Causal Laws are Objectifications of Inductive Schemes

Since my theory of causation operates in a Humean spirit on a subjectivistic base (causes are explained only relative to a ranking function), I must address the question how causation can still be an objective relation. This is what the paper does (section 5.1). Sections 5.2-3 briefly introduce ranking functions (still called natural conditional functions) and the explication of causation based on it. Section 5.4 explains what it might mean to objectify a certain feature of ranking functions: the feature is objective to the extent in which propositions (which are objectively true or false) can be associated with that feature and in which a ranking function can be uniquely reconstructed from the propositions associated with its realization of that feature. Section 5.5 shows, roughly, that, in contrast to the reason relation as it obtains relative to a ranking function, the causal relation can be objectified under certain illuminating conditions. Hence, my final answer is that a causal law is a proposition which can be true or false and has the logical form of a law of succession, and with which a particular inductive behavior (= ranking function) is uniquely associated via the above objectification.