Why Causation is Biconditional but not Proportional
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AbstractIn this article, I defend a biconditional counterfactual account of causation, which places equal emphasis on what I call “the presence condition” and “the absence condition,” whereas Lewis's classical counterfactual theory focuses only on the absence condition. I attempt to show that biconditionalism provides a promising treatment of supervenient causation, namely, causal cases involving the supervenience relationship. Although some philosophers confuse this account with the proportionality constraint on causation, I argue that biconditionalism is distinct from and superior to proportionalism in accommodating our reliable causal intuitions.
All Author(s) ListLei Zhong
Journal nameAmerican Philosophical Quarterly
Year2022
Month7
Volume Number59
Issue Number3
Pages263 - 271
ISSN0003-0481
eISSN2152-1123
LanguagesEnglish-United States
