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Ideas for 'Mechanisms', 'Paper of December 1676' and 'Person and Object'

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2 ideas

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
Some propose a distinct 'agent causation', as well as 'event causation' [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: Sometimes a distinction is made between 'event causation' and 'agent causation' and it has been suggested that there is an unbridgeable gap between the two.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], 2.5)
     A reaction: Nope, don't buy that. I connect it with Davidson's 'anomalous monism', that tries to combine one substance with separate laws of action. The metaphysical price for such a theory is too high to pay.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
Since causal events are related by mechanisms, causation can be analysed in that way [Glennan]
     Full Idea: Causation can be analyzed in terms of mechanisms because (except for fundamental causal interactions) causally related events will be connected by intervening mechanisms.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'causation')
     A reaction: This won't give us the metaphysics of causation (which concerns the fundamentals), but this strikes me as a very coherent and interesting proposal. He mentions electron interaction as non-mechanistic causation.