ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00049.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Our ordinary concept of causality is—as David Hume wisely underscored—the concept in which an event or changeproducesanother event or change. This production is the central core of causation, and the objective component of it Hume analyzed as constant conjunction. As is well known, Hume emphasized that our notion of production or causation has a subjective component, namely, the illusion of a certain necessity in the connection between cause and effect. Typically, the critique of Hume has centered on his attack upon, and on his theses about, necessity. But the core idea of production has been generally kept out of the dialectical stage. Here I will put necessity aside and bring this very idea ofproductionto the center of the stage. I propose to explore the most general logical and ontological features of production. The most intriguing feature is the deep connection between production and energy. But as it will become apparent from the ensuing discussion, that deep connection is mediated by a more general concept of world‐orderliness that I shall dubcausity.Thus, the general principles here formulated belong to the philosophical foundations of thermodyn

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00050.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A particular fact or event often appears arbitrary and puzzling, until it is exhibited as the outcome of certain causal processes. Usually, though not always, such a causal explanation helps to relieve the feeling of arbitariness, at least for a while. But it is easy and natural for our feeling to reassert itself: We are moved to ask why justthosecausal processes governed the situation of that fact or event, rather than some others. To deal with this further, larger question, often we can exhibit those causal processes as being, themselves, the results of, or certain specific instances of, prior or more general causalities. Or, much the same, we can redescribe the initial particular fact, and perhaps the cited cause as well, and display the items thus described as an instance of some very general, fundamental law or phenomenon. But any of this will only push the question back one step more. For we can always press on and ask: Why is it that justthatvery general phenomenon, or law, should be so fundamental, or indeed obtain at all, in the world in which we have our being? Within the usual framework of explanation, law and causation, there seems no place for such curiosity to come to rest. There seems no way for us to deal adequately with the brute and ultimatespecificityof the ways in which almost everything appears to happen. And what seems worse, the specific character of certain of these laws or ways, even of quite fundamental ones, often seems so quirky, the very height of arbitrariness.

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00051.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

It is, it seems, a fundamental fact that the future is due to the present, or, more mildly, is affected by the present, but the past is not. What does this mean? It is not clear and, if we try to make it clear, it turns into nonsense or a definition

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00052.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In “Dispositions and Powers,” J. L. Mackie identifies three different “ontological views about dispositions”:The first is the one Armstrong calls phenomenalist and ascribes to Ryle: we attribute a minimal disposition, which is in effect to assert a conditional or set of conditionals, themselves to be interpreted as inference tickets; but this does not mean anything is going on in the things to which we attribute the disposition which is not going on in similar things from which we withhold this description.The second is the ‘realist’ view, that dispositions have occurrent (and concurrent) categorical bases consisting of properties which are not in themselves peculiarly dispositional, though they may be introduced in the dispositional style and may be known only as the bases of these dispositions; although the dispositional descriptions are conditional‐entailing, the properties to which they point are only contingently related to the displays of the dispositions. The third is what we may call the rationalist view; dispositions (while still being intrinsically dispositional and conditional‐entailing) are real occurrent states of the object, different from anything a realist would call a categorical basis (which may or may not be there as well), but actually present both when the disposition is being manifested and

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00053.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

How are causal relations between particular states of affairs related to causal laws? There appear to be three main answers to this question, and the choice among those three alternatives would seem to be crucial for any account of causation. In spite of this fact, the question of which view is correct has been all but totally neglected in present‐day discussions. Indeed, since the time of Hume, one answer has more or less dominated philosophical thinking about causation. In this paper I shall attempt to show that the view in question is exposed to decisive objection

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00054.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The connection between views about causation and attempts to justify inductive reasoning is sufficiently close that some philosophers2have taken success at the latter as a litmus test for the truth of the former. I do not agree with this approach. Like Hume, I believe that the nature of causal connections must be understood prior to, and independently of, solutions to the problem of induction. Like Hume, I also hold that the problem of induction cannot be solved if Hume's analysis of causal connections is correct. But unlike Hume, I believe that that analysis is incorrect. However, I shall not attempt to establish this crucial thesis here. I mention it because this paper presupposes it. Hume's difficulty about causation must—and can—be faced head‐on. There are phenomenological grounds for affirming that we sometimes directly experience nonlogical, necessary connections between events. I shall only briefly summarize these grounds, which will be argued for in detail elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which a necessitarian theory of causation can bring the problem of induction closer to sol

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00055.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00056.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In this article I examine five kinds of conflicting intuitions about the nature of causality. The viewpoint is that of a probabilistic theory of causality, which I think is the right general framework for examining causal questions. It is not the purpose of this article to defend the general thesis in any depth but many of the particular points I make are meant to offer new lines of defense of such a probabilistic theory. To provide a conceptual framework for the analysis, I review briefly the more systematic aspects of the sort of probabilistic theory of causality I advocate. I first define the three notions of prima facie cause, spurious cause, and genuine cause. The technical details are worked out in an earlier monograph (Suppes 1970) and are not repeated.

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00057.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0363-6550    

DOI:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1984.tb00058.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY