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  1. Judith Jarvis Thomson on the analysis of causation, and another entailment objection.Terence Rajivan Edward - manuscript
    In a book contribution responding to H.L.A. Hart and Tony Honoré, Judith Jarvis Thomson casts a certain analysis of causation in an attractive light, but says that it unfortunately faces two objections. I draw attention to another objection.
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  2. A Regularity Theory of Causation.Holger Andreas & Mario Günther - 2024 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 105 (1):2-32.
    In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.
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  3. Cohesive proportionality.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (1):179-203.
    Proportionality—the idea that causes are neither too general nor too specific for their effects—seems to recommend implausibly disjunctive causes (McGrath, 1998 ; Shapiro & Sober, 2012 ; Franklin-Hall, 2016 ). I argue that this problem should be avoided by appeal to the notion of cohesion. I propose an account of cohesion in terms of the similarity structure of property-spaces, argue that it is not objectionably mysterious, and that alternative approaches—based on naturalness, interventionism, and contrastivism—are inadequate without appeal to it. In (...)
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  4. Taking stock of regularity theories of causation.Marc Johansen - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (5):e12735.
    This article takes stock of the regularity theory of causation. It considers three challenges to the theory: the problem of joint effects, the problems of redundant causation, and omission‐involving causation. The former is often cited as a special, and especially challenging, problem for regularity theories. But the force of this problem has been greatly overstated. The threat to regularity theories instead comes from the latter two.
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  5. Proving Cleanthes wrong.Laureano Luna - 2021 - Journal of Applied Logic 8 (3):707-736.
    Hume’s famous character Cleanthes claims that there is no difficulty in explaining the existence of causal chains with no first cause since in them each item is causally explained by its predecessor. Relying on logico-mathematical resources, we argue for two theses: (1) if the existence of Cleanthes’ chain can be explained at all, it must be explained by the fact that the causal law ruling it is in force, and (2) the fact that such a causal law is in force (...)
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  6. Necessitarianism and Dispositions.Simone Gozzano - 2020 - Metaphysica (1):1-23.
    In this paper, I argue in favor of necessitarianism, the view that dispositions, when stimulated, necessitate their manifestations. After introducing and clarifying what necessitarianism does and does not amount to, I provide reasons to support the view that dispositions once stimulated necessitate their manifestations according to the stimulating conditions and the relevant properties at stake. In this framework, I will propose a principle of causal relevance and some conditions for the possibility of interference that allow us to avoid the use (...)
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  7. Hume's Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Physical Science.Matias Slavov - 2020 - London: Bloomsbury Academic.
    This book contextualizes David Hume's philosophy of physical science, exploring both Hume's background in the history of early modern natural philosophy and its subsequent impact on the scientific tradition.
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  8. A logic for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities.Mathieu Beirlaen, Bert Leuridan & Frederik Van De Putte - 2018 - Synthese 195 (1):367-399.
    We present a logic, \, for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities starting from empirical data. Our approach is inspired by Mackie’s theory of causes as INUS-conditions, and implements a more recent adjustment to Mackie’s theory according to which the left-hand side of causal regularities is required to be a minimal disjunction of minimal conjunctions. To derive such regularities from a given set of data, we make use of the adaptive logics framework. Our knowledge of deterministic causal regularities is, as (...)
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  9. Regularity theories disconfirmed: a revamped argument and a wager.Patrick Cronin - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):4913-4933.
    Regularity theories of causation assert that causal or nomic notions are to be reduced into “mere” frequencies of particular, non-nomic, co-located qualities and matters of fact. In this essay, I present a critical exploration of Armstrong and Strawson’s explanatory arguments against regularity theories. The shortcomings of these older arguments for nomic realism are identified and a revamped version which is immune to such problems is outlined and defended. I argue that anti-realism suffers substantial disconfirmation due to its comparative inability to (...)
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  10. Necessary Connections in Context.Alex Kaiserman - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (1):45-64.
    This paper combines the ancient idea that causes necessitate their effects with Angelika Kratzer’s semantics of modality. On the resulting view, causal claims quantify over restricted domains of possible worlds determined by two contextually determined parameters. I argue that this view can explain a number of otherwise puzzling features of the way we use and evaluate causal language, including the difference between causing an effect and being a cause of it, the sensitivity of causal judgements to normative facts, and the (...)
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  11. Regularity as a Form of Constraint.Marc Johansen - 2016 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1):170-186.
    Regularity theories of causation are guided by the idea that causes are collectively sufficient for their effects. Following Mackie [1974], that idea is typically refined to distinguish collections that include redundant members from those that do not. Causes must be collectively sufficient for their effects without redundancy. While Mackie was surely right that the regularity theory must distinguish collections that are in some sense minimally sufficient for an effect from those that include unnecessary hangers-on, I believe that redundancy is the (...)
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  12. Causation.Douglas Kutach - 2014 - Malden, MA: Polity.
    In most academic and non-academic circles throughout history, the world and its operation have been viewed in terms of cause and effect. The principles of causation have been applied, fruitfully, across the sciences, law, medicine, and in everyday life, despite the lack of any agreed-upon framework for understanding what causation ultimately amounts to. In this engaging and accessible introduction to the topic, Douglas Kutach explains and analyses the most prominent theories and examples in the philosophy of causation. The book is (...)
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  13. A Regularity Theoretic Approach to Actual Causation.Michael Baumgartner - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (1):85-109.
    The majority of the currently flourishing theories of actual causation are located in a broadly counterfactual framework that draws on structural equations. In order to account for cases of symmetric overdeterminiation and preemption, these theories resort to rather intricate analytical tools, most of all, to what Hitchcock has labeled explicitly nonforetracking counterfactuals. This paper introduces a regularity theoretic approach to actual causation that only employs material conditionals, standard Boolean minimization procedures, and a stability condition that regulates the behavior of causal (...)
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  14. Introduction to Special Issue on 'Actual Causation'.Michael Baumgartner & Luke Glynn - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (1):1-8.
    An actual cause of some token effect is itself a token event that helped to bring about that effect. The notion of an actual cause is different from that of a potential cause – for example a pre-empted backup – which had the capacity to bring about the effect, but which wasn't in fact operative on the occasion in question. Sometimes actual causes are also distinguished from mere background conditions: as when we judge that the struck match was a cause (...)
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  15. Causal foundationalism, physical causation, and difference-making.Luke Glynn - 2013 - Synthese 190 (6):1017-1037.
    An influential tradition in the philosophy of causation has it that all token causal facts are, or are reducible to, facts about difference-making. Challenges to this tradition have typically focused on pre-emption cases, in which a cause apparently fails to make a difference to its effect. However, a novel challenge to the difference-making approach has recently been issued by Alyssa Ney. Ney defends causal foundationalism, which she characterizes as the thesis that facts about difference-making depend upon facts about physical causation. (...)
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  16. Emergence and Consciousness.Patrick Lewtas - 2013 - Philosophy 88 (4):527-553.
    Most definitions of radical emergentism characterize it epistemologically. This leads to misunderstandings and makes it hard to assess the doctrine's metaphysical worth. This paper puts forward purely metaphysical characterizations of emergentism and property emergence. It explores the nature of the necessitation relation between base and emergent and argues that emergentism entails a Humean account of causation and related relations. Then it presents arguments against emergentism, both as a wider metaphysic and as an account of consciousness. These maintain that emergentism makes (...)
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  17. (1 other version)A Revision of the Notions of Sufficient Condition and Necessary Condition.Frantisek Gaher - 2012 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 19 (1):16-37.
    Analyzing the process of keeping promise we identify its sequence structure and its phase sequences in time. This allows us to arrive at a time order principle forming according to which obligation performance cannot precede in time its sufficient or necessary conditions performance. We further observe that a given promise must always be taken as an element of a certain system of promises. As a result we review definitions of the terms sufficient condition and necessary condition as no more allowing (...)
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  18. Counterfactuals, Regularity and the Autonomy Approach.Lei Zhong - 2012 - Analysis 72 (1):75-85.
