Against the Contrastive Account of Singular Causation

Author: Steglich-Petersen, Asbjrn

Source: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Volume 63, Number 1, 14 March 2012 , pp. 115-143(29)

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Abstract:

For at least three decades, philosophers have argued that general causation and causal explanation are contrastive in nature. When we seek a causal explanation of some particular event, we are usually interested in knowing why that event happened rather than some other specified event. And general causal claims, which state that certain event types cause certain other event types, seem to make sense only if appropriate contrasts to the types of events acting as cause and effect are specified. In recent years, philosophers have extended the contrastive theory of causation to encompass singular causation as well. In this article, I argue that this extension of the theory was a mistake. Although general causation and causal explanation may well be contrastive in nature, singular causation is not. <list list-type="simple">

1Introduction

2The Contrastive Account of Singular Causation

3Against the Contrastive Account

4The Semantics of Contrastive Causal Statements

5Are Binary Causal Statements Ambiguous?

6Extensionality

7General Causation and Causal Explanation

8Conclusion

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axr024

Publication date: 2012-03-14

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