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Single Idea 22616

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata]

Full Idea

It is the empiricists' refusal to deal with anything other than observable events that motivated the shift in conception of efficient causation …to influence by an event on another event (one motion on another) rather than by an object on an object.

Gist of Idea

Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions

Source

R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 3.10)

A Reaction

I suppose events supply the necessary activity, whereas objects seem to be too passive for the job - because that's how they look. Ingthorsson persuades that objects are the correct causal relata, for those of us who believe in powers.

Book Reference

'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time', ed/tr. Callender,Craig [OUP 2013], p.54