Organon F

Volume 26, May 2019, Issue 2, Pages 287–297

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

First I present a puzzle involving two opaque objects and a shadow cast on the ground. After I offer a solution to this puzzle by identifying which of the objects is causally responsible for the shadow, I argue that this case poses a counterexample to David Lewis’s latest counterfactual account of causation, known as his influence theory. Along the way, I discuss preemption, overdetermination, absence causation, and trumping preemption.

Absence causation; counterfactual theory of causation; influence theory of causation; overdetermination; preemptive prevention; trumping pre-emption.

Author

Erdinç Sayan

Affiliation

Middle East Technical University

Address

Philosophy Department, Middle East Technical University, Dumlupinar Bulvari, 1, 06800 Ankara, Turkey

E-mail

esayan@metu.edu.tr 

Received

2 October 2018

Accepted

20 November 2018

Published online

14 March 2019

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Sayan, E. (2019). Casting a Shadow on Lewis’s Theory of Causation. Organon F, 26(2), 287–297. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26206

Chicago

Sayan, Erdinç. 2019. "Casting a Shadow on Lewis’s Theory of Causation." Organon F 26 (2): 287–297. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26206

Harvard

Sayan, E. (2019). Casting a Shadow on Lewis’s Theory of Causation. Organon F, 26(2), pp. 287–297. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26206

© Erdinç Sayan

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