Ceteris paribus conditions and the interventionist account of causality

• Autores: Tobias Henschen
• Localización: Synthese, ISSN-e 1573-0964, Vol. 192, Nº. 10, 2015, págs. 3297-3311
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The paper uses a de-relativized (or objectified) variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation to develop an account of causal ceteris paribus (cp) laws. It argues that the relation between X and Y needs to satisfy three conditions in order to qualify as one of direct type-level causation, that satisfaction of these conditions guarantees the applicability of claims of direct type-level causation, that the context of applicability motivates referring to these conditions as cp conditions, and that claims of direct type-level causation qualify as laws if they are explanatorily deep. The account of causal cp laws defended by the paper derives from a de-relativized variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation but can be shown not to conflict with Woodward’s thesis that there is no such thing as a cp law