{"agent_id":"lewis","agent_name":"David Lewis","slug":"counterfactual-analysis-of-causation","label":"Counterfactual analysis of causation: is C a cause of E just in case E counterfactually depends on C, perhaps through a chain of such dependencies?","topic":"Counterfactual analysis of causation","question":"Is C a cause of E just in case E counterfactually depends on C, perhaps through a chain of such dependencies?","position":"The basic case: C causes E when E counterfactually depends on C — that is, when had C not occurred, E would not have occurred either. Counterfactual dependence between distinct events is sufficient for causation between them in the simple case; the analysis extends to more complex cases by allowing chains of counterfactual dependence, so that C causes E whenever there is a sequence C, D₁, D₂, ..., E with each step a case of counterfactual dependence on its predecessor. The counterfactuals are evaluated by similarity-of-worlds in the system *Counterfactuals* (1973) provides, with the four-condition similarity metric of \"Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow\" (1979) keeping the asymmetry between past and future right — we hold the past mostly fixed, accept a small miracle at the time of antecedent realization, and minimize subsequent miracles. The 1973 chain-of-dependence form handles early pre-emption (the back-up assassin) cleanly; it struggles with late pre-emption (the wood-splitting case, the truck and the fragile vase) where the back-up process is cut off by the effect itself rather than before. In \"Causation as Influence\" (2000) I revised: C influences E if there is a pattern of counterfactual dependence relating substantial ranges of variations in how/when/whether C occurs to ranges of variations in how/when/whether E occurs, and causation is a chain of such influences. The influence formulation handles late pre-emption while preserving the counterfactual-dependence intuition that underwrote the 1973 analysis.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The basic case: C causes E when E counterfactually depends on C — that is, when had C not occurred, E would not have occurred either.","n":[]},{"t":"Counterfactual dependence between distinct events is sufficient for causation between them in the simple case; the analysis extends to more complex cases by allowing chains of counterfactual dependence, so that C causes E whenever there is a sequence C, D₁, D₂, ..., E with each step a case of counterfactual dependence on its predecessor.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"The counterfactuals are evaluated by similarity-of-worlds in the system *Counterfactuals* (1973) provides, with the four-condition similarity metric of \"Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow\" (1979) keeping the asymmetry between past and future right — we hold the past mostly fixed, accept a small miracle at the time of antecedent realization, and minimize subsequent miracles.","n":[3]}],[{"t":"The 1973 chain-of-dependence form handles early pre-emption (the back-up assassin) cleanly; it struggles with late pre-emption (the wood-splitting case, the truck and the fragile vase) where the back-up process is cut off by the effect itself rather than before.","n":[]},{"t":"In \"Causation as Influence\" (2000) I revised: C influences E if there is a pattern of counterfactual dependence relating substantial ranges of variations in how/when/whether C occurs to ranges of variations in how/when/whether E occurs, and causation is a chain of such influences.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The influence formulation handles late pre-emption while preserving the counterfactual-dependence intuition that underwrote the 1973 analysis.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"'Causation' (Journal of Philosophy 1973, reprinted in Philosophical Papers Vol II with postscripts) — the foundational 1973 statement; Counterfactuals (1973, Blackwell) for the underlying possible-worlds semantics for the counterfactual conditional and the similarity-of-worlds machinery; 'Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow' (Noûs 1979, reprinted in Phil Papers Vol II) for the four-condition system of similarity that keeps the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence right; 'Causation as Influence' (Journal of Philosophy 2000) for the late revision in response to late pre-emption cases. Reception: J. L. Mackie's The Cement of the Universe (1974) for the contemporaneous INUS-conditions alternative; Jonathan Bennett's A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals (2003) for the systematic comparison of theories of conditionals; Ned Hall's 'Two Concepts of Causation' (2004) and Causation and Counterfactuals (with John Collins and Laurie Paul, MIT 2004) for the contemporary state of the literature; Michael McDermott and Christopher Hitchcock on transitivity; Jonathan Schaffer on contrastive causation; Hartry Field's worry about pre-emption-by-omission; L. A. Paul and Ned Hall's Causation: A User's Guide (2013) as the standard textbook treatment.","works":["'Causation' (Journal of Philosophy 1973, reprinted in Philosophical Papers Vol II with postscripts) — the foundational 1973 statement","Counterfactuals (1973, Blackwell) for the underlying possible-worlds semantics for the counterfactual conditional