display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
4 ideas
19068 | Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford] |
Full Idea: Like Aristotle, the reason we are really interested in causation is because we want to be able to explain change. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian themes [2014], 8) | |
A reaction: This pinpoints a very important and simple idea. It raises the question (among others) of whether we have just invented this thing called 'causation', because no explanation of change was visible. Hume certainly couldn't see any explanation. |
9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5) |
9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account. | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5) |
9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties'). | |
From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1) |