25 ideas
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
8361 | What is true used to be possible, but it may no longer be so [Wright,GHv] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
3597 | Foundations need not precede other beliefs [Wittgenstein] |
3596 | Total doubt can't even get started [Wittgenstein, by Williams,M] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
4721 | If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either [Wittgenstein] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
8363 | p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv] |
8364 | We can imagine controlling floods by controlling rain, but not vice versa [Wright,GHv] |
8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
8366 | The very notion of a cause depends on agency and action [Wright,GHv] |
8362 | We give regularities a causal character by subjecting them to experiment [Wright,GHv] |
8360 | We must further analyse conditions for causation, into quantifiers or modal concepts [Wright,GHv] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |