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- Title
Varieties of Multiple Antecedent Cause.
- Authors
Engelhardt, Jeff
- Abstract
A great deal has been written over the past decade defending 'higher-level' causes by arguing that overdetermination is more complex than many philosophers initially thought. Although two shooters overdetermine the death of a firing squad victim, a baseball and its parts do not overdetermine the breaking of a window. But while these analyses of overdetermination have no doubt been fruitful, the focus on overdetermination-while ignoring other varieties of causal relation-has limited the discussion. Many of the cases of interest resemble joint causes or a cause necessitating a simultaneous epiphenomenon as much as they resemble overdeterminers. If we are to fully understand higher-level causation, we need to distinguish it from these causal relations as well. This paper is dedicated to the task, focusing especially on the 'threat' that higher-level causes are epiphenomena necessitated by lower-level causes.
- Subjects
CAUSATION (Philosophy); DISCUSSION; ARGUMENT; PHILOSOPHICAL research; PHENOMENALISM; MATERIALISM
- Publication
Acta Analytica, 2012, Vol 27, Issue 3, p231
- ISSN
0353-5150
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s12136-012-0147-3