    Many philosophers insist that the most plausible solution to the exclusion problem is to adopt the so-called ‘autonomy approach’, which denies either upward or downward causation between mental and physical properties. But the question of whether the autonomy approach is compatible with respectable theories of causation has seldom been discussed in the literature. This paper considers two influential theories of causation, the counterfactual account and the regularity account. I argue that neither the counterfactual theory nor the regularity theory can support (...)
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  19. Against Accomplice Liability.Alex Kaiserman - 2011 - In Leslie Green & Brian Leiter (eds.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 124-155.
    Accomplice liability makes people guilty of crimes they knowingly helped or encouraged others to commit, even if they did not commit the crime themselves. But this method of criminalizing aiders and abettors is fraught with problems. In this chapter, I argue that accomplice liability in the criminal law should be replaced with a system in which agents are criminalized on the basis of their individual contributions to causings of harm—the larger the contribution, the more severe the crime—regardless of whether those (...)
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  20. Regularity Theories.Stathis Psillos - 2009 - In Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock & Peter Menzies (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation. Oxford University Press UK.
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  21. Logic of Causation, Determinism, Universal Laws, and Predictability.Bengt Hansson - 2008 - Logique Et Analyse.
  22. Mental causation, intentional action and explanatory practice.Hyun Chul Kim - 2008 - Dissertation, University of Kansas
    The problem of mental causation results from some unwarranted metaphysical assumption: the Principle of Nomological Character of Causality. However, there is little reason to understand causation in the manner required to make NCC work. The motivation for the demand for laws in action explanations stems at least in part from the fact that the laws cited in explanations are the laws that subsume events in naturalistic causal relations. By rejecting the idea that causal explanation is causal because it is grounded (...)
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  23. How effects depend on their causes, why causal transitivity fails, and why we care about causation.Gunnar Björnsson - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 133 (3):349-390.
    Despite recent efforts to improve on counterfactual theories of causation, failures to explain how effects depend on their causes are still manifest in a variety of cases. In particular, theories that do a decent job explaining cases of causal preemption have problems accounting for cases of causal intransitivity. Moreover, the increasing complexity of the counterfactual accounts makes it difficult to see why the concept of causation would be such a central part of our cognition. In this paper, I propose an (...)
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  24. Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal.f.Gordana Dodig Crnkovic & Susan Stuart (eds.) - 2007 - Cambridge Scholars Press.
    Written by world-leading experts, this book draws together a number of important strands in contemporary approaches to the philosophical and scientific questions that emerge when dealing with the issues of computing, information, cognition and the conceptual issues that arise at their intersections. It discovers and develops the connections at the borders and in the interstices of disciplines and debates. This volume presents a range of essays that deal with the currently vigorous concerns of the philosophy of information, ontology creation and (...)
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  25. Causation- A Synthesis of Three Approaches.Lars-Göran Johansson - 2007 - In Gordana Dodig Crnkovic & Susan Stuart (eds.), Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal.f. Cambridge Scholars Press.
  26. Regularity theories reassessed.Michael Baumgartner - 2006 - Philosophia 36 (3):327-354.
    For a long time, regularity accounts of causation have virtually vanished from the scene. Problems encountered within other theoretical frameworks have recently induced authors working on causation, laws of nature, or methodologies of causal reasoning – as e.g. May (Kausales Schliessen. Eine Untersuchung über kausale Erklärungen und Theorienbildung. Ph.D. thesis, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, 1999), Ragin (Fuzzy-set social science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), Graßhoff and May (Causal regularities. In W. Spohn, M. Ledwig, & M. Esfeld (Eds.), Current issues in (...)
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  27. The nomological principle and the argument for anomalous monism.Hagit Benbaji - 2005 - Iyyun 54 (January):90-108.
  28. On the regularity conception of causality in historiography.E. Zelenak - 2005 - Filozofia 60 (2):115-127.
    It is a crucial issue for history to determine a cause or a causal relation between two events. The regularity theory of causation is one of the most popular approach to this problem. The paper analyzes mainly how this approach deals with the determination of a causal condition and with the choice of the main cause from the remaining causal conditions. It examines also Mackie’s conception of cause as an INUS condition, which is in fact only one version of the (...)
