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The Next Best Thing: Causation and Regularity

Psillos, Stathis (2007) The Next Best Thing: Causation and Regularity. [Preprint]

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Abstract

In this paper I articulate RVC with an eye to two things: first, its conceptual development; second, its basic commitments and implications for what causation is. I have chosen to present RVC in a way that respects its historical origins and unravels the steps of its articulation in the face of objections and criticism. It is important for the explication and defence of RVC to see it as a view of causation that emerged in a certain intellectual milieu. RVC has been developed as an attempt to remove efficiency from causation and hence, to view causation not as a productive relation but as a relation of dependence among discrete events. In particular, the thought that causation is regularity is meant to oppose metaphysical views of causation that posit powers or other kinds of entity that are supposed to enforce the regularities that there are in the world or to explain the alleged necessity that there is in causation.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
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Psillos, Stathis
Keywords: causation, regularity, Hume, Brown
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
Depositing User: Stathis Psillos
Date Deposited: 13 Jul 2007
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 15:15
Item ID: 3434
Subjects: General Issues > Causation
Date: March 2007
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/3434

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