Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Causal foundationalism, physical causation, and difference-making

  • Published:
Synthese Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

An influential tradition in the philosophy of causation has it that all token causal facts are, or are reducible to, facts about difference-making. Challenges to this tradition have typically focused on pre-emption cases, in which a cause apparently fails to make a difference to its effect. However, a novel challenge to the difference-making approach has recently been issued by Alyssa Ney. Ney defends causal foundationalism, which she characterizes as the thesis that facts about difference-making depend upon facts about physical causation. She takes this to imply that causation is not fundamentally a matter of difference-making. In this paper, I defend the difference-making approach against Ney’s argument. I also offer some positive reasons for thinking, pace Ney, that causation is fundamentally a matter of difference-making.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baumgartner, M. (ms.). A regularity theoretic approach to actual causation.

  • Choi S. (2002) Causation and gerrymandered world lines: A critique of Salmon. Philosophy of Science 69: 105–117

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowe P. (1992) Wesley Salmon’s process theory of causality and the conserved quantity theory. Philosophy of Science 59: 195–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowe P. (2000) Physical causation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dowe P. (2004) Chance-lowering causes. In: Dowe P., Noordhof P. (eds) Cause and chance: Causation in an indeterministic world. Routledge, London, pp 28–38

    Google Scholar 

  • Eagle, A. (2007). Pragmatic causation. In H. Price & R. Corry (Eds.), Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited (pp. 156–190). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Eells E. (1991) Probabilistic causality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Elga, A. (2007). Isolation and folk physics. In H. Price & R. Corry (Eds.), Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited (pp. 106–119). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Field H. (2003) Causation in a physical world. In: Loux M. J., Zimmerman D. (eds) Oxford handbook of metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 435–460

    Google Scholar 

  • Glymour C., Wimberly F. (2007) Actual causes and thought experiments. In: Campbell J. K., O’Rourke M., Silverstein H. (eds) Causation and explanation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 43–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Glynn L. (2011) A probabilistic analysis of causation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62: 343–392

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glynn, L. (ms.) Of miracles and interventions.

  • Good I. J. (1961a) A causal calculus (I). British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 11: 305–318

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Good I.J. (1961b) A causal calculus (II). British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 12: 43–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hájek A. (2007) The reference class problem is your problem too. Synthese 156: 563–585

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall N. (2000) Causation and the price of transitivity. Journal of Philosophy 97: 198–222

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, N. (2004a). Two concepts of causation. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 225–276). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Hall N. (2004b) The intrinsic character of causation. Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 1: 255–300

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall N., Paul L. A. (2003) Causation and pre-emption. In: Clark P., Hawley K. (eds) Philosophy of science today. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 100–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Halpern, J. Y., & Hitchcock, C. (ms.). Graded causation and defaults.

  • Halpern J. Y., Pearl J. (2005) Causes and explanations: A structural-model approach. Part I: Causes. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56: 843–887

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Handfield T., Twardy C. R., Korb K. B., Oppy G. (2008) The metaphysics of causal models: Where’s the biff?. Erkenntnis 68: 149–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock C. (1995) Salmon on explanatory relevance. Philosophy of Science 62: 304–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock C. (2001a) The intransitivity of causation revealed in equations and graphs. Journal of Philosophy 98: 273–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock C. (2001b) A tale of two effects. The Philosophical Review 110: 361–396

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock, C. (2007a). What Russell got right. In H. Price & R. Corry (Eds.), Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited (pp. 45–65). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Hitchcock C. (2007b) Prevention, preemption, and the principle of sufficient reason. Philosophical Review 116: 495–532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitchcock C. (2009) Problems for the conserved quantity theory: Counterexamples, circularity, and redundancy. Monist 92: 72–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. (1978). A treatise of human nature L. A. Selby-Bigge & P. Nidditch (Eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. (First published 1739–1740).

  • Kvart, I. (2004). Causation: Probabilistic and counterfactual analyses. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 359–386). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Lewis D. (1973a) Causation. Journal of Philosophy 70: 556–567

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D. (1973b) Counterfactuals. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D. (1979) Counterfactual dependence and time’s arrow. Noûs 13: 455–476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (1986a). Postscripts to “causation”. In D. Lewis (Ed.), Philosophical papers (pp. 172–213). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Lewis D. (1986b) On the plurality of worlds. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis D. (2000) Causation as influence. Journal of Philosophy 97: 182–197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (2004). Causation as influence. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 75–106). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Expanded version of Lewis, D. (2000). Causation as influence. Journal of Philosophy, 97, 182–197.)

    Google Scholar 

  • Loewer, B. (2007). Counterfactuals and the second law. In H. Price & R. Corry (Eds.), Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited (pp. 293–326). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Mackie J. L. (1965) Causes and conditions. American Philosophical Quarterly 2: 245–264

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackie J. L. (1980) The cement of the universe: A study of causation. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Maudlin, T. (2004). Causation, counterfactuals, and the third factor. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 419–443). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Reprinted in Maudlin, T. (2007). The metaphysics within physics (pp. 143–169). Oxford: Oxford University Press.)

  • Menzies P. (1989) Probabilistic causation and causal processes: A critique of Lewis. Philosophy of Science 56: 642–663

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Menzies P. (1996) Probabilistic causation and the pre-emption problem. Mind 105: 85–117

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mill, J. S. (1973). A system of logic ratiocinative and inductive. In J. M. Robson (Ed.), Collected works of John Stuart Mill (Vol. VII–VIII). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (First published 1843).

  • Ney A. (2009) Physical causation and difference-making. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60: 737–764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearl J. (2009) Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Price, H., Corry, R. (eds) (2007) Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Psillos, S. (2002). Causation and explanation. Chesham: Acumen.

  • Ramachandran, M. (2004). A counterfactual analysis of indeterministic causation. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 387–402). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Reichenbach, H. (1971). The direction of time. M. Reichenbach (Ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. First published 1956.

  • Russell B. (1913) On the notion of cause. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 13: 1–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Salmon W. (1984) Scientific explanation and the causal structure of the world. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Salmon W. (1994) Causality without counterfactuals. Philosophy of Science 61: 297–312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salmon W. (1997) Causality and explanation: A reply to two critiques. Philosophy of Science 64: 461–477

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer J. (2000a) Trumping preemption. Journal of Philosophy 97: 165–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer J. (2000b) Causation by disconnection. Philosophy of Science 67: 285–300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strevens M. (2004) The causal and unification approaches to explanation unified—causally. Noûs 38: 154–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strevens M. (2007) Mackie remixed. In: Campbell J. K., O’Rourke M., Silverstein H. S. (eds) Causation and explanation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 93–118

    Google Scholar 

  • Suppes P. (1970) A probabilistic theory of causality. Acta Philosophica Fennica (Vol. 24). North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodward J. (2003) Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodward, J. (2007). Causation with a human face. In H. Price & R. Corry (Eds.), Causation, physics, and the constitution of reality: Russell’s republic revisited (pp. 66–105). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Yablo S. (2002) De facto dependence. Journal of Philosophy 99: 130–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yablo, S. (2004). Advertisement for a sketch of an outline of a prototheory of causation. In J. Collins, N. Hall, & L. A. Paul (Eds.), Causation and counterfactuals (pp. 119–137). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, MC 101-40, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA

    Luke Glynn

Authors
  1. Luke Glynn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luke Glynn.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Glynn, L. Causal foundationalism, physical causation, and difference-making. Synthese 190, 1017–1037 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-0058-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-011-0058-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation