Relativizing proportionality to a domain of events

Synthese 200 (2):1-20 (2022)
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Abstract

A cause is proportional to its effect when, roughly speaking, it is at the right level of detail. There is a lively debate about whether proportionality is a necessary condition for causation. One of the main arguments against a proportionality constraint on causation is that many ordinary and seemingly perfectly acceptable causal claims cite causes that are not proportional to their effects. In this paper, I suggest that proponents of a proportionality constraint can respond to this objection by developing an idea that is present in Yablo’s early work on proportionality, but which has strangely been ignored by both Yablo and others in the subsequent debate. My suggestion is that proportionality—and, indeed, causation itself—is relative to a domain of events. At the metaphysical level, this means that the causal relation has an extra relatum—namely, a domain of events. At the level of language, it introduces a new way in which causal claims are context-sensitive: what is expressed by a causal claim depends on the contextually relevant domain of events. As I argue, this suggestion allows us to accommodate the truth of ordinary causal claims while extending the explanatory benefits of a proportionality constraint.

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Citations of this work

Cohesive proportionality.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (1):179-203.
Mental Causation for Standard Dualists.Bram Vaassen - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Proportionality in Causation, Part I: Theories.Ezra Rubenstein - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (1):e12957.

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References found in this work

Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
Mental causation.Stephen Yablo - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):245-280.
Scorekeeping in a Language Game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (3):339.
Causation: A User’s Guide.L. A. Paul & Ned Hall - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Edward J. Hall.

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