Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T19:59:26.857Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indeterminism, Counterfactuals, and Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Richard Otte
Richard Otte*
Affiliation:
Cowell College University of California, Santa Cruz
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I wish to argue that counterfactual analyses of causation are inadequate. I believe the counterfactuals that are involved in counterfactual analyses of causation are often false, and thus the theories do not provide an adequate account of causation. This is demonstrated by the presentation of a counterexample to the counterfactual analyses of causation. I then present a unified theory of causation that is based upon probability and counterfactuals. This theory accounts for both deterministic and indeterministic causation, and is not subject to many of the traditional problems facing theories of causation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1987, pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

An earlier version of part of this paper was read at the 1985 Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association. I would like to thank Davis Baird and Wesley C. Salmon for helpful comments on that paper, and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier version of this paper. This research was supported in part by Faculty Research funds and funds granted by the Regents of the University of California.

References

REFERENCES

Lewis, D. (1973a), “Causation”, Journal of Philosophy, 70: 556–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973b), Counterfactuals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1979), “Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow”, Noûs 13: 455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, R. (1981), “A Critique of Suppes' Theory of Probabilistic Causality”, Synthese 48: 167–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otte, R. (1985), “Probabilistic Causality and Simpson's Paradox,” Philosophy of Science 52: 110–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, J. (1984), The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1956), The Direction of Time. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. (1978), “Why ask, ‘Why?‘?”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 51: 683–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. (1980), “Probabilistic Causality”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 61: 50–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, W. (1984). Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Suppes, P. (1970), A Probabilistic Theory of Causality. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar