Category Archives: Causation

The Principle of Disjunctive Causation and Libertarian Free Will

Posted on October 1, 2013 by tylerjourneaux

So one of the problems advanced against libertarian accounts of free will is that while perhaps Suzy’s doing A for some set of reasons R, given the choice between A and B, may be explained, it isn’t explained why Suzy … Continue reading →

Posted in Causation, Free Will, Philosophy | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Humean Conjunctions

Posted on September 29, 2013 by tylerjourneaux

Suppose that the Humean is right that cause is merely regular conjunction. We never observe B without observing A, so we say that A causes B. However, why the ordering of A and B? If there is no objective A-theoretic … Continue reading →

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Efficient causes from the future, and Teleological causes

Posted on January 28, 2013 by tylerjourneaux

A short thought: I think that efficient causes are sometimes misunderstood by modern thinkers to be identified with the kind of causation which early modern thinkers bequeathed to us, though they got rid of Aristotle’s other three kinds (Formal, Material, … Continue reading →

Posted in Causation, Metaphysics, Philosophy | 9 Comments

Self-organizing emergent properties?

Posted on September 30, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

Michael Shermer has said, in an otherwise uninteresting debate, during the question and answer period, that: “there are self-organizing emergent properties within the Cosmos, and Evolution is one of them.” This he said in response to the question: “is our existence an … Continue reading →

Posted in Apologetics, Causation, Philosophy | Tagged | Leave a comment

Is Eternal Motion possible?

Posted on September 12, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

Thomas Aquinas’ first way begins as follows: The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion … Continue reading →

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The world is a morally significant causal plenum

Posted on July 14, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

Supposing that the world is not a causal plenum, one might imagine that this or that cause does not have an infinite set of effects [alternatively: that the effect is not infinite] on the world. Thus Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle should not be … Continue reading →

Posted in Apologetics, Causation, Ethics, Free Will, Molinism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Time, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Counterfactuals and Humean causation

Posted on June 27, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

J.P. Moreland writes: “Causal necessitation grounds the derivation of counterfactuals” [J. P. Moreland, The Argument from Consciousness in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, p.293] It occurred to me that counterfactuals cannot be straightforwardly true or false according to a … Continue reading →

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Phenomenalism, Time Travel, and memories

Posted on June 4, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

On the B theory of time, every moment in time is phenomenally experienced as ‘now’ by reason not of some objective fact about tense, but by reason of the nature of our-selves. For example, Leibniz would say that the monad … Continue reading →

Posted in Causation, Philosophy, Philosophy of Time | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Dembski and Causality

Posted on May 3, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

William Dembski, in other respects an incredibly brilliant leader of the Intelligent Design movement (sporting a Ph.D. Mathematics and another in Philosophy), has proposed an intriguing solution to the problem of natural evil. Natural evil here is distinguished from moral … Continue reading →

Posted in Apologetics, Causation, Theodicy | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

One way Determinism and Humean ‘causation’

Posted on May 2, 2012 by tylerjourneaux

Hume’s famous attack on causation, making it out to be nothing more than an idea formed from the observation of constant conjunction, seems to undercut models of one-way determinism. Determinism says that from any earlier state and the laws, the … Continue reading →

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