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Full Idea
Theories of causation are split between event and fact/state of affairs theories. The first have the form 'the explosion caused the fire' (perfect nominals) and the second have the form 'the fire started because a bomb dropped' (sentential clauses).
Gist of Idea
Causes are between events ('the explosion') or between facts/states of affairs ('a bomb dropped')
Source
Jonathan Bennett (Event Causation: counterfactual analysis [1987])
Book Ref
'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.217
A Reaction
Surely events must have priority? The form which uses facts is drifting off into explanation, and is much more likely to involve subjective human elements and interpretations. Events are closer to the physics, and the mechanics of what happens.
| 8435 | Causes are between events ('the explosion') or between facts/states of affairs ('a bomb dropped') [Bennett] |
| 8437 | The full counterfactual story asserts a series of events, because counterfactuals are not transitive [Bennett] |
| 8436 | Either cause and effect are subsumed under a conditional because of properties, or it is counterfactual [Bennett] |
| 8438 | A counterfactual about an event implies something about the event's essence [Bennett] |
| 8439 | Maybe each event has only one possible causal history [Bennett] |
| 8440 | Maybe an event's time of occurrence is essential to it [Bennett] |
| 8441 | Delaying a fire doesn't cause it, but hastening it might [Bennett] |
| 8978 | Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett] |
| 10364 | Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett] |
| 8592 | Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not [Bennett, by Shoemaker] |