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Full Idea
If I fasten a board onto a tree stump, causing a table to come into existence, ...what law of nature or, even, what quasi-law or law-like principle could possibly play in such a case of generation the role required by nomological accounts?
Gist of Idea
What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence?
Source
Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 1)
Book Ref
'Causation', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Tooley,M. [OUP 1993], p.234
A Reaction
A very nice question. The nomological account is at its strongest when rocks fall off walls or magnets attract, but all sorts of other caused events seem too messy or complex or original to fit the story.
| 8442 | What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa] |
| 8443 | Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa] |
| 8444 | Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa] |
| 8445 | The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa] |