Abstract
According to causal realism, causation is a fundamental feature of the world, consisting in the fact that the properties that there are in the world, including notably the fundamental physical ones, are dispositions or powers to produce certain effects. The paper presents arguments for this view from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics, pointing out how this view leads to a coherent ontology for both physics as well as biology and the special sciences in general.
I’m grateful to Matthias Egg and Vincent Lam for comments on the draft of this paper.
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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
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Esfeld, M. (2012). Causal Realism. In: Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W., Hartmann, S., Stöltzner, M., Weber, M. (eds) Probabilities, Laws, and Structures. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3030-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3030-4_11
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