A Step-by-Step Argument for Causal Finitism

Erkenntnis 88 (5):2097-2122 (2023)
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Abstract

I defend a new argument for causal finitism, the view that nothing can have an infinite causal history. I begin by defending a number of plausible metaphysical principles, after which I explore a host of novel variants of the Littlewood-Ross and Thomson’s Lamp paradoxes that violate such principles. I argue that causal finitism is the best solution to the paradoxes.

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Joseph Schmid
Princeton University

References found in this work

Survival and identity.David Lewis - 1976 - In Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), The Identities of Persons. University of California Press. pp. 17-40.
The Fall and Hypertime.Hud Hudson - 2014 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment.Alexander R. Pruss - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Philosophical Perspectives on Infinity.Graham Robert Oppy - 2006 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Infinity, Causation, and Paradox.Alexander R. Pruss - 2018 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

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