Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Analytic Philosophy
- Section One Language, Mind, Epistemology
- Section Two Logic, Metaphysics, Science
- 10 Logic in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
- 11 (Re)discovering Ground
- 12 Lewis’s Theories of Causation and Their Influence
- 13 Naturalism from the Mid-Twentieth Century to the Present
- 14 The History of Philosophy of Science
- 15 A Modern Synthesis of Philosophy and Biology
- Section Three Analytic Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy
- Section Four Analytic Aesthetics and Philosophy of Religion
- Part II Continental Philosophy
- Part III Bridge Builders, Border Crossers, Synthesizers, and Comparative Philosophy
- Part IV Epilogue: On the Philosophy of the History of Philosophy
- References
- Index
12 - Lewis’s Theories of Causation and Their Influence
from Section Two - Logic, Metaphysics, Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2019
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Analytic Philosophy
- Section One Language, Mind, Epistemology
- Section Two Logic, Metaphysics, Science
- 10 Logic in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
- 11 (Re)discovering Ground
- 12 Lewis’s Theories of Causation and Their Influence
- 13 Naturalism from the Mid-Twentieth Century to the Present
- 14 The History of Philosophy of Science
- 15 A Modern Synthesis of Philosophy and Biology
- Section Three Analytic Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy
- Section Four Analytic Aesthetics and Philosophy of Religion
- Part II Continental Philosophy
- Part III Bridge Builders, Border Crossers, Synthesizers, and Comparative Philosophy
- Part IV Epilogue: On the Philosophy of the History of Philosophy
- References
- Index
Summary
David Lewis’s metaphysics of causation set the stage for many contemporary approaches to the topic and laid the groundwork for debates on related dependent philosophical concepts, including interventionist theories of causation, causal modeling, grounding, and the role of laws in metaphysics. This chapter will give an overview of Lewis’s work on causation, and trace the influence of his approach through recent developments in the metaphysics of causation. First I will give a summary of Lewis’s views on causation, as well as various well-known challenges they faced. Next I will summarize the attempts to respond to these problems that dominated the causation literature for many years after his early work. Then I will give an overview of the myriad and widespread topics that share an ancestor in Lewis’s theories of causation. Finally, I will examine the influence of his approach on present-day “hot topics” in metaphysics.
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- The Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945–2015 , pp. 160 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019