Abstract
Causation has traditionally been analyzed either as a relation of nomic dependence or as a relation of counterfactual dependence. I argue for a third program, a physicalistic reduction of the causal relation to one of energy-momentum transference in the technical sense of physics. This physicalistic analysis is argued to have the virtues of easily handling the standard counterexamples to the nomic and counterfactual analyses, offering a plausible epistemology for our knowledge of causes, and elucidating the nature of the relation between causation and physical science.
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The development of this paper owes a great deal to the critical acumen of my colleagues. I want to thank especially Adam Morton, Ernest Loevinsohn, and Jon Levinson. I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Carl G. Hempel for kindly commenting on a draft of this paper which led to numerous improvements. But most especially of all I want to thank David Lewis, whose indefatigable insistence on philosophical clarity saved this paper from many turbidities and falsehoods manifest in earlier drafts. I also wish to thank my students, Mark Folsom and Ken Waters, for spotting a serious inaccuracy.
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Fair, D. Causation and the flow of energy. Erkenntnis 14, 219–250 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174894
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174894