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Full Idea
The part of a generalization concerning what is common to one individual concrete event and the causes of certain other events of the same kind is involved in the mere assigning of a name to the cause and its effect, but not in the perceiving them.
Gist of Idea
We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them
Source
Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5)
Book Ref
'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.134
A Reaction
A nice point, that we should keep distinct the recognition of a cause, and the assigning of a general name to it. Ducasse is claiming that we can directly perceive singular causation.
| 8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
| 8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
| 8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
| 8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
| 8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
| 8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
| 8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
| 8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |