Abstract

I argue (1) that it is not philosophically significant whether causation is linguistically represented by a predicate or by a sentence connective; (2) that there is no philosophically significant distinction between event- and states-of-affairs-causation; (3) that there is indeed a philosophically significant distinction between agent- and event-causation, and that event-causation must be regarded as an analog of agent-causation. Developing this point, I argue that event-causation's being in the image of agent-causation requires, mainly, (a) that the cause is temporally prior to the effect, (b) that the cause necessitates (is sufficient with necessity) for the effect. Causal necessity is explained as a derivative of nomological necessity, and finally, via a definition of the causal sentence connective, the logic of event-causation is shown to be a part of temporal modal logic.