Single Idea 16215

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation]

Full Idea

Counterfactual accounts of causation say that a causal connection is exhausted by the counterfactuals it appears to ground.

Gist of Idea

Causation is nothing more than the counterfactuals it grounds?

Source

Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 3.5)

Book Reference

Hawley,Katherine: 'How Things Persist' [OUP 2004], p.87


A Reaction

I am bewildered as to how this became a respectable view in philosophy. I quite understand that this might exhaust the 'logic' of causal relations. Presumably you can have counterfactuals in mathematics which are not causal?