Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:11:25.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Asymmetry of Counterfactual Dependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Christian Loew
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A certain type of counterfactual is thought to be intimately related to causation, control, and explanation. The time asymmetry of these phenomena therefore plausibly arises from a time asymmetry of counterfactual dependence. But why is counterfactual dependence time asymmetric? The most influential account of the time asymmetry of counterfactual dependence is David Albert’s account, which posits a new, time-asymmetric fundamental physical law, the so-called past hypothesis. Albert argues that the time asymmetry of counterfactual dependence arises from holding fixed the past hypothesis when evaluating counterfactuals. In this article, I argue that Albert’s account misconstrues the time asymmetry of counterfactual dependence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 436 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © 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.)

References

Albert, David. 2000. Time and Chance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Albert, David 2015. After Physics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanchard, Thomas. 2016. “Physics and Causation.” Philosophy Compass 11:256–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckhardt, William. 2006. “Causal Time Asymmetry.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37:439–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elga, Adam. 2001. “Statistical Mechanics and the Asymmetry of Counterfactual Dependence.” Philosophy of Science 68:S313–S324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandes, Alison. Forthcoming. “Time, Flies, and Why We Can’t Control the Past.” In Time’s Arrows and the Probability Structure of the World, ed. Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake, and Eric Winsberg. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry. 2003. “Causation in a Physical World.” In Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Loux, Michael J. and Zimmerman, Dean W., 435–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frisch, Mathias. 2005. Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-locality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Mathias 2007. “Causation, Counterfactuals, and Entropy.” In Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality, ed. Price, Huw and Corry, Richard, 351–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Corry, Richard 2010. “Does a Low-Entropy Constraint Prevent Us from Influencing the Past?” In Time, Chance, and Reduction, ed. Hüttemann, A. and Ernst, G., 13–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ernst, G. 2014. Causal Reasoning in Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Ned. 2012. “Humean Reductionism about Laws of Nature: Director’s Cut.” Unpublished manuscript, PhilPapers, https://philpapers.org/archive/HALHRA.pdf.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, Christopher. 2001. “The Intransitivity of Causation Revealed in Equations and Graphs.” Journal of Philosophy 98:273–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holton, Richard. 2006. “The Act of Choice.” Philosophers’ Imprint 6:1–15.Google Scholar
Horwich, Paul. 1987. Asymmetries in Time. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kutach, Douglas. 2011. “The Asymmetry of Influence.” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, ed. Callender, Craig, 247–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1986a. “Causal Explanation.” In Philosophical Papers, 2:214–40. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David 1986b. “Causation.” In Philosophical Papers, 2:159–213. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David 1986c. “Counterfactual Dependence and Time’s Arrow.” In Philosophical Papers, 2:32–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 2007. “Counterfactuals and the Second Law.” In Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality, ed. Price, Huw and Corry, Richard, 293–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Corry, Richard 2012. “Two Accounts of Laws and Time.” Philosophical Studies 160:115–37.Google Scholar
Maudlin, Tim. 2007. The Metaphysics within Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, L. A., and Hall, Ned. 2013. Causation: A User’s Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Huw. 2007. “Causal Perspectivalism.” In Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality, ed. Price, Huw and Corry, Richard, 250–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Huw, and Weslake, Brad. 2009. “The Time-Asymmetry of Causation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Causation, ed. Beebee, Helen, Hitchcock, Christopher, and Menzies, Peter, 414–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James 2006. “Sensitive and Insensitive Causation.” Philosophical Review 115:1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar