Causation: Many Words, One Thing?

Theoria 27 (2):203-219 (2012)
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Abstract

How many notions of cause are there? The causality literature is witnessing a flourishing of pluralist positions. Here I focus on a recent debate on whether interpreting causality in terms of inferential relations commits one to _semantic_ pluralism or not. I argue that inferentialism is compatible with a `weak' form of monism, where causality is envisaged as _one_, _vague_ cluster concept. I offer two arguments for this, one for vagueness, one for uniqueness. Finally, I qualify in what sense the resulting form of monism is `weak'.

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Lorenzo Casini
IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca

Citations of this work

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