Single Idea 10382

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation]

Full Idea

It might be that if causation is said to be a process, then a process is nothing more than a causal sequence, so that causation is primitive.

Gist of Idea

Causation can't be a process, because a process needs causation as a primitive

Source

Jonathan Schaffer (The Metaphysics of Causation [2007], 2.1.2)

Book Reference

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.22


A Reaction

This again is tempting (as well as the primitivist view of probabilistic causation). If one tries to define a process as mere chronology, then the causal and accidental are indistinguishable. I take the label 'primitive' to be just our failure.