Abstract
The paper investigates the kind of dependence relation that best portrays Machian frame-dragging in general relativity. The question is tricky because frame-dragging relates local inertial frames to distant distributions of matter in a time-independent way, thus establishing some sort of nonlocal link between the two. For this reason, a plain causal interpretation of frame-dragging faces huge challenges. The paper will shed light on the issue by using a generalized structural equation model analysis in terms of manipulationist counterfactuals recently applied in the context of metaphysical enquiry by Schaffer (Philos Stud 173:49–100, 2016) and Wilson (Metaphysical causation. Noûs 2017). The verdict of the analysis will be that frame-dragging is best understood in terms of a novel type of dependence relation that is half-way between causation and grounding.
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Notes
- 1.
Some people may be skeptical that, e.g., cases of causation by omission fulfill this criterion. However, for simplicity’s sake, we will gloss over this contentious issue.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to an anonymous referee and the editors of this volume for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. One of us (AV) worked on this paper while being at the University of Barcelona as a Juan de la Cierva fellow. Hence, the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, fellowship IJCI-2015-23321, is gratefully acknowledged. Research for this paper was also supported by the Spanish MEIC research project FFI2016-76799-P.
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Vassallo, A., Hoefer, C. (2020). The Metaphysics of Machian Frame-Dragging. In: Beisbart, C., Sauer, T., Wüthrich, C. (eds) Thinking About Space and Time. Einstein Studies, vol 15. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47782-0_11
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