Sumários
Process theories of causation
22 Abril 2026, 17:00 • David Yates
We will now move on to study process theories of causation, which are very different from counterfactual theories. According to process theories, the notion of a process is prior to that of causation. Causal relations between events are grounded in more physical fundamental processes of interaction, which in turn require a connection of some kind between cause and effect. There are two main problems for such a view: misconnection and disconnection. Cases of the first kind involve process-linkages between events or states that do not seem to be causally related, while cases of the second kind involve events that do seem to be causally related but between which there is no process-linkage. As we will see, Humean theories handle the cases that process theories struggle with, whereas process theories do well in the cases Humean theories struggle with. It is very hard to find a single unified theory that handles all the cases we intuitively want to classify as cases of causation!
In Wesley Salmon's view a process should be understood in terms of what he calls mark transmission. In Phil Dowe's view, the process involves the transmission of a conserved physical quantity (e.g. energy or momentum) from cause to effect.
Reading for week 9: For Salmon's view, see his "Causal Connections" in Kim & Sosa pp. 444-457.
For full details of the process theory and its problems (both Salmon's position and Dowe's), see sections 3-6 of this SEP entry on Causal Processes. You will also find plenty of useful material, and summaries of a wide range of different types of process theory and their main problems, in this fairly comprehensive article by Phil Dowe: "Causal Process Theories", Oxford Hanbooks Online (2010).
Process theories suffer from two main problems: misconnection (i.e. cases where there is a process linking two events but they are not related as cause and effect, which suggests that process-linkage is not sufficient for causation) and disconnection (i.e. cases where there is a causal relation without any interconnecting process between cause and effect).
For Dowe's response to the misconnection problem, see his 'Causation and misconnections'.
For Dowe's reply to the disconnection problem (how to deal with absences), see his 'A counterfactual theory of prevention and causation by omission'.
For a very good introduction to the debate and arguments that only a Humean or hybrid account can deal with absence causation in the right way, see Jonathan Schaffer's 'Causation by disconnection'.
Yablo's Goldilocks theory of causation
15 Abril 2026, 17:00 • David Yates
Yablo's theory of causation in detail, its dependence on a counterfactual theory of causation (and a modified version of the Lewis-Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals in which worlds are weakly centred on actuality), comparison of Yablo with Lewis' theory, discussion of whether Yablo's theory can handle some or all of the problems for Lewis previously discussed. Comparison of Yablo's theory to Lewis' theory of causation as influence.
Reading for week 8: Stephen Yablo, Mental Causation
This is a change to the previously advertised reading, so don't worry if you don't get time to go through it by the class. I will explain the basics and Jeremy may return to it later on.
Causation - counterfactual theories
8 Abril 2026, 17:00 • David Yates
We will spend the next 3 weeks studying causation, starting with the counterfactual theory developed by David Lewis, according to which an event E1 causes event E2 iff had E1 not occurred, then E2 would not have occurred either. Understanding Lewis' theory requires a grasp of his semantic analysis of counterfactual statements (i.e. statements of the form "had A not been the case then B would not have been the case"). We will examine how Lewis' theory is related to his wider metaphysical system of Humean Supervenience and to his possible worlds semantics for counterfactual statements. We will then study a range of problems for counterfactual theories in general: the problem of epiphenomena, which seems to show that counterfactual dependence is not sufficient for causation; and the problems of overdetermination (or redundancy), pre-emption and trumping, which seem to show that counterfactual dependence is not necessary for causation. If there is time we will look at Lewis' theory of causation as infuence, which was his attempt to modify his original theory to deal with these problems.
Reading for week 7: David Lewis' original article Causation, which is in the Kim & Sosa Anthology. The material on Lewis and the counterfactual theory is pretty much entirely covered in sections 1-3 of this SEP article on counterfactual theories of causation. Highly recommended that you try to read this by Wednesday's class.
Here is a link to the later Lewis paper "Causation as Influence" that I will talk about in the lecture. The theory defended there is a variant of the earlier theory designed to fix all the problems; it probably succeeds, but introduces problems of its own.
Basic idea of Lewis' old theory of causation: C causes E iff whether or not C happens makes a difference to whether or not E happens. Imagine the smallest changes to actuality needed to remove C from the world. If those same changes also remove E from the world, then C causes E.
Causation is connected with laws of nature for Lewis, but in a roundabout way. The actual world mosaic determines the laws of nature (pixels on a screen, pattern of properties in spacetime). But the laws of nature play a crucial role in determining which possible worlds are closest to us. We only consider the close possible worlds when assessing counterfactuals: what we want to know is: considering only worlds with the same or very similar laws of nature, and as far as possible the same mosaic, does removing C from those worlds lead to the removal of E as well? If so, then C causes E.
Basic idea of Lewis' later theory: same as the old one, except that instead of just considering whether removing C leads to the removal of E, we now consider whether small changes to C result in small changes to E. Does wiggling the cause a bit (changing its properties or time of occurrence) lead to corresponding changes in the effect? If anything, there are more counterexamples to this theory than there were to the original version. We will discuss some of these in class.
Monism and Hylomorphism
25 Março 2026, 17:00 • David Yates
In this topic we will examine issues surrounding structuralist ontologies, starting with the case from quantum physics for a metaphysics of relations. We will then move on to consider Galen Strawson's panpsychist response to the puzzle of structuralism, which is to say that while it is true that physical science only tells us about structure, that does not mean that the world is pure structure, it means that physical science is incomplete. Finally, we will briefly consider the prospects for a Buddhist metaphysics of science in which there is fundamentally only the cosmic whole, and what seem to be distinct entities standing in certain relations to each other are merely abstractions from the one.
This class focuses on Schaffer's argument for priority monism, based on quantum entanglement, and compares and contrasts monism with both structuralism and panpsychism. We also introduce Aristotelian hylomorphism and examine the ways in which it is similar to, and different from, monism.
Panpsychism
18 Março 2026, 17:00 • David Yates
In this topic we will examine issues surrounding structuralist ontologies, starting with the case from quantum physics for a metaphysics of relations. We will then move on to consider Galen Strawson's panpsychist response to the puzzle of structuralism, which is to say that while it is true that physical science only tells us about structure, that does not mean that the world is pure structure, it means that physical science is incomplete. Finally, we will briefly consider the prospects for a Buddhist metaphysics of science in which there is fundamentally only the cosmic whole, and what seem to be distinct entities standing in certain relations to each other are merely abstractions from the one.
This class focuses on Galen Strawson's arguments for panpsychism, specifically: the intrinsic natures argument, stemming from Russell; and the anti-emergence argument. Panpsychism offers a unified account of the natures of fundamental physical particles and of the emergence of consciousness from physical processes. We will examine the most serious problem for panpsychism, the combination problem, and consider how it might be solved.
Reading week 5: Galen Strawson, "Realistic Monism"
Here, Strawson argues that in fact it can't be relations all the way down, but he agrees that physics only tells us about relations. There must therefore be something that physics leaves out, but that something is not unknowable: the fundamental nature of reality is consciousness.