Abstract
This paper gives a framework for understanding causal counterpossibles, counterfactuals imbued with causal content whose antecedents appeal to metaphysically impossible worlds. Such statements are generated by omissive causal claims that appeal to metaphysically impossible events, such as "If the mathematician had not failed to prove that 2 + 2 = 5, the math textbooks would not have remained intact." After providing an account of impossible omissions, the paper argues for three claims: (i) impossible omissions play a causal role in the actual world, (ii) causal counterpossibles have broad applications in philosophy, and (iii) the truth of causal counterpossibles provides evidence for the nonvacuity of counterpossibles more generally.
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Notes
For example, the counterfactual “If Billy hadn’t squared the circle, the mathematicians wouldn’t have been surprised” is causally infelicitous, since there is no metaphysically possible world in which he does square the circle.
Varzi (2006) suggests that omissions can provide causal explanations without referring to actual things.
For an extended argument for such an analysis, see Bernstein (2014).
See Lewis (1973).
One might be worried that norms are doing the work in ordering worlds; for example, my promise to water the plant places the world where I do order it closer to actuality. But I do not take norms to order worlds. Anyone in close proximity to the plant could have watered it, and thus omissively causes its death. And there are true omissive claims involving no agents at all; for example, “The drought caused the famine” specifies the nearby world in which the rain does, in fact, fall.
See Bernstein (MS) for a view that possible and actual causation are determinates of a common determinable.
See Ned Hall’s (2004) for more on this distinction.
Similar arguments have been made with respect to the comparative closeness of impossible worlds. Advocates for this view argue that there can be impossible worlds closer to the actual world than some possible ones. See Nolan (1997) for more on this point.
I discuss this point in further detail in my Bernstein (2016).
Most famously, Harman (1977).
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Bernstein, S. Omission impossible. Philos Stud 173, 2575–2589 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0672-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0672-9