Causation: A User's Guide

300 Pages·2013·1.24 MB·English

by  L. A. Paul, Ned Hall

Causation
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Causation
A User’s Guide
L. A. Paul and Ned Hall
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp,
UnitedKingdom
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#L.A.PaulandNedHall2013
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Contents
Preface vii
Annotated list of figures ix
1 The scope and aims of this “guide” 1
1 Introduction 1
2 Someremarksonmethod 2
3 Overviewoftheproject 4
2 Framework and preliminaries 7
1 Framework 7
2 Therivalapproaches 13
3 Methodologicalredux 24
4 Topicsnotaddressedindetail 58
3 Varieties of redundant causation 70
1 Jointeffects 70
2 Earlypreemption 74
3 Tampering 92
4 Latepreemption 99
5 Overdetermination 143
6 Black-boxcases 161
7 Thelessonsofredundantcausation 168
4 Causation involving omissions 173
1 Threekindsofcases 173
2 Thequestionofuniformtreatment 176
3 Troublewithcausationinvolvingomissions 190
4 Methodologyyetagain 212
5 Accommodatingomission-involvingcausation 212
5 Cases that threaten transitivity 215
1 Doubleprevention 215
2 Switching 232
vi CONTENTS
6 Concluding remarks 245
1 Adeepdivide 245
2 Themethodbycounterexample 249
3 Thecausalmethod 252
4 Cognatedebates 257
References 261
Index of Names 269
Subject Index 271
Preface
This book grew out of a series of conversations that began at Princeton in
the1990s.Asgraduatestudents,westudiedcausationwithDavidLewis,and
when Lewis ran a seminar in 1996 devoted to the problems and puzzles of
counterfactual analyses of causation, it began a discussion about the nature
of causation that lasted throughout the process of writing dissertations, to
tenure,andbeyond.Thebookwastrulyco-authored,inthesensethateach
chapterwaswrittenandrewrittenbyeachofus,sometimesaswesatinthe
sameroom,andsometimesasweworkedtogetheronline,andmanyofthe
sections of the chapters were developed from conversations in which we
developed joint views about the right perspective on the metaphysics of
causation.
We owe thanks to many interlocutors over the years. We are especially
grateful to David Lewis, who was the best of all possible mentors. We also
want to give special thanks to Chris Hitchcock, who engaged in many
detailed discussions of causal modeling, and to Jonathan Schaffer, who
read the entire book at least twice and gave us extensive, excellent—and
spirited—comments each time.
WealsothankRobertAdams,SaraBernstein,MichaelBertrand,Thomas
Blanchard, Douglas Ehring, Alvin Goldman, Caspar Hare, Kieran Healy,
Marc Johansen, Dan Korman, Christian Loew, Dan Marshall, Tim Maud-
lin, Stephen Morgan, Alyssa Ney, Agustin Rayo, Raul Saucedo, Bradford
Skow, Holly Smith, Eric Swanson, Michael Strevens, Judith Jarvis Thom-
son, Brad Weslake,Stephen Yablo, the membersof Bradford Skow’s 2009
causation seminar at MIT, members of our causation graduate seminars at
Yale, Arizona and Harvard, two anonymous referees for OUP for discus-
sion and comments, and Peter Momtchiloff for his editorial support and
endless patience.
The Frank H. Kenan Fellowship, awarded by the National Humanities
Center, with additional support provided by the University of North
Carolina, provided crucial support for Paul in 2011–12.
viii PREFACE
Finally,we’dliketothankourspouses.Althoughneitherofushavewives
who typed our manuscripts and corrected our typos, we have something
infinitely more valuable: incredibly patient, supportive and loving spouses
whoprovidedsomuchoftheirtime,energyandemotionalsupportduring
thelongandinvolvedprocessofcreatingthisbook.Thankyou,Kieranand
Barbara.
Annotated list of figures
Figure1 9
C D
E
A B
Attime0,CandAbothfire.CsendsastimulatorysignaltoD,which
firesattime1.AsendsastimulatorysignaltoB,buttheinhibitorysignal
fromC(symbolizedbythelinewiththeblobontheend)blocksit,so
Bdoesnotfire.DsendsastimulatorysignaltoE,whichfiresattime2.
See:Chapter2,}1.2,}2.2,}2.2.1,}2.2.3,}2.3,}2.4,}3.1.2,}3.3.2,}3.3.4;}4.3;
Chapter3,}2,}2.1,}2.2,}2.3,}2.3.1,}2.3.2,}2.3.3,}2.4,}2.5,}3.1,}3.2,}3.3;
Chapter5,}1.2.
Figure2 9
C D
E
A B
Attime0,onlyAfires.AsendsastimulatorysignaltoB,whichfires
attime1.BsendsastimulatorysignaltoE,whichfiresattime2.
See:Chapter2,}1.2,}2.2.1,}3.3.2.
Figure3 15
C
E
A
Attime0,onlyCfires.CsendsastimulatorysignaltoE,whichfires
attime1.IfAhadfiredattime0,Ewouldnothavefired.
See:Chapter2,}2.1;Chapter4,}1.1,}2.3,}3.1,}3.4.2.