired one of the opening shots of the scientific revolution: rejecting the four Aristotelian causes in favor of the efficient causes characteristic of mechanistic science. Scholars often write as if Cartesian science and corporeal metaphysics is best understood as a rejection of all causal notions other than the efficient. I argue that this is a mistake. On the contrary, Descartes endorses an avowedly Aristotelian notion of formal causality, inherited from Suárez, and this notion is (...) central to his physics and corporeal metaphysics. -/- I begin by tracing the history of the formal cause from Aristotle to Aquinas and Suárez. My main thesis here is that the Aristotelian notion of formal causation picks out two distinct explanatory modes. The first is linked to hylomorphic ontology, and so by rejecting hylomorphism Descartes rejects one sort of formal causation. Crucially, however, the Aristotelians also identify explanations from essence as a species of formal causality. Now, Descartes’s entire philosophical project is built upon the intellectual perception of the essences of God, mind, and matter; the uncovering and exercise of this broadly Platonic intellectual capacity is, as Descartes explained to Hobbes, a key raison d’être for project of the Meditations. So we might expect Descartes to embrace formal causal explanations from essence, which harmonize so thoroughly with his philosophical project. And indeed, this is what we find. This is most obvious in the case of the ontological argument. In the course of defending the claim that God is causa sui, Descartes explicitly appeals to formal causation and claims to be only be “following in the footsteps” of Aristotle. Thus, there is a Cartesian notion of formal causation that is both continuous with and distinct from its Aristotelian predecessors. -/- Other cases are less obvious, but no less important. For example, one of the most strikingly “modern” aspects of Cartesian physics is its emphasis on quantitative laws. Yet Descartes’s official account of how these laws explain particular phenomena is puzzling: He claims that the laws are causes. This, however, is prima facie absurd; Descartes seems to claim that the law of inertia is literally pushing the moon forward along its orbital path. I argue that this is not and cannot be what Descartes means. On the contrary, he clearly takes the laws of physics to follow from the divine essence, especially immutability and simplicity. The laws are true and epistemically accessible to us because they follow from the divine essence. In other words, Descartes thinks nomological explanation in physics is formal causal explanation from (the divine) essence. -/- Another central issue is the impenetrability, or solidity, of matter. I offer a close reading and reconstruction of Descartes’s argument that matter is necessarily but not essentially impenetrable, and I show how Descartes accounts for impenetrability without compromising his mathematical conception of the corporeal. Descartes argues that impenetrability follows from the nature of matter as geometrical extension, thereby reducing a paradigmatic quality of matter (its solidity) to quantity (extension). Note that the explanatory bite throughout is from essence. Thus, while solidity is not a genuine corporeal causal power, it does give bodies an ineliminable causal role in Cartesian physics and corporeal metaphysics. This role is as a formal cause, since every explanation from impenetrability is ipso facto an explanation from the corporeal essence, geometrical extension. This, in turn, shows that Descartes has a principled response to idealists, like Berkeley, who claim that matter’s lack of efficient causal power implies idealism; Berkeley’s mistake, Descartes would argue, lies in equating efficient causality with causality simpliciter. -/- Thus, I argue that formal causal explanation from essence is both well-attested textually in Descartes and is consonant with some of his deepest projects and commitments, including his Platonic intellectualism and mathematization of the corporeal. All this in mind, it is shocking how little attention has been paid to formal causation in Descartes’s metaphysics. If I am right, a thorough re-thinking of Descartes’s physics and metaphysics is long overdue. (shrink)

I explore how endurantists are to handle cases of synchronic bi-location, in which a thing bi-locates at a time (such as by time-travel). I argue that endurantists face significant pressure to posit distinct but structurally identical facts (DSIFs), and critique the fragmentalist approach to bi-location in Simon (2018). Both the positive argument and critique are animated by the observation that handling bi-location cases requires perspicuously describing their spatiotemporal and causal structure. Accordingly, the argument proceeds by considering how endurantists are to (...) think about the metaphysics of place and causation, two issues that are important independent of the thesis about DSIFs. (shrink)

