A Dilemma for the Counterfactual Analysis of Causation

Author: S. Barker

Source: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 81, Number 1, March 01, 2003 , pp. 62-77(16)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

If we seek to analyse causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals then we must assume that there is a class of counterfactuals whose members (i) are all and only those we need to support our judgements of causation, (ii) have truth-conditions specifiable without any irreducible appeal to causation. I argue that (i) and (ii) are unlikely to be met by any counterfactual analysis of causation. I demonstrate this by isolating a class of counterfactuals called non-projective counterfactuals, or NP-counterfactuals, and indicate how counterfactual analyses of causation must appeal to them to account for the correct causal judgements we make. I show that the truth-conditions of NP-counterfactuals are specifiable only by irreducible appeal to causation. A dilemma then holds: if counterfactual analyses of causation eschew appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are empirically inadequate, but if they appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are circular and thus conceptually inadequate.

Document Type: Original article

Affiliations: 1: University of Nottingham

Publication date: 2003-03-01