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The Extensionality of Causation and Causal-Explanatory Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Michael E. Levin
Michael E. Levin*
Affiliation:
City College of New York
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Abstract

I argue that 'c' occurs extensionally in 'c caused e' and 'D' occurs extensionally in 'c caused e because c is D'. I claim that this has been insufficiently appreciated because the two contexts are often run together and because it has not been clear that the description D of c is among the referents of an explanatory argument. I argue as well that Hume's analysis of causation is consistent with taking causation to be a relation between single events, and that even if events are eliminated as virtual entities, extensionality holds for all terms in the resulting context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 266 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Lawrence Stern for stimulating discussions about causality and explanation, and Margarita Garcia for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

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