TY - JOUR

T1 - Transitivity and the Ontology of Causation

AU - Unwin, Nicholas Leslie

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - It is argued that it is very hard to analyse causation in such a way that prevents everything from causing everything else. This is particularly true if we assume that the causal relation is transitive (i.e., if A causes B and B causes C, then A automatically causes C), for it all too often happens that causal chains that we wish to keep separate pass through common intermediate events. It is also argued that treating causes as aspects of events, rather than the events themselves, will not completely resolve this problem. This is because aspects have to be highly disjunctive, and disjunctive conditions tend to undermine causal connections, a fact that is most clearly seen when causation is analysed in terms of ‘INUS’ (insufficient but necessary parts of unnecessary but sufficient) conditions.

AB - It is argued that it is very hard to analyse causation in such a way that prevents everything from causing everything else. This is particularly true if we assume that the causal relation is transitive (i.e., if A causes B and B causes C, then A automatically causes C), for it all too often happens that causal chains that we wish to keep separate pass through common intermediate events. It is also argued that treating causes as aspects of events, rather than the events themselves, will not completely resolve this problem. This is because aspects have to be highly disjunctive, and disjunctive conditions tend to undermine causal connections, a fact that is most clearly seen when causation is analysed in terms of ‘INUS’ (insufficient but necessary parts of unnecessary but sufficient) conditions.

U2 - 10.1080/02580136.2014.892685

DO - 10.1080/02580136.2014.892685

M3 - Journal article

VL - 33

SP - 101

EP - 111

JO - South African Journal of Philosophy

JF - South African Journal of Philosophy

SN - 0258-0136

IS - 1

ER -