Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow' and 'Humean metaphysics vs metaphysics of Powers'

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3 ideas

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation
There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich]
     Full Idea: Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen.
     From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209
     A reaction: Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow
Causation is the power of one property to produce another, and this gives time its direction [Esfeld]
     Full Idea: The metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is linked with an intrinsic direction of time. There is a causal connection if an F-property produces a G. One can argue that causation thus is the basis for the direction of time.
     From: Michael Esfeld (Humean metaphysics vs metaphysics of Powers [2010], 7.2)
     A reaction: I think this is my preferred metaphysic - that both time and causation are primitive, but the direction of time is the result of the causal process. Viewing some new world, we would just say that time went in whichever direction the causation went.