Agent causation presupposes that actions are behaviors under the causal control of the agent’s mental states, its beliefs and desires. Here the idea of conscious causation in causal explanations of actions is examined, specifically, actions said to be the result of conscious efforts. Causal–functionalist theories of consciousness purport to be naturalistic accounts of the causal efficacy of consciousness. Flanagan argues that his causal–functionalist theory of consciousness satisfies naturalistic constraints on causation and that his causal efficacy thesis is (...) compatible with results of Libet’s experiments on conscious causation. First, the notions of conscious effort and conscious causation are analyzed with respect to the project of naturalizing the mind, that is, the attempt to assimilate folk-psychological explanation to the causal model of explanation in the natural sciences. It is argued that a serious obstacle for any naturalist program is that mental states are individuated by their semantic content, not the mechanistic, physical properties of their neural state instantiations. In particular, it is argued that explanation by reference to mental state content yields not a causal but an interpretive or rationalizing account of action in which the question of causal efficacy is irrelevant. Then, Flanagan’s causal–functionalist theory of consciousness is critically assessed; specifically his interpretations of Libet’s negative experimental results on the causal efficacy of consciousness are diagnosed and disputed. It is contended that Flanagan misinterprets the results of Libet’s consciousness experiments and that his functionalist concept of consciousness fails to yield an adequate explanation of the alleged causal efficacy of consciousness. Finally, his thesis is countered with other experimental results that appear to favor an epiphenomenalist view over the causal efficacy account of consciousness. (shrink)

The world contains objective causal relations and universals, both of which are intimately connected. If these claims are true, they must have far-reaching consequences, breathing new life into the theory of empirical knowledge and reinforcing epistemological realism. Without causes and universals, Professor Fales argues, realism is defeated, and idealism or scepticism wins. Fales begins with a detailed analysis of David Hume's argument that we have no direct experience of necessary connections between events, concluding that Hume was mistaken on this fundamental (...) point. Then, adopting the view of Armstrong and others that causation is grounded in a second-order relation between universals, he explores a range of topics for which the resulting analysis of causation has systematic implications. In particular, causal identity conditions for physical universals are proposed, which generate a new argument for Platonism. The nature of space and time is discussed, with arguments against backward causation and for the view that space and time can exist independently of matter or causal process. Many of Professor Fales's conclusions seem to run counter to received opinion among contemporary empiricists. Yet his method is classically empiricist in spirit, and a chief motive for these metaphysical explorations is epistemological. The final chapters investigate the perennial question of whether an empiricist, internalist and foundational epistemology can support scientific realism. (shrink)

The recent literature on mental causation has not been kind to nonreductive, materialist functionalism (‘functionalism’, hereafter, except where that term is otherwise qualified). The exclusion problem2 has done much of the damage, but the epiphenomenalist threat has taken other forms. Functionalism also faces what I will call the ‘problem of metaphysically necessary effects’ (Block, 1990, pp. 157-60, Antony and Levine, 1997, pp. 91-92, Pereboom, 2002, p. 515, Millikan, 1999, p. 47, Jackson, 1998, pp. 660-61). Functionalist mental properties are individuated (...) partly by their relation to the very effects those properties’ instantiations are thought to cause. Consequently, functionalist causal generalizations would seem to have the following problematical structure: The state of being, among other things, a cause of e (under such-andsuch conditions) causes e (under those conditions).3 The connection asserted lacks the contingency one would expect of a causal generalization. Mental states of the kind in question are, by metaphysical necessity, causes of e; any state that does not cause e is thereby a different kind of state. Yet, a mental state’s being the sort of state it is must play some causal role if functionalism is to account for mental causation.4 In what follows, I first articulate more fully the problem of metaphysically necessary effects. I then criticize three functionalist attempts to solve the problem directly. Given the failure of functionalist efforts to meet the problem head-on, I consider less direct strategies: these involve formulating functionalism or its causal claims in such a way that they appear not to generate the problem of metaphysically necessary effects. I argue against these indirect solutions, in each case concluding either that the problem still arises or that avoiding it requires the adoption of an unorthodox form of functionalism (itself a surprising result). In the final.. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 55, Issue 4, pp 239 - 272 According to Peter Auriol, OFM, efficient causation is a composite being consisting of items belonging to three distinct categories: a change, an action, and a passion. The change functions as the subject bearing action and passion. After presenting Aristotle’s account of action and passion, which constitutes the background to Auriol’s theory of causation, this paper considers Auriol’s interpretation of Aristotle’s account in contrast to an alternative interpretation defended by (...) Hervaeus Natalis and William of Ockham. Finally, it shows how Auriol, on the basis of his interpretation of Aristotle, develops his own account of efficient causation as a composite being. (shrink)

