Questions tagged [causation]

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3 votes
2 answers
94 views

Logical relations between reasons and behavior cannot be cause and effect?

I'm listening to this lecture on mental causation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RefjI1lGT-Q&t=1466s At 22:50, the lecturer says, "Hume told us didn't he that there can't be logical ...
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19 votes
16 answers
4k views

Why is mind interacting with matter any more problematic than matter interacting with matter?

So there's this supposedly an 'interaction' problem for substance dualism, that isn't there for physicalism or idealism. I've never understood this. So as Hume pointed out, we see event a followed by ...
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1 vote
1 answer
106 views

Does Hume undermine determinism? [closed]

The problem of induction (kind courtesy David Hume) states that causality isn't deductively justified. Determinism, predicated on causality, isn't justified. Ergo, free will is (at the very least) ...
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3 votes
0 answers
84 views

What happens to statements like cause must precede effect for the mental events for this model?

My understanding is that for this model (epiphenomenalism (?)) is there isn't mental causation rather a kind of mapping between physical and mental events? What happens to statements like cause must ...
2 votes
2 answers
235 views

What is this idea of causality being articulated?

So I wanted to ask about the kind of causality when someone says something of the sort: "Communism made these people destroy their own society" or "I have a brilliant idea now I will ...
2 votes
2 answers
66 views

What is the definition of libertarian free will?

I've seen similar questions asked once or twice on here, but I wasn't able to find a satisfying defense of libertarian free will. The answers seemed to be kind of scattered. So, I wanted to make ...
0 votes
4 answers
110 views

Do preceding events cause subsequent ones in a four-dimensionalist world?

I feel like this question has a good chance of having been asked here before, but the first ten-odd "similar questions" listed by the site when I composed the title didn't cover what I'm ...
0 votes
4 answers
156 views

Is butterfly effect always happening?

You are sitting at front of house with warm tea. Right when you drinking it with glass, there is vehicle accident at street of front house. If you didn't drink it at that time before, will the ...
1 vote
4 answers
166 views

Are things "caused" by the butterfly effect actually caused by them?

I once read that even a humble medieval peasant merely had to sneeze to cause events hundreds of years in the future: "Not just Napoleon but the humblest medieval peasant had only to sneeze in ...
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5 votes
3 answers
153 views

Does Newton's first law of motion contradicts causality?

First, English is not my mother tongue and hence maybe the expressions I will use are not very accurate. Causality as I understand is when there is a change, then there is a preceding event "...
4 votes
7 answers
2k views

What would reality be like without causality? [closed]

If there were no physical laws of causality (law of gravitation, etc.) would there be "events", what would happen in the world when we act in our day to day life's? Trying to imagine a ...
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2 votes
1 answer
136 views

Who has defended a non-causal (emanationist) concept of strong emergence, compatible with reductionism?

Often in debates about emergence, an opposition is set up between (strong) emergence and reductionism. These are seen as incompatible alternatives. In particular, if one believes in downward causation,...
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1 vote
2 answers
137 views

Causation vs correlation in the context of physics

How to know whether A and B is causal or correlated? Is it correct to say that physicists have always been concerned about causation? The laws of physics are stated in terms of equations that have ...
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0 votes
0 answers
36 views

An argument against Hume's idea of necessary connection

In section 7 of the Enquiry Hume talks about necessary connection being an ambiguous metaphysical concept since even though we see events happening one after another (ex. hitting a billiard ball ...
3 votes
3 answers
246 views

causality vs determinism

Does causality implies determinism? Causation is a necessary relation between cause and effect and I consider determinism as "state of the future will be uniquely fixed by the past's state " ...
3 votes
3 answers
172 views

What is the difference between control exerted by an agent and causation?

I have my own thoughts about this. Am I on the right track or is there some real philosophy that defines the concept of control differently? In a regular cause & effect scenario the cause ...
2 votes
0 answers
26 views

Does Efficient Cause include Preventive Cause as a subspecies?

