Article contents
A Defense of Substance Causation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 February 2016
Abstract:
That there is no substance causation is often treated as the default position. My aim in this paper is primarily one of burden shifting: opponents of substance causation must do more to defend their position. After outlining the thesis I wish to defend, I present a simple argument for substance causation, arguing that opponents of substance causation owe us an explanation of why this argument is unsound. I end by answering objections to the view that substances can be causes.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016
References
Armstrong, David M. (1996) ‘Dispositions as Categorical States’. In Crane, Tim (ed.), Dispositions: A Debate (London: Routledge), 15–18.Google Scholar
Audi, Paul. (2012) ‘A Clarification and Defence of the Notion of Grounding’. In Correia, F. and Schnieder, B. (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 101–21.Google Scholar
Bennett, Karen. (2011) ‘Construction Area (No Hard Hat Required)’. Philosophical Studies, 154, 79–104.Google Scholar
Broad, C. D. (1934) ‘Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism’. In his Ethics and the History of Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), 195–217.Google Scholar
Clarke, Randolph. (2003) Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ehring, Douglas. (1997) Causation and Persistence: A Theory of Causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ehring, Douglas. (2003) ‘Part-Whole Physicalism and Mental Causation’. Synthese, 136, 359–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Ned. (2000) ‘Causation and the Price of Transitivity’. Journal of Philosophy, 97, 198–222.Google Scholar
Hoffman, J., and Rosenkrantz, G.. (1994) Substance among other Categories. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. (1976) ‘Events as Property Exemplifications’. In Brand, M. and Walton, D. (eds.), Action Theory (Dordrecht: Reidel), 159–77.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. (1973b) ‘Causation’. In Lewis's Philosophical Papers II (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 159–213.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. (1986) ‘Causal Explanation’. In Lewis's Philosophical Papers II (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 214–40.Google Scholar
McLauglin, Brian. (1995) ‘Varieties of Supervenience’. In Savello, E. and Yalcin, O. (eds.), Supervenience: New Essays (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 16–59.Google Scholar
Menzies, Peter. (1989) ‘A Unified Account of Causal Relata’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 67, 59–83.Google Scholar
Prior, E., Pargetter, R., and Jackson, F.. (1982) ‘Three Theses about Dispositions’. American Philosophical Quarterly, 19, 251–57.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. (2009) ‘Abstract Objects’. In Zalta, E. N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 ed.). Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/abstract-objects/.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. (2010) ‘Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction’. In Hale, B. and Hoffman, A. (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 109–36.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. (2003) ‘Overdetermining Causes’. Philosophical Studies, 114, 23–45.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. (2005) ‘Contrastive Causation’. Philosophical Review, 114, 327–58.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney. (1980) ‘Causality and Properties’. In van Inwagen, Peter (ed.), Time and Cause (Dordrecht: Reidel), 109–35.Google Scholar
- 18
- Cited by