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Contextualising Causation Part II
Author(s) -
Reiss Julian
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/phc3.12073
Subject(s) - causation , counterfactual thinking , context (archaeology) , epistemology , counterfactual conditional , set (abstract data type) , contrast (vision) , philosophy , psychology , computer science , history , artificial intelligence , archaeology , programming language
In recent years, a number of philosophers have attempted to fix paradoxes of the counterfactual account of causation by making causation contrastive. In this framework, causation is understood to be not a two‐place relationship between a cause and an effect but a three or four‐place relationship between a cause, an effect and a contrast on the side of the cause, the effect or both. I argue that contrasting helps resolving certain paradoxes only if an account of admissibility of the chosen set of contrasts is given. I show by means of numerous examples that it is contextual features that determine admissibility. This way, context becomes part of the semantics of causation. I finally argue that once contextualised, explicit contrasting is redundant: causation is therefore a three‐place relationship between a cause, an effect and a context.