Lewis considers (Postscript B to 'Causation') the objection that what he calls a plain case of probabilistic causation is really a probable case of plain causation. He replies that the objection rests on the false metaphysical assumption that counterfactuals whose consequents are about events (rather than chances) can be true under indeterminism. The present note argues that this is the wrong kind of reply, because metaphysics is never relevant to conceptual analysis.

A debate has been raging in the philosophy of mind for at least the past two decades. It concerns whether the mental can make a causal difference to the world. Suppose that I am reading the newspaper and it is getting dark. I switch on the light, and continue with my reading. One explanation of why my switching on of the light occurred is that a desiring with a particular content (that I continue reading), a noticing with a particular content (...) (that it is getting dark), and a believing with a particular content (that by switching on the light I could continue reading) occurred in me, and these events caused my switching on of the light. This explanation works by citing the intentional contents of mental phenomena as causes of that action. It is because the intentional causes have the contents that they do, and because those contents play a causal role in bringing about my action, that my action is causally explained. (shrink)

Proponents of grounding often describe the notion as "metaphysical causation" involving determination and production relations similar to causation. This paper argues that the similarities between grounding and causation are merely superficial. I show that there are several sorts of causation that have no analogue in grounding; that the type of "bringing into existence" that both involve is extremely different; and that the synchronicity of ground and the diachronicity of causation make them too different to (...) be explanatorily intertwined. (shrink)

The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy examines the debate that began as modern science separated itself from natural philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book specifically explores the two dominant approaches to causation as a metaphysical problem and as a scientific problem. As philosophy and science turned from the ideas of Aristotle that dominated western thought throughout the renaissance, one of the most pressing intellectual problems was how to replace Aristotelian science with its doctine of (...) the four causes. This is the first book to look at the historical discussion as a debate that surrounds certain themes and ideas, and combines classical discussions of causation with recent thinking on the topic. (shrink)

Hume's regularity theory of causation was partly motivated by a criticism of Descartes' causal account of collisions. According to Descartes, bodies are things with extension, and since having extension does not entail any ability to cause changes of motion in other bodies, such changes must be explained by attributing a ‘causal power’ to bodies, logically independent of their extension. Hume's point is that we can't observe any such causal power and we should not use ideas about such unobserved qualities (...) of bodies. Given his form of empiricism, the regularity theory is the only choice; causation is no more than constant correlation. However, there is a third option beside attributing a metaphysical ‘causal power’ and mere regularity; if we follow Newton and say that bodies are characterised and individuated by their mass, not their extension, we can give another analysis of causal interaction between bodies. It is by having mass a body can cause changes in the motion of other bodies. Thus, using classical mechanics we can give an alternative to Hume's regularity theory of causation in which the necessary connection between cause and effect is understood as a conceptual connection between certain descriptions of cause and effect. It does not satisfy Hume's strictures on concept formation, but no additional metaphysics is necessary. In a sense it is an intermediate position between Humean regularity and an account in terms of metaphysical necessity. (shrink)