Cause and some Positive Causal Impact

Mind, 2006

On the received view, counterfactuals are analyzed using the concept of closeness between possible worlds: ‘if it had been that p, then it would have been the case that q’ is true at world w just in case q is true at all the possible p-worlds closest to w. The degree of closeness between two worlds is usually thought to be determined by weighting different respects of similarity between them. The question I consider in the paper is which weights attach to different respects of similarity. I start by considering Lewis’s answer to the question and argue against it by presenting several counterexamples. I use the same examples to motivate a general principle about closeness: If a fact obtains in both of two worlds, then this similarity is relevant to the closeness between them if and only if the fact has the same explanation in the two worlds. I use this principle and some ideas of Lewis’s to formulate a general account of counterfactuals, and I argue that this account can explain the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence. The paper concludes with a discussion of some examples that cannot be accommodated by the present version of the account and therefore necessitate further work on the details.

Abstracta, 2020

Mind, 1997

On David Lewis's original analysis of causation, c causes e only if c is linked to e by a chain of distinct events such that each event in the chain (counterfactually) depends on the former one. But, this requirement precludes the possibility of late pre-emptive causation, of causation by fragile events, and of indeterministic causation. Lewis proposes three different strategies for accommodating these three kinds of cases, but none of these turn out to be satisfactory. I offer a single analysis of causation that resolves these problems in one go but which respects Lewis's initial insights. One distinctive feature of my account is that it accommodates indeterministic causation without resorting to probabilities.

Acta Analytica, 2018

Backtracking counterfactuals are problem cases for similarity based theories of coun-terfactuals (e.g. Lewis, 1979). Hiddleston (2005) proposes a causal theory of counterfactuals, which deals well with backtracking. In addition, the causal theory provides an unified account for non-backtracking and backtracking counterfactuals. In this paper, I present a backtracking counterfactual that is a problem case for Hiddleston's account. Then I propose an informational theory of counterfactuals, which deals well with this problem case maintaining the good features of the causal theory. In addition, the informational theory provides clues for the semantics and the epistemology of counterfactuals. The idea is that backtracking is adequate when the (possibly non-actual) state of affairs expressed in the antecedent of a counterfactual transmits less information about an event in the past than the actual state of affairs.

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1991

Among the many philosophers who hold that causal facts 1 are to be explained in terms of-or more ambitiously, shown to reduce to-facts about what happens, together with facts about the fundamental laws that govern what happens, the clear favorite is an approach that sees counterfactual dependence as the key to such explanation or reduction. The paradigm examples of causation, so advocates of this approach tell us, are examples in which events c and e-the cause and its effect-both occur, but: had c not occurred, e would not have occurred either. From this starting point ideas proliferate in a vast profusion. But the remarkable disparity among these ideas should not obscure their common foundation. Neither should the diversity of opinion about the prospects for a philosophical analysis of causation obscure their importance. For even those philosophers who see these prospects as dim-perhaps because they suffer post-Quinean queasiness at the thought of any analysis of any concept of interest-can often be heard to say such things as that causal relations among events are somehow "a matter of" the patterns of counterfactual dependence to be found in them.

The problems of how the world is made, how things could have gone, and how causal relations work (if any such relation is at play) cross the entire historical development of philosophy. In the last forty years, the philosophical debate has given these problems a prominent role in its agenda, and David Lewis has suggested methodologies and theories that have contributed to enrich our notions in the fields of mereology, modality and the theory of causation. Such contributions have been among the most influential in analytic philosophy. The following theses -among others -have been milestones for the current philosophical debate:

Analysis, 2002

Whether backward causation is logically possible is a deeply controversial matter, and one on which, in the present paper, I shall take no stand. The question to be considered is what relation, if any, there is between the logical possibility of backward causation and a Stalnaker-Lewis-style account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals, and the thesis that I shall be defending is that, if backward causation is logically possible, then a Stalnaker-Lewis-style account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals cannot be sound.

Thought, 2015

docenti.lett.unisi.it

The first part of the paper summarizes Lewis' counterfactual theory of causation and emphasizes Lewis' refusal to require the temporal priority of causes. Lewis holds that in order to achieve a correct theory of causality it is enough to observe that backtracking counterfactuals are ordinarily false. Lewis argues that the well-known asymmetry between an open future and a closed past goes hand in hand with the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence, that in his view is justified by an adequate analysis of the similarity of worlds. Lewis holds that similarity should be intended as Overall Similarity, but with the proviso that "big" miracles create big dissimilarities while "little" miracles before the antecedent may be essential to grant high similarity. §4 examines some criticism of Lewis' conception of similarity and miracles. In §5 it is argued that Lewis' contention that backtracking counterfactuals are normally false is misplaced, since it may be shown that in a suitably rich logical language every factual true forward-looking conditional is equivalent to a true backtracking counterfactual.