Section B.1 Methodology: Explanation, causality, and laws

Causal Depth and the Modal View of Causality
George Kampis

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
1-1 Asahidai, Tatsunokuchi, Japan
and
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Eotvos University
H-1518 Budapest, Po.Box 32

In this lecture I will forward the following three theses:

1. the event view of causality is fundamentally mistaken;
2. every causal relation involves a kind of modal property that we can call “depth”;
3. no relation is called causal unless the “depth” property holds.

To justify these claims to the extent possible here, I note that:

1. Negative causation (that not A causes B where A and B are events) is a typical form of causation encountered in many ordinary situations, yet it cannot be accounted for in terms of events. Many, if not all, cases of negative causation involve the prior knowledge of mechanisms, understood as sets of constraints acting on variables.(For instance, not taking a medicine may kill because we know how the illness proceeds and how the medicine works.)
2. As suggested by (a), the basic unit of causation is probably larger than just a pair of events. A mechanism, for instance, is a particular way in which several, supervenient or otherwise connected events are integrated. Invoking one means invoking them all. This makes it plausible to expect that the situation will be similar in every causal relation, hence the “depth” property. It is a modal property for the same reason that indexicals are modal: it is contextual, or, (partly) tacit.
3. Along a different line of thought, it is reasonable to assume that every causal relation can be made part of an experiment. Experimental causation, in turn, is known to be a robust recipe for producing several further causal relations. What we need to show is that these are of the type mentioned in (a) and (b).

The lecture gives motivation and support for the theses (1)-(3) and discusses some of their consequences.