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Ceteris paribus conditions and the interventionist account of causality

Tobias Henschen

pp. 3297-3311

Abstract

The paper uses a de-relativized (or objectified) variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation to develop an account of causal ceteris paribus (cp) laws. It argues that the relation between X and Y needs to satisfy three conditions in order to qualify as one of direct type-level causation, that satisfaction of these conditions guarantees the applicability of claims of direct type-level causation, that the context of applicability motivates referring to these conditions as cp conditions, and that claims of direct type-level causation qualify as laws if they are explanatorily deep. The account of causal cp laws defended by the paper derives from a de-relativized variant of Woodward’s definition of direct type-level causation but can be shown not to conflict with Woodward’s thesis that there is no such thing as a cp law.

Publication details

Published in:

Solé Albert, Hoefer Carl (2015) Space-time and the wave function. Synthese 192 (10).

Pages: 3297-3311

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0703-7

Full citation:

Henschen Tobias (2015) „Ceteris paribus conditions and the interventionist account of causality“. Synthese 192 (10), 3297–3311.