Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g78kv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T21:38:01.919Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adding Potential to a Physical Theory of Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Mark Zangari
Mark Zangari*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Recently, several authors have attempted to characterise causation by identifying causal connections with physical processes. While this approach may not live up to providing a complete analysis of causation in all its contexts, it has raised some significant points regarding the causal role played by various entities described in natural laws. To date, much of the discussion has involved the attempted identification of physical terms or concepts that necessarily or sufficiently characterise causal processes, and has centered around three main contentions:

  1. Cl. Causal processes involve the presence of forces, and that forces are themselves a species of primitive causes (e.g., Bigelow, et al. 1988).

  2. C2. Causal processes necessarily involve transfer of a physically measurable quantity, such as energy-momentum (e.g., Aronson 1982 and Fair 1979).

  3. C3. Causal processes necessarily involve microscopic interactions between “fundamental” entities, such as is described by quantum field theory (e.g., Heathcote 1989).

Type
Part VII. Realism: Causes, Capacities and Mathematics
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1992 , 1992 , pp. 261 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by 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.)

Footnotes

1

I am grateful to John Collier and Bill Wignall for many fruitful discussions and their helpful comments and criticisms.

References

Aharonov, Y. and Bohm, D. (1959), “Significance of electromagnetic potentials in quantum theory”, Physical Review 115: 485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aronson, J. (1982), “Untangling Ontology form Epistemology in Causation”, Erkenntnis 18: 293-305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, J.S. (1965), “On the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen Paradox”, Physics, 1:195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, M.V., (1984), “Quantal phase factors accompanying adiabatic changes”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 39 2: 45-57.Google Scholar
Bigelow, J., Ellis, B. and Pargetter, R. (1988), “Forces”, Philosophy of Science, 55: 614-630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, H. and Harré, R. (eds.) (1988), Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, R.G. (1960), Physical Review Letters, 5: 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, D., Jordan, T. and Sudarshan, E. (1963), “Relativistic Invariance and Hamiltonian Theories of Interacting Particles”, Reviews of Modern Physics 35: 350-375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dieks, D. (1981), “A Note on Causation and the Flow of Energy”, Erkenntnis 16: 103-108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fair, D. (1979), “Causation and the Flow of Energy”, Erkenntnis 14: 219-250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heathcote, A., (1989), “A Theory of Causality: Causality = Interaction”, Erkenntnis 31: 77-108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horwich, P. (1987), Assymetries in Time, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, J.D. (1975), Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd. Edition, New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Kerner, E.H. (ed) (1972), The Theory of Action-at-a-Distance in Relativistic Particle Dynamics, New York: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Krips, H. (1987), The Metaphysics of Quantum Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Olariu, S. and Popescu, I. (1985), “The quantum effects of electromagnetic fluxes”, Reviews of Modern Physics, 57: 339-436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peshkin, M. and Tonomura, A. (1989), The Aharonov-Bohm Effect: Lecture Notes in Physics, No. 340, New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sakurai, J.J . (1985), Modern Quantum Mechanics, Menlo Park, California: Benjamin Cummings.Google Scholar
Weyl, H. (1952), Space-Time-Matter, Translated from the 4th German Edition (1921) by Brose, H.L., New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Wignall, J.W.G. (1990), “Maxwell Electrodynamics from a Theory of Macroscopically Extended Particles”, Foundations of Physics, 20, 1 23-147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, T. and Yang, C. (1975), “Concept of nonintegrable phase factors and global formulation of gauge fields”, Physical Review, D 12: 3845-3857.Google Scholar