Causes and Becauses
I've been thinking some about causation recently, and about attempts by philosophers to offer an analysis of the relation causes. Here I would like to share one of the questions that has recently been on my mind: What, if anything, is the connection between the English word 'because' and the relation causes?
The following are a few comments about 'because' and its relationship to causes:
(A) 'Because' appears to act as a sentential connective in the following sentences:
i. The window broke because the ball hit it.
ii. John broke up with Mary because she cheated on him.
As such, it functions in these sentences (and, perhaps, in all sentences in which it occurs) like 'and', 'or', and 'if..., then...'. And, in fact, we can give a necessary condition on 'because' sentences being true; namely,
(NC) If S is a sentence of the form 'S1 because S2', then: if S is true, then S1 and S2 are true.
However, unlike the sentential connectives 'and', 'or', and 'if..., then...' (in its indicative form), it appears that 'because' is not truth-functional. (Although there's apparently been some debate about this.) For consider (i) and suppose that it is true. Then given that (NC) is true, so are (a) 'The window broke' and (b) 'The ball hit the window'. But it is not the case that, for all true sentences S, the replacement of (a) or (b) with S in (i) results in a truth; and if 'because' were truth-functional, it would so result. So, for instance, we cannot replace (b) in (i) with '2+2=4' and get a truth.
(B) The following seems to be a plausible principle concerning the interaction between causes and 'because':
Causes and Because (CB): Necessarily, for all events c and e, c causes e iff e occurs because c occurs.
There would, of course, need to be more investigation done to have claimed to seriously provide an argument for (CB). But it does seem pre-theoretically plausible.
The following are a few comments about 'because' and its relationship to causes:
(A) 'Because' appears to act as a sentential connective in the following sentences:
i. The window broke because the ball hit it.
ii. John broke up with Mary because she cheated on him.
As such, it functions in these sentences (and, perhaps, in all sentences in which it occurs) like 'and', 'or', and 'if..., then...'. And, in fact, we can give a necessary condition on 'because' sentences being true; namely,
(NC) If S is a sentence of the form 'S1 because S2', then: if S is true, then S1 and S2 are true.
However, unlike the sentential connectives 'and', 'or', and 'if..., then...' (in its indicative form), it appears that 'because' is not truth-functional. (Although there's apparently been some debate about this.) For consider (i) and suppose that it is true. Then given that (NC) is true, so are (a) 'The window broke' and (b) 'The ball hit the window'. But it is not the case that, for all true sentences S, the replacement of (a) or (b) with S in (i) results in a truth; and if 'because' were truth-functional, it would so result. So, for instance, we cannot replace (b) in (i) with '2+2=4' and get a truth.
(B) The following seems to be a plausible principle concerning the interaction between causes and 'because':
Causes and Because (CB): Necessarily, for all events c and e, c causes e iff e occurs because c occurs.
There would, of course, need to be more investigation done to have claimed to seriously provide an argument for (CB). But it does seem pre-theoretically plausible.
posted by Greg at 2:23 PM
1 Comments:
I have two not-yet-worked-out worries about this proposal. The first worry is that the causal relation is normally taken to be transitive. But it is not clear that the becausal relation is so. We might perhaps trace the causal history of my typing now to some dinosaur's foot stomping. But it is not clear that my typing occurs because the dino stomped his foot. As a corollary, it seems that if causal determinism is true, then any event occurs because of any other event in the past. (Of course, this will depend on the formulation of causal determinism and probably the best formulations do not have this consequence).
My second worry is that some becauses may not be causes. Suppose that Keith and I made a deal according to which both of us would see either "Dawn of the Dead" or "Day of the Dead" on Saturday but we would not see the same one. Then on Saturday I see "Day of the Dead" and it seems true that I am seeing it because Keith is seeing "Dawn of the Dead". But it does not seem that Keith's movie viewing event caused my movie viewing event.
Joshua
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