[MD] Quick one: causation

[Christoffer Ivarsson]

Thank you for your answers everybody.

Firstly, my reason for performing the action of asking this question:
I wanted to get your views on causation and the problems therein since I am 
currently studying mental causation and the metaphysical and epistemological 
aspects of  explanations in general. It's a lot of SOM I tell you.

Now, Bo said.
> Just quickly the MOQ regards causation (A causes B) as
> paradoxical (a platypus)

And I wonder why. ( I don't have the time to read through Lila again right 
now, and what I really want is your interpretations of it anyway).

Ham wrote:

> One can of course explain any act or event in purely physical (e.g.,
> mechanical) terms.
> However, if said act is intentional on the part of the individual, which 
> the
> word "performed" implies, such an explanation is incomplete and 
> misleading.
> If I perform action 'A' with the intent of causing event 'B', then I am 
> the
> deliberate cause of 'B', regardless of what physical causes may be 
> involved.
>
> For example, if I place a pot of water on the stove and apply enough heat,
> the water will boil.  While this may be explained as an event caused by 
> the
> transfer of thermal energy, thus bringing the water to the boiling point,
> the action occurred as a result of my intention to boil some water.
> Similarly, if I raise my arm and wave to a friend, neuro-muscular kinetics
> are involved, but only because I intended to perform this gesture.
>
> Unless you deny "free will" on the ground that all behavior is
> genetically-programmed or socially-induced, the primary cause of 
> voluntarily
> actions is the intended purpose of the individual who performs them.

And this hit's closely to what the philosophers I'm studying right now are 
talking about (Jaegwon Kim and a few others). For Kim, there seems to be no 
problem in reducing psychological explanations to physiological causal 
reactions - and the only reason we don't do, for him, seems to be that it 
wouldn't be practically possible to identify all the physical causal agents 
and events that would explain a behaviour or an action. So how would you 
respond to this? Is an explanation where I state the intentions or attitude 
with which an action was performed fundamentally different from an 
explanation where only the physiological causal events are presented?

[Ian]
> Because saying "A causes B" as some explanation of a process of
> physical causation between objects A and B only makes sense when
> thinking of A, B and the process "C" as discrete objects. Good common
> sense SOMist short-hand, but full of traps if A, B and C have more
> complex inter-relations.
>
> (I'd recommend Paul Turner on "as if" / "dependent arising" causation.)
> Regards
> Ian

Traps there is, that much is clear, but, the same question to you then, if 
one takes a reductionist, objectivist/realist approach to things - is the 
traps still there?

I will take a look at Paul Turners writings - but I can't seem to find what 
you are refering to in the index of essays; can you point me to it?


Regards
Chris- "Mudding through"