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Single Idea 14568
[filed under theme 14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
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Full Idea
Knowing the structure that something has does not in itself causally explain that thing's behaviour unless we also know what sorts of behaviour a thing of that structure can cause.
Gist of Idea
A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure
Source
S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2)
Book Ref
Anjum,R.J./Mumford,S.: 'Getting Causes from Powers' [OUP 2011], p.133
A Reaction
I agree with this. If you focus on the lowest possible levels of causal explanation, I can see only powers. Whatever you come up with, it had better be something active. Geometry never started any bonfires.
The
46 ideas
from 'Getting Causes from Powers'
14533
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Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14536
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We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14535
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Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14538
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Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14537
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Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14539
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Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14541
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Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14542
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If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14549
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Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14550
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We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14551
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If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14546
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Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14548
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There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14553
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Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14555
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Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14554
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Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14556
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Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14557
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Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14558
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A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14559
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Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process?
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14564
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If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)!
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14562
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A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14561
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Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14563
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Causation is the passing around of powers
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14565
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Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14566
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Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14568
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A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14567
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Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14569
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It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14571
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The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14570
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Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14573
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Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14572
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Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause?
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14574
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Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14575
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A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14552
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Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14576
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Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14577
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Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers?
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14584
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The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14578
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Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14579
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Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14580
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Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14582
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Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality?
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14583
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Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14585
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We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example
[Mumford/Anjum]
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14587
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We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced
[Mumford/Anjum]
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