Abstract

It is shown (i) that causation exists, since we couldn't even ask whether causation existed unless it did; (ii) that any given case of causation is a case of persistence; and (iii) that spatiotemporal relations supervene on causal relations. (ii) is subject to the qualification that we tend not to become aware of instances of causation as such except when two different causal lines---i.e. two different cases of persistence---intersect, resulting in a breakdown of some other case of persistence, this being why we tend to regard instances of causation as fundamentally disruptive, as opposed to preservative in nature. The meaning of (iii) is that spatiotemporal relations are causal relations considered in abstraction of the various specific differences holding between different kinds of causation.