Aristotle defines 'efficient cause' (in Physics II.3, 194b24 ff) as “the primary starting point from which change or rest originates”. Does the phrase 'or rest' come to include 'preventive cause' (an ...
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2 votes
0 answers
99 views

Brute facts and the burden of proof

I'm trying my best to understand Della Rocca's article "PSR", which I believe convincingly shows that that one cannot reasonably hold that some facts are brute while others are not without a ...
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0 votes
3 answers
129 views

Causation with Inductive/Deductive Logic

I'm sofa-philosopher and I have a case I can't quite dismantle. My friend (let's call him John) just made a statement that I find philosophically weak, and I'd like to run it thru you guys. So, John ...
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-1 votes
1 answer
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Does analysis start with a premise or conclusion?

I'm trying to perform an analysis but I'm unsure which way around the premise and conclusions are. Here is the example: "The circulatory system is able to circulate blood.". Now I'm trying ...
0 votes
1 answer
266 views

Does time have a beginning? [closed]

I'm not expecting to learn individual points of view of those who read this question here (The specific question here is whether time has a beginning - not general ideas pertaining to philosophy of ...
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0 answers
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Leibniz's theory of subtance and causal interaction - with God

It follows from Leibniz' complete concept theory of truth that substances have no causal interaction with another. But Leibniz also says that created substances depend on God and that God conserves ...
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0 votes
3 answers
86 views

If y is a direct result of x, and x is occurring, is y unavoidable?

Suppose knocking over a glass has the direct result of making fall. If you knock over a glass, will it fall, no matter what?
1 vote
0 answers
42 views

Are patterns prior to causes? Which philosophers are hesitant to believe there really are causes?

Most people and most philosophers seem to strongly believe in causation. I would like understand what philosophers have to say about how to go from believing in just patterns to causes too. Are the ...
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1 vote
2 answers
93 views

How does a dualist explain changing their mind?

If I'm a monist about the mind and physicalism and/or causal determinism, when I change my mind about some topic, I can posit something causally linked to my mind as changing my opinion. Perhaps I ...
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12 votes
6 answers
7k views

Is the idea that "Everything is energy" even coherent?

There are many New Age websites claiming Everything is energy. Does this even make sense in philosophy of physics and metaphysics? How can something be "made out of energy"? As far as I ...
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1 vote
2 answers
119 views

Is the reason why we can't come up with a perfect definition of causation, that our common idea of causation is diffuse?

I have read a lot about theories of causation lately. None of them define causation satisfactorily. Either you end up with a definition that comes very close to common sense, but at the same time is ...
1 vote
1 answer
38 views

Questions about Reichenbach's Principle and causes

Is "statistical dependences need to be explained causally" an accurate depiction of Reichenbach's Principle? (Rob Spekkens https://youtu.be/n8NRSPCekmI?t=1575) Does one need to accept this ...
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0 votes
1 answer
95 views

Suzy and Billy throwing rocks at a bottle or hitting a bell - are these examples of late preemption?

Regarding causation, late preemption occurs, when a process (cause) leads to an effect, but a backup-process is also set in motion and would have led to the same effect, if the other process wouldn't ...
2 votes
1 answer
121 views

How does Spinoza deduce substance must cause itself?

Prop. VII. Existence Belongs to the Nature of Substance Spinoza demonstrates this by arguing substance must be the cause of itself, i.e. existence must belong to the nature of substance (by def. 1). ...
1 vote
1 answer
68 views

Is there a Possible World in which Humeanism isn't true?

I'm an amateur philosopher, interested in the work of Ned Hall: Mindscape podcast: Ned Hall on Possible Worlds and the Laws of Nature (Dec-2019) PhilPapers: Humean Reductionism About Laws Of Nature (...
1 vote
2 answers
149 views

What's the difference between a causal relation and a causal and nomic relation?

If a nomic and causal relation is a relation in which something cause something else and this effect is dependent on the properties of the causal object, what is specific in a simple causal relation?
1 vote
5 answers
302 views

What's the relationship between physical and logical causation?

I have always presumed that logical causation - such as logical rules like the formation of a valid syllogism, or the law of the excluded middle - operate independently of physical causation. That is, ...
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2 votes
2 answers
223 views

Kant on causation

I want to start off by saying that I'm not a philosophy major and haven't read any texts. All my understanding is from Wikipedia, Stanford website and Reddit. Please don't hold that against me. I have ...
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1 vote
2 answers
612 views

What's the difference between "cause" and "allow"?

