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Lewis’ Modal Realism and Absence Causation

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Metaphysica

Abstract

A major criticism of David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is that it allows too many things to count as causes, especially since Lewis allows, in addition to events, absences to be causes as well. Peter Menzies has advanced this concern under the title “the problem of profligate causation.” In this paper, I argue that the problem of profligate causation provides resources for exposing a tension between Lewis’ acceptance of absence causation and his modal realism. The result is a different problem of profligate causation—one that attacks the internal consistency of Lewisian metaphysics rather than employing common sense judgments or intuitions that conflict with Lewis’ extensive list of causes.

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Notes

  1. Dowe labels the cases (C) and (D), respectively, but bullets are used here for ease of exposition.

  2. Note that Lewis does say, “If need be, I would put this causal isolation alongside spatiotemporal isolation as a principle of demarcation for worlds” (Lewis 1986: 78). And Lewis takes this need to be avoided by his appeal to his counterfactual analysis of causation. Thus, if his appeal to his counterfactual analysis of causation fails to secure causal isolation, then causal isolation would presumably be stipulated as a principle of demarcation. In which case, a great deal rests on whether or not Lewis’ argument against trans-world causation can address his special problem of profligate causation, for if it cannot, then causal isolation becomes a principle of demarcation for worlds and the problem of profligate causation then threatens to collapse all of Lewis’ possible worlds into one large world.

  3. For the details of Lewis’ argument, see Lewis (1986: 78-80). There, he evaluates various, potential answers to his “where?” questions.

References

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for financial support; the funding was used to attend its 2009 Summer Seminar on Metaphysics and Mind, which included a particularly helpful presentation by Phil Dowe on absence causation. Thanks as well to Adam Podlaskowski and Megan Wallace for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Correspondence to Joseph A. Baltimore.

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Baltimore, J.A. Lewis’ Modal Realism and Absence Causation. Int Ontology Metaphysics 12, 117–124 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-011-0080-8

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