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Full Idea
We may be able to analyse causation into conditionship relations between events or states of affairs, ...but conditions cannot be regarded as logical primitives, ... and must be analysed into quantifiers, or modal concepts.
Gist of Idea
We must further analyse conditions for causation, into quantifiers or modal concepts
Source
G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §2)
Book Ref
'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.106
A Reaction
[very compressed] A nice illustration of the aim of analytical philosophy - to analyse the elements of reality down to logical primitives. This is the dream of Descartes and Leibniz, continued by Russell and co. Do we still have this aspiration?
| 8366 | The very notion of a cause depends on agency and action [Wright,GHv] |
| 8360 | We must further analyse conditions for causation, into quantifiers or modal concepts [Wright,GHv] |
| 8361 | What is true used to be possible, but it may no longer be so [Wright,GHv] |
| 8362 | We give regularities a causal character by subjecting them to experiment [Wright,GHv] |
| 8363 | p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv] |
| 8364 | We can imagine controlling floods by controlling rain, but not vice versa [Wright,GHv] |
| 8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |