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Mackie's Singular Causality and Linked Overdetermination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Robert H. Ennis
Robert H. Ennis*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

In The Cement of the Universe J. L. Mackie offered—with supplementation—a necessary-condition analysis of singular causal claims: “It seems that if any X is both necessary in the circumstances for and causally prior to Y, we shall say that X caused Y; also, wherever we are prepared to say that X caused Y we are prepared to say that X was necessary in the circumstances for and causally prior to Y” (p. 51). As Mackie interprets ‘necessary’, this is a counter-factual analysis.

Although there are difficulties with treating necessity (supplemented with the indicated qualifications) as sufficient for our being justified in saying that X caused Y (argued by Berofsky 1977 and Earman 1976, among others), I want to challenge the second half of the analysis, because refuting it seems to shake more deeply my sympathies for necessary-condition analyses.

Type
Part II. Causation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 55 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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Footnotes

1

For suggestions and comments I am indebted to David Bantz, John Barker, John Canfield, Nancy Cartwright, Jaegwon Kim, Adele Laslie, John Mackie, Robert Monk, Stephen Norris, Shirley Pendlebury, Denis Phillips, Shekhar Pradhan, and Stephen Wagner. I regret that Mr. Mackie did not have the opportunity to see this version.

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