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Single Idea 8405

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation ]

Full Idea

Lewis thinks it is a major defect in a theory of causation that it builds in the condition that the time of the cause precede that of the effect: that cause precedes effect is something we ought to explain (which his counterfactual theory claims to do).

Gist of Idea

A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted

Source

report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Hartry Field - Causation in a Physical World

Book Ref

'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.454

A Reaction

My immediate reaction is that the chances of explaining such a thing are probably nil, and that we might as well just accept the direction of causation as a given. Even philosophers balk at the question 'why doesn't time go backwards?'

The 15 ideas from 'Causation'

9476 If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis]
8405 A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H]
10392 It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis]
17525 The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird]
17524 Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird]
8397 Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis]
4795 Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis]
8419 The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis]
8420 A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis]
8421 Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis]
8423 My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis]
8424 Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis]
8425 For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis]
8426 One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis]
8427 I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis]