CAUSATION- lec 7

Question 1

Difference-making

Answer 1

According to an account of causation built around the concept of difference-making, what it is
for one event to cause another is explained in terms of the difference that one event makes to the
occurrence or not of the other

Question 2

if…then’ and necessary and sufficient conditions

Answer 2

Quite a lot of the time, natural language ‘If p then q’ can be regarded as having the same meaning as
‘Either q or not p’. For example
- ‘If it’s a Th lecture there are tutorials afterwards’/ ‘Either there are tutorials afterwards or its not a Th lecture’

• ‘If it’s made in Canada it’s made by Bombardier’/ ‘Either it’s made by Bombardier, or it’s not made in Canada’

An ‘If p then q’ statement is a conditional. The ‘p’ statement is the conditional’s antecedent. The ‘q’
statement is its consequent. An ‘If p then q’ statement which is equivalent to ‘Either q or not p’ is a
material conditional.

Counterfactual conditionals do not fit this pattern (more on this next time) .

This truth table brings out how the truth or falsity of a material conditional depends on the truth of falsity

of its antecedent and consequent: Where p Þ q, p is a sufficient condition for q (intuitively, p is enough to make it the case that q), and q is
necessary for p (intuitively, p can’t be true unless q is).

Question 3

counterfactual accounts

Answer 3

of causation are views according to
which there is a specific counterfactual relation between the occurrence of A and the occurrence of B which is both necessary and sufficient for it to be the case that A caused B

Question 4

Production

Answer 4

According to an account of causation built around the concept of production, what it is for one
event to cause another is explained in terms of the existence of a mechanism by which the first
event produces/brings about the second

Question 5

meaning empiricism

Answer 5

Hume holds a view which is now called meaning empiricism. This is the view that all mental
content is derived from sense experience. Hume uses idea as a word for a mental state, and
impression as a word for a token sense experience. In this terminology, meaning empiricism is
the claim that it must be possible to trace every idea back to the impression from which it is
formed.

Question 6

Hume’s arguments for the claim that there is a problem

Answer 6

Hume says that there are three components to our idea of causation. These are
- spatio-temporal contiguity – ‘no action at a distance’ in either space or time [sect. 2 marginal
number 6]
- priority – if A causes B, A happens before B. [sect. 2 marginal number 7]
- a necessary connection.

Question 7

Hume’s solution

Answer 7

Hume argues that
1 A one-off observation of an event of type A followed by an event of type B is not enough to
lead us to take it that A events cause B events.

2 A series of observations of A-type events followed by B-type events often will lead us to take
it that A events cause B events.

so
3 The idea of a causal link between A-type events and B-type events must have its origins in the
repetition of A-B observations.

but
Repetition of A-B observations cannot tell us anything new about individual A-B pairs, and it
cannot bring it about that A-type events and B-type events stand in some new relation in which
they would not stand if we did not make repeated A-B observations.

Note that this is an anti-realist account of causation: Hume is suggesting that there are not really
causal connections out there in the world.