and the similarity-of-worlds machinery","'Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow' (Noûs 1979, reprinted in Phil Papers Vol II) for the four-condition system of similarity that keeps the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence right","'Causation as Influence' (Journal of Philosophy 2000) for the late revision in response to late pre-emption cases"],"reception":"J. L. Mackie's The Cement of the Universe (1974) for the contemporaneous INUS-conditions alternative; Jonathan Bennett's A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals (2003) for the systematic comparison of theories of conditionals; Ned Hall's 'Two Concepts of Causation' (2004) and Causation and Counterfactuals (with John Collins and Laurie Paul, MIT 2004) for the contemporary state of the literature; Michael McDermott and Christopher Hitchcock on transitivity; Jonathan Schaffer on contrastive causation; Hartry Field's worry about pre-emption-by-omission; L. A. Paul and Ned Hall's Causation: A User's Guide (2013) as the standard textbook treatment.","status":"The most influential analysis of causation in late-twentieth- century analytic philosophy, organizing literature still generating new arguments today. The principal rivals are regularity theories (the contemporary descendants of Mackie's INUS-conditions analysis), process theories (Salmon, Dowe — causation as the transfer of a conserved quantity), interventionist theories (Woodward, Pearl — causation as what would happen under hypothetical interventions), and probabilistic theories. The pre- emption case literature (Hall, Schaffer, McDermott, Hitchcock, Hall-Paul) tests every analysis against the same set of standard examples — late pre-emption, trumping, symmetric overdetermination, causation by omission and double prevention. The 2000 \"Influence\" revision is the official late position; some of the literature treats the 1973 chain-of-dependence view as the canonical Lewis line and the influence view as a refinement under pressure.","era":"1941-2001","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Part 6: Causation","page":"pp. 206–207","canonical":"","quote":"As before, we must take an ancestral to ensure that causation will come out transitive; thereby providing not only for chains of stepwise dependence, but also for chains of stepwise quasi-dependence, or mixed chains. To this end we could redefine a *causal chain* as a sequence of two or more events, with either dependence or quasi- dependence at each step.","label":"Part 6: Causation, pp. 206–207"},{"n":2,"work":"Part 6: Causation","page":"pp. 171–172","canonical":"","quote":"Perhaps there are special reasons in special cases— but then these may be cases of backward causal dependence. PREEMPTION Suppose that c1 occurs and causes e; and that c2 also occurs and does not cause e, but would have caused *e* if *c↑* had been absent. Thus c2 is a potential alternate cause of *e,* but is preempted by the actual cause c1.","label":"Part 6: Causation, pp. 171–172"},{"n":3,"work":"Philosophical Papers Vol II","page":"pp. xii–xiii","canonical":"","quote":"See also Fred I. Dretske, \"Laws of Next, counterfactuals. I take them to be governed by similarity of worlds, according to the analysis given in \"Counterfactuals and Com parative Possibility,\" in this volume.","label":"Philosophical Papers Vol II, pp. xii–xiii"},{"n":4,"work":"Part 6: Causation","page":"p. 242","canonical":"","quote":"Therefore I shall not follow the popular strategy of approaching events by way of nominalisations. Events made in the image of nominalisations are right for some purposes, but not for mine. When I introduce nominalisations to denote events, as I shall, it will not be analysis of natural language but mere stipulative definition.","label":"Part 6: Causation, p. 242"},{"n":5,"work":"Part 6: Causation","page":"p. 206","canonical":"","quote":"Let us see where this one leads us. A process in a region may exhibit a pattern of counterfactual depen dence that makes it causal, according to my original analysis.","label":"Part 6: Causation, p. 206"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"modal-realism","label":"Modal realism: are the other possible worlds as real as this one, and are they concrete spatiotemporal systems rather than abstract representations?"},{"slug":"humean-supervenience","label":"Humean supervenience: does everything contingent supervene on the mosaic of local particular matters of fact?"},{"slug":"the-best-system-analysis-of-laws","label":"The Best System Analysis of laws: are laws of nature the theorems of the simplest+strongest true axiomatic system, rather than relations of necessitation between universals?"},{"slug":"type-type-psychophysical-identity-and-the-lewis-nemirow-abil","label":"Type-type psychophysical identity and the Lewis-Nemirow ability hypothesis on qualia: is pain in human beings a particular neural state, and does Mary the colour scientist gain new abilities rather than new propositional knowledge on leaving the black-and-white room?"},{"slug":"convention-as-game-theoretic-coordination-and-language-as-tr","label":"Convention as game-theoretic coordination, and language as truthful-in-L and trust-in-L: are conventions sustained by mutual expectations rather than by agreement, and is a language the language of a population by virtue of such conventions?"}]}