Causation, Transitivity, and Causal Relata

Journal of Philosophical Research 15:263-277 (1990)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I consider an alleged example of a non-transitive causal chain, on the basis of which J. Lee has argued that causation is non-transitive. I show that his analysis of the example rests on too coarse-grained an approach to causal relata. I develop a fine-grained analysis of events which owes much to Dretske’s notion of an allomorphic event, and I use this analysis to show that in the example all the genuine causal chains are indeed transitive. It emerges that when fine-grained analyses of events are possible, causal contexts are aIlomorphicaIly sensitive.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,150

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Causes of causes.Alex Broadbent - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (3):457-476.
Transitivity, Torts, and Kingdom Loss.Kevin Gibson - 1993 - Journal of Philosophical Research 18:83-96.
Can Indirect Causation be Real?M. Gregory Oakes - 2007 - Metaphysica 8 (2):111-122.
Embedded Conditionals as the Essence of Causality?Danilo Šuster - 2002 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 2 (2):197-211.
The metaphysics of causation.Jonathan N. D. Schaffer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Why Davidson is not a property epiphenomenalist.Sophie Gibb - 2006 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14 (3):407 – 422.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-12-02

Downloads
68 (#240,396)

6 months
4 (#795,160)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Dale Lynn Holt
Mississippi State University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references