Links to Papers

Note for Brown students: Some of the links to the papers require that your IP address is seen as being from Brown. You either need to be on campus or use the VPN software that Brown provides. You never need to pay any money for access to articles. For non-Brown readers, for some papers, you will need access through a library that has a subscription to the relevant journal.

Email me with any additional papers you are interested in covering or if you spot any errors.

Philosopher's Causation

Week 1: Regularity Accounts. Primary Reading: J. L. Mackie, The Cement of the Universe, Ch 3. Schaffer, "The Metaphysics of Causation" Also, how regularity accounts fit into a classical world-view, minus a bunch of counterexamples. Optional Reading: Earman, A Primer on Determinism, Ch. 3 (<- Ask me if you want to read this one; it has some very technical elements). Michael Strevens, "Mackie's Theory of Causation Revivified"

Week 2: Counterfactual Accounts. Lewis and variations on Lewis. Primary Reading: David Lewis, "Causation" (skip postscript on chancy causation); Jonathan Bennett, "Event Causation: The Counterfactual Analysis "; Optional Reading: Wolfgang Spohn, "Deterministic Causation"; Ned Hall, "Rescued from the Rubbish Bin: Lewis on Causation" and "Two Concepts of Causation"

Week 3: Counterfactual Accounts. Primary Reading: Lewis, "Causation as Influence"; Jonathan Schaffer, "Causation, Influence, and Effluence,"; Michael Strevens, "Against Lewis's New Theory of Causation," Optional Reading: Igal Kvart, "Lewis's 'Causation as Influence'"; Phil Dowe, "Is Causation Influence?"; Jonathan Schaffer, "Trumping Preemption"

Physicist's Causation

Week 4: Process Accounts and Physical Accounts. Primary Reading: Phil Dowe, Ch. 5 of Physical Causation, Jonathan Schaffer, "Causes need not be Physically Connected to their Effects"; Optional Reading: Wesley Salmon, "Causality and Explanation"; Phil Dowe, "Causation and Misconnections"; Sungho Choi "The Conserved Quantity Theory of Causation and Closed Systems"

Week 5: Determinism and Locality in Physics. Primary Reading: John Earman, A Primer on Determinism, Ch. 1-2. We'll also discuss locality in relativity.

Week 6: Quantum Non-locality. Primary Reading: Quantum Non-locality and Relativity, Chapters 1 and 5. Optional Reading: Chapter 2,3,4. Notes on Relativity.

Optional Expert Readings: Links to the original EPR paper and related papers; Michael Esfeld, "Lewis's Causation and Quantum Correlations"

Chancy Causation

Week 7: Subjectivist Chance and Deterministic Chance. Primary Reading: David Lewis, "A Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance" (just the first part where he lays out the Principal Principle, not the part where he defends the subjectivism); Barry Loewer, "Determinism and Chance"; Jonathan Schaffer, "Deterministic Chance?". Optional Reading: Barry Loewer, "David Lewis's Humean Theory of Objective Chance";

Week 8: Chancy Causation. Primary Reading: Christopher Hitchcock, "Do All and Only Causes Raise the Probabilities of Effects?" and "Probabilistic Causation"; David Lewis, Postscripts to "Causation" (part on chancy causation); Peter Menzies, "Probabilistic Causation and Causal Processes"; Phil Dowe, "The Conserved Quantity Theory of Causation and Chance Raising"

Causal Asymmetry

Week 9: Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. Primary Reading: Frank Arntzenius, "Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle"; Brad Weslake, "Common Causes and the Direction of Causation"; Optional Reading: Arntzenius, "The Common Cause Principle"

Week 10: Direction of Causation. Primary Reading: Peter Menzies and Huw Price, "Causation as a Secondary Quality"; Woodward, "Causation and Manipulability"; Optional Reading: Dowe, "Backward Causation" esp. sections 3 and 4; Faye, "Backward Causation"

Week 11: Statistical mechanics and temporal asymmetry. Primary Reading: Huw Price, excerpt from Time's Arrow; Notes on Thermodynamics.

Week 12: Entropy asymmetry and causal asymmetry. Primary Reading: David Lewis, "Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow"; Elga, Adam "Statistical Mechanics and the Asymmetry of Counterfactual Dependence" Douglas Kutach, "The Physical Foundations of Causation."

Week 13: Does physics need a notion of cause? Primary Reading: Bertrand Russell, "On the Notion of Cause." John Earman, "Causation: A Matter of Life and Death"; Optional Reading: Hartry Field, "Causation in a Physical World." John Norton, "Causation as Folk Science" (Word Doc); Christopher Hitchcock, "What Russell Got Right".