Abstract
In the present chapter I will argue that relations, or relational states of affairs, are not just prima facie, but indeed actual causal relata. Relations, I will claim, are not just the right ontological category for being causes and effects, they can also actually be causally efficacious.
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Fodor, who admits that relational properties can be causal-explanatory, intends his test to show that broad contents of intentional states cannot be causal powers. Baker (1995, 47–51) has mounted an intricate argument to prove that broad contents, contrary to what Fodor himself claims, do pass his test. Although the agenda that motivates my present argument is to contest some of the alleged reasons for doubting the causal efficacy of broad mental properties, I will not here try to decide whether or not Baker’s argument succeeds.
Ludwig provides three ‘necessary conditions on causal relevance’ (334): a nomic sufficiency condition, a logical independence condition, and a screening-off condition. The reason why I cannot here discuss the first of these conditions is that it would require me to take up issues about ‘event types’ (335) and causal laws. But my discussion does capture Ludwig’s two further conditions.
I order to assess my Criterion, the reader may also have a look at Hall’s tests on causal character in his 2000, 206–8, and ask to what extent the Criterion can be sqared with those tests.
See, for instance, Kim 1974, 29.
It seems false to say that as soon as an inserted object makes the vending machine respond (i.e., comes to be treated as money by both parties), it thereby becomes money. No monetary system could function that way, i.e., without a distinction between genuine and fake.
Perhaps we should write ‘Cokes’ (capital C) when we mean branded products, and ‘cokes’ (small c) when we mean merely physical particulars. Dretske writes ‘cokes,’ and he seems to mean the latter; but he does not distinguish between the two possible readings.
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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De Muijnck, W. (2003). Causal Efficacy. In: Dependencies, Connections, and Other Relations. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 93. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0121-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0121-1_13
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