Full Idea
By abandoning the standard view that causes are ‘extrinsic motive Agents’, an idea from pre-Newtonian physics, we are free to conceive of the interaction as a whole as the cause, and the change in the compound whole of interacting things as the effect.
Gist of Idea
Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect
Source
R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.06)
Book Reference
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time', ed/tr. Callender,Craig [OUP 2013], p.68
A Reaction
Ingthorsson persuasively presents this as the correct account, as understood by modern science. It is not cause-then-effect. It is kerfuffle, then aftermath.
Related Ideas
Idea 22618 In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson]
Idea 22620 If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson]