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3 ideas
17305 | I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole. | |
From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1) | |
A reaction: Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got? |
17307 | Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: The leading treatments of causation work within 'structural equation models', with events represented via variables each of which is allotted a range of permitted values, which constitute a 'contrast space'. | |
From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1) | |
A reaction: Like Woodward's idea that causation is a graph, this seems to be a matter of plotting or formalising correlations between activities, which is a very Humean approach to causation. |
8432 | Analyse counterfactuals using causation, not the other way around [Horwich] |
Full Idea: In my view, counterfactual conditionals are analysed in terms of causation. | |
From: Paul Horwich (Lewis's Programme [1987], p.208) | |
A reaction: This immediately sounds more plausible to me. Counterfactual claims are rather human, whereas causation (if we accept it) seems a feature of nature. The key question is whether some sort of 'dependency' is a feature of counterfactuals. |