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Full Idea
If a brick and the song of a canary strike a window, which breaks....we can truly say that the song of the canary had nothing to do with it, that is, in so far as what occurred is viewed merely as a case of breakage of window.
Gist of Idea
When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage
Source
Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5)
Book Ref
'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.135
A Reaction
This is the germ of Davidson's view, that causation is entirely dependent on the mode of description, rather than being an actual feature of reality. If one was interested in the sound of the breakage, the canary would become relevant.
| 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] |