Causes and Counterparts.
It follows from David Lewis's counterpart-theoretic analysis of modality and his counterfactual theory of causation that causal claims are relativized to a set of counterpart relations. Call this Shlewis's view. I show how Shlewis's view can provide attractively unified solutions to similar modal an...
| Published in: | Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 95; no. 1; pp. 17 - 29 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Mar2017
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| Summary: | It follows from David Lewis's counterpart-theoretic analysis of modality and his counterfactual theory of causation that causal claims are relativized to a set of counterpart relations. Call this Shlewis's view. I show how Shlewis's view can provide attractively unified solutions to similar modal and causal puzzles. I then argue that Shlewis's view is better motivated, by his own lights, than the view Lewis actually held, and also better motivated than a similar approach which relativizes causal claims to sets of ‘contrast events’. |
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