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  29. Kausalität zwischen Physik und deskriptiver Metaphysik.Geert Keil - 2004 - Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 29 (3):287-294.
    The short paper continues a debate on free will, causation and laws of nature between the author and the German philosopher Peter Rohs (opened in a previous issue of the same journal). Both Keil and Rohs are libertarians, but they disagree on a number of metaphysical issues. Keil maintains that causation is a relation between changes, i.e. time-consuming events, not between instantaneous states. Against Davidson’s “principle of the nomological character of causality”, Keil holds that no exceptionless laws subsuming cause-effect pairs (...)
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  30. Kausalität und Freiheit – Antwort auf Peter Rohs.Geert Keil - 2003 - Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 28 (3):261-272.
    The short paper is a reply to a review of the author’s book HANDELN UND VERURSACHEN (Frankfurt am Main 2000). The reviewer, Peter Rohs, has focused upon the issues of causation, laws of nature and free will. Both Rohs and the author are libertarians, but they disagree on a number of metaphysical issues. The author maintains that causation is a relation between changes, i. e. time-consuming events, not between instantaneous states. Against Davidson’s “principle of the nomological character of causality”, he (...)
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  31. Phil Dowe, Physical Causation[REVIEW]McDaniel Kris - 2002 - Erkenntnis 56 (2):258-263.
  32. (1 other version)Causal regularities.Michael May & Gerd Graßhoff - 2001 - In Wolfgang Spohn, Marion Ledwig & Michael Esfeld (eds.), Current Issues in Causation. Mentis. pp. 85.
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  33. Explaining Causation: Towards a Humean Theory of Scientific Explanation and Causation.Richard D. Schoonhoven - 2000 - Dissertation, University of Michigan
    Any theory of explanation must capture the intimate connection between explanation and causation, or between explanation and a broader notion of dependence, which includes causal and, e.g., mereological dependence. This does not, however, require realism about causation. Following up on a suggestion of P. Kitcher's, I analyze causation in terms of explanation. In order to recover a relation of causation from an augmented and improved version of Kitcher's theory, I develop a notion of an ideal historical explanation: A is causally (...)
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  34. (3 other versions)Causation.Michael Tooley - 1999 - In Robert Andrew Wilson & Frank C. Keil (eds.), MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. Cambridge, USA: MIT Press. pp. 108–110.
    Basic questions in the philosophy of causation fall into two main areas, and this essay offers an overview of the questions that arise in those areas. First, there are central metaphysical questions concerning the nature of causation, such as the following. What are causal laws? What is it for two states of affairs to be causal related? Which are primary--causal relations between states of affairs, or causal laws? How are causal facts related to non-causal facts? How can one explain the (...)
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  35. Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference. [REVIEW]Raymond Woller - 1999 - Review of Metaphysics 52 (4):988-989.
    This book not only defends the thesis that Hume is not a skeptic with respect to causal inferences, it locates this defense within a broader defense of empiricism.
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  36. Davidson's identity crisis.Daniel D. Hum - 1998 - Dialectica 52 (1):45-61.
    Professor Davidson's anomalous monism has been subject to the criticism that, despite advertisements to the contrary, if it were true mental properties would be epiphenomenal. To this Davidson has replied that his critics have misunderstood his views concerning the extensional nature of causal relations and the intensional character of causal explanations. I call this his ‘extension reply’. This paper argues that there are two ways to read Davidson's ‘extension reply’; one weaker and one stronger. But the dilemma is that: the (...)
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  37. (1 other version)Observational Concomitance.Paul Needham - 1997 - In R. Sliwinski and J. Österberg S. Lindström (ed.), Odds and Ends: Philosophical Essays Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz on the occasion of his 50th birthday. pp. 285-298.
  38. (1 other version)Observational Concomitance.Paul Needham - 1997 - In R. Sliwinski and J. Österberg S. Lindström (ed.), Odds and Ends: Philosophical Essays Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz on the occasion of his 50th birthday. pp. 285-298.
  39. (3 other versions)Causation (2nd edition).Michael Tooley - 1996 - In Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement. Simon and Schuster Macmillan. pp. 72–75.
    Among the questions that any adequate account of the nature of causation must answer, the following are especially crucial. First, how are causal states affairs – including both causal laws and causal relations between events, – related to noncausal states and affairs? Second, which are more basic – causal laws or causal relations? Third, how should the direction of causation be defined? Since David Hume’s time, reductionist answers have held sway, and philosophers have generally maintained that all causal relations between (...)
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  40. (1 other version)Mental causation: A query for Kim.James E. Tomberlin - 1995 - In Content. Ridgeview Publishing Company. pp. 152-159.
  41. Causal relevance and thought content.Kirk A. Ludwig - 1994 - Philosophical Quarterly 44 (176):334-353.
    It is natural to think that our ordinary practices in giving explanations for our actions, for what we do, commit us to claiming that content properties are causally relevant to physical events such as the movements of our limbs and bodies, and events which these in turn cause. If you want to know why my body ambulates across the street, or why my arm went up before I set out, we suppose I have given you an answer when I say (...)
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  42. (1 other version)Mental concepts: Causal because anomalous.Peter Bieri - 1993 - In Ralf Stoecker (ed.), Reflecting Davidson: Donald Davidson responding to an international forum of philosophers. New York: W. de Gruyter.
  43. Strawson on Laws and Regularities.Nicholas Everitt - 1991 - Analysis 51 (4):206 - 208.
    In his recent book The Secret Connection (Clarendon 1989), Galen Strawsonadvances what he calls 'a simple and devastating objection' to the regularitytheory of causation. I will argue that his objection, far from beingdevastating, has no force at all; and further, that if it did have force, itwould tell equally against Strawson's own preferred alternative to theregularity theory.
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  44. Causes and laws.Adrian Heathcote & D. M. Armstrong - 1991 - Noûs 25 (1):63-73.
  45. Mental quausation.Terence Horgan - 1989 - Philosophical Perspectives 3:47-74.
  46. Singular causal statements and strict deterministic laws.Noa Latham - 1987 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 68 (1):29-43.
  47. (1 other version)V*—Mackie's Account of Necessity in Causation.Michael P. Levine - 1987 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 87 (1):75-90.
    Michael P. Levine; V*—Mackie's Account of Necessity in Causation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 75–90, https:/.
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  48. Explanation, causality, and counterfactuals.Evan K. Jobe - 1985 - Philosophy of Science 52 (3):357-389.
    The aim of this paper is to develop an adequate version of the D-N theory of explanation for particular events and to show how the resulting D-N model can be used as a tool in articulating a regularity theory of causation and an analysis of the truth conditions for counterfactual conditionals. Starting with a basic model that is largely the product of other workers in this field, two new restrictions are formulated in order to construct a version of D-N explanation (...)
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  49. Mackie's Singular Causality and Linked Overdetermination.Robert H. Ennis - 1982 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982:55 - 64.
    Necessary-condition analyses of singular causal claims are particularly vulnerable to cases of linked overdetermination, so named because the nonoperation of the back-up factor (in fail-safe cases) or the preempted factor (in preemptive cases) is linked to the operation of the actual cause. As an example J. L. Mackie's analysis is here challenged with a simple switch-light case. Three replies are considered, a facts-vs.-events reply, a different-effect reply, and an in-the-circumstances reply. All are found deficient.
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  50. A reexamination of causal irregularity.Steven Lauwers - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (3):471-473.
    Aaron Snyder and Fred Dretske present an argument for the proposition that singular causal sequences, such as S caused b, need not be related to a general regularity, that an event of type S is always followed by an event of type b. Therefore, they assert that a claim of causal relation does not require a regular observation of effect following cause or cause preceeding effect. To reinforce their assertion, they present the following case: Box R contains a randomizing device; (...)
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