MAKING Metaphysics

Philosophers' Imprint 21 (20) (2021)
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Abstract

We can cause windows to break and we can break windows; we can cause villages to flood and we can flood villages; and we can cause chocolate to melt and we can melt chocolate. Each time these can come apart: if, for example, A merely instructs B to break the window, then A causes the window to break without breaking it herself. Each instance of A breaking/flooding/melting/burning/killing/etc. something, is an instance of what I call making. I argue that making is an independent, theoretically important notion—akin but irreducible to causing—and metaphysicians should pay attention to it.

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Thomas Byrne
University of California, Los Angeles

Citations of this work

The categories of causation.John Schwenkler - 2023 - Synthese 203 (1):1-35.
Causation in the law.Antony Honoré - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Legal causation.Thomas Byrne - 2022 - Jurisprudence 14 (1):55-75.

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References found in this work

Writing the Book of the World.Theodore Sider - 2011 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Knowledge and its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):200-201.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (210):105-116.
The limits of morality.Shelly Kagan - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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