Let's say person A picks up a pencil and drops it and person B catches it. I think most people would agree that person A dropping the pencil allowed person B to catch it, but did not cause person B to ...
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2 votes
0 answers
101 views

Why does cause exist?

We intuitively believe that everything must have a cause. If that is true, does it mean that causation itelf must have a cause? To be clear, I do NOT mean "does the cause of a cause have a cause?&...
1 vote
1 answer
409 views

Why are Heisenberg's uncertaity principle and the quantum theory considered to upset or to affect human experience of reality? [closed]

These two principles seem to have caused an uproar within the scientific community and to have supposedly disrupted notions of 'causality'. Since both features already existed before their 'discovery' ...
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4 votes
5 answers
239 views

Why is causation not just a special case of correlation?

Here is more context to the question. A common example given of the “obviousness” that correlation does not equal causation is that shark attacks correlate with ice cream consumption. The explanation ...
2 votes
3 answers
258 views

Free Will as Incoherent (What's wrong with this argument?)

Is this a sound argument? Free will is a cause that is neither determinism nor stochastic. Causes are either deterministic or stochastic. Free will is an incoherent entity All incoherent entities do ...
7 votes
6 answers
866 views

Is the idea of a causal chain physical (or even scientific)?

I am aware that the idea is venerable, going back through Lucretius to the Stoics and Epicurus, and even to Aristotle with his prime mover argument. But isn't this a pre-scientific notion? The ...
3 votes
1 answer
249 views

How can God be in the genus of efficient causes?

In Summa Theologica I q. 3 a. 5 "Whether God is contained in a genus?", Aquinas says that if God were in a genus, it would be the genus of "being," but being cannot be the genus of anything (cf. ...
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2 votes
1 answer
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Is there a non singularist analysis of causation which says it's an internal relation?

The final distinction we will need, or more accurately, family of distinctions, is between internal and external relations. What makes them members of a single family is that a relation is internal if ...
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2 votes
2 answers
239 views

What's wrong with this reconstruction of Nagarjuna?

I was trying to add clarity to my concept of "rebirth" on the Buddhist stack exchange. Nagarjuna's karika, 1.3 (Batchelor) reads: The essence of things does not exist in conditions and so on. If ...
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1 vote
0 answers
88 views

What is the "ontic principle"?

"there is no difference that does not make a difference" according to Bryant. Specifically, and independent of whether this is stated by him, does it mean that any two terms with the same referent ...
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0 votes
0 answers
122 views

How does Buddhist soteriology link to the first cause argument?

Aquinas argued that the observable order of causation is not self-explanatory. It can only be accounted for by the existence of a first cause; this first cause, however, must not be considered ...
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3 votes
0 answers
109 views

Some questions on causality and modern science

Note: I'm translating the vocabulary from Spanish so there may be some erroneous terms. If so, please edit them. In Causality: the place of the causal principle in modern science by Mario Bunge, the ...
3 votes
1 answer
180 views

What is the relationship between scientific explanation and interpretability?

I am trying to understand the relationship between Scientific Explanation and Intelligibility / Understanding. I believe the former is grounded in the Metaphysics of Causation while the latter is ...
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0 answers
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Examples of identical sets which are not causal?

Google is failing me in my search for examples of identical sets which do no have causal relationships between them. What I mean is that all and only objects which belong to set A belong to set B, but ...
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22 votes
6 answers
6k views

What do you call the fallacy of thinking that some action A will guarantee some outcome B, when in reality B depends on multiple other conditions?

Example: Dentist: “You have multiple cavities.” Patient: “That’s ridiculous! You always told me that brushing my teeth prevents cavities. I brush my teeth every night. Therefore, I can’t possibly ...
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3 votes
3 answers
189 views

Does a biconditional necessarily imply a causal relationship?

Supposing A if and only if B, is it necessarily true that either A causes B or B causes A? I'm considering this question where the truth values of A and B are both True, not both false. In theory, ...
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