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Full Idea
An analysis is an attempt at providing finite, non-circular, and intuitively adequate necessary and sufficient conditions.
Gist of Idea
Analysis aims at secure necessary and sufficient conditions
Source
Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3)
Book Ref
'Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics', ed/tr. Sider/Hawthorne/Zimmerman [Blackwell 2008], p.86
A Reaction
Specifying the 'conditions' for something doesn't seem to quite add up to telling you what the thing is. A trivial side-effect might qualify as a sufficient condition for something, if it always happens.
| 21675 | Some facts are indispensable for an effect, and others actually necessitate the effect [Stoic school, by Cicero] |
| 13309 | That something is a necessary condition of something else doesn't mean it caused it [Seneca] |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| 3891 | If p entails q, then p is sufficient for q, and q is necessary for p [Scruton] |
| 4739 | In "if and only if" (iff), "if" expresses the sufficient condition, and "only if" the necessary condition [Engel] |
| 14600 | Analysis aims at secure necessary and sufficient conditions [Schaffer,J] |
| 20388 | 'Necessary' conditions are requirements, and 'sufficient' conditions are guarantees [Davies,S] |