Single Idea 10370

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

Full Idea

Quine's view is that causal relata are individuated by spacetime regions, which is even less fine-grained than Davidson's account of events.... He says fine-grained events are poorly individuated and unfamiliar.

Gist of Idea

Causal relata are individuated by coarse spacetime regions

Source

report of Willard Quine (Events and Reification [1985]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2

Book Reference

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.7


A Reaction

[Schaffer cites Davidson 1985 as accepting this view] This is a nice suggestion, if we are looking for a naturalistic account of causal relata. It makes a minimum ontological commitment (a Quine trait), and I would supplement it with active 'powers'.