The Process Theory of Causality

I encountered recently the phrase "the process theory of causality." I asked myself, in accord with the lingo of our time, "is that a thing?" So of course I did some googling.

The answer is: Yes. It's a thing Here is a pertinent link I discovered via such googling. : https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199279739-e-0011

The process theory of causality (PTC) holds that causal processes are more fundamental than the events they are often said to link. We say "A caused B." The act of striking the match against a hard surface caused it to light on fire. But what really exists is a single underlying process over time, where both A and B are abstracted parts of that whole.

John Venn is said to have gotten the PTC underway, saying: "Substitute for the time honored 'chain of causation' so often introduced into discussions on this subject the phrase 'a rope of causation' and see what a very different aspect the question will wear." Venn, portrayed above, is better known for displaying logic as a matter of circles that either do or do not overlap, that either are or are not nested in one another, etc.

At any rate, Venn died in 1923. His comment on the rope of causation was picked up on and elaborated on as a philosophical approach to the question of causation only much more recently, by Wesley Salmon, the author of SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION AND THE CAUSAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD (1988).

I really ought to study up on this stuff, by way of renewing my Mr Know-it-all blowhard license.

Comments

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Search This Blog