Natural Necessity, Objective Chances and Causal Powers :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Natural Necessity, Objective Chances and Causal Powers rise Are the tellings between the property of a thing and its related disposition to react in sure ways, and between the triggering of that disposition and the issue outlet, necessary? Harr and Madden, in their epitome of causal powers, said they be, but their arguments be not persuasive. Humeans like Simon Blackburn deny it. I criticize the Humean position, and argue afresh for their necessity. I note that David Lewis analysis of causation requires their necessity, though as a confessed Humean he has not admitted this. There is an interesting convergence among several new theories of causation. They describe causes as events of a kind which increase the objective come about of events of other kinds, which are their effects. The theories I have in mind are those of David Lewis (1986, 1994), D.H. Mellor (1995), and Peter Menzies (1996). They attribute various other properties to causes, but all equalise that this is an important and necessary fact about them. Thus, dropping a quartz wine grouch onto a hard floor can be said to have caused it to shatter because it increased the probability of its shattering at that time, since whenever a piece of quartz glass glass is struck by a hard object, it lead very probably shatter.Such generalizations relating cause and effect can be understood as being true of something because of cardinal of its properties. For instance one can say if something has the molecular structure of crystal glass, thus if it is hit by a hard object it get out very probably shatter. The generalization relating cause and effect can then be seen as a disposition of the thing whose property makes it true. In this case it amounts to saying that things which have the molecular structure of crystal glass are fragile. More generally, the generalizations involved in causation are of the following form if something has a certain property, then if it comes into a certain relation wi th something else, it will result in another event, with a certain objective probability. Call this generalization G.This generalization looks very much like the analysis of causal powers offered by R.Harr and E.H. Madden (1975). They defined the causal power of a thing in terms of its disposition to behave in certain ways in certain circumstances because of its nature. They wrote X has the power to A means X will or can do A, in the appropriate conditions, in right of its intrinsic nature (p.