A Note on Events and Causation

Presently I’m reading GettingCauses From Powers by Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum (and have finished six chapters out of ten).  I expect to blog more about this book, of which I think very highly.  I just wanted to very briefly comment on events, inspired by the treatment they are getting so far in the book.

Years ago, influenced by reading (later) Russell and Whitehead, I acquired the notion that (all else equal) there is an attraction to an ontology which gave a leading role to events rather than one primarily featuring substances (or objects) and their properties.  There seemed to be more potential for explaining the dynamic aspects of nature (including mind).

But while there has been an active modern debate on the nature of events, the most common depictions don’t seem to offer specific advantages to an event-focused ontology.  To greatly simplify, it seems philosophers would model events either as property exemplifications, in which case they are in danger of seeming much like static facts or states of affairs; or else events would be associated with spacetime locations, in which case they are little distinguished from objects, which are the quintessential occupiers of spacetime.  (The SEP article on events is here; an IEP article with additional focus on the theories of Kim, Davidson, and Lewis is here).  These sorts of models of events don’t seem to bring differentiated resources to metaphysical theorizing.

The goal of the Getting Causes From Powers book is to develop a theory of causation based on dispositional properties, or powers.  While powers play the leading role, their theory incorporates an intriguing view of events (at least causal events:  they don’t take a position on whether there are other sorts).  Specifically, causal events, which are manifestations of powers, are temporally extended processes.  The authors reject as misguided the typical “two-event” conception of causation, where cause is temporally prior to effect, in part because no one has a compelling account of how you get from one to the other.  Rather causes and effects are simultaneous – they are two aspects of a process which brings about a change.  Very Whiteheadian!

Do We Need Essences?

I’ve just been starting to read and think more about essences, in particular the debate which has followed Kit Fine’s argument in “Essence and Modality” (1993) that essences cannot be understood in modal terms.  The modal understanding is that an essential property of an object is one is must have of necessity (in order to be that object), while properties it can (possibly) do without are accidental.  Fine, on his way to advocating a definitional notion of essence, said the modal understanding was too broad:  an object may have certain necessary attributes which are intuitively not essential.  In the paper, he offered some examples intended to bolster this point.

Now I’ve read a few papers which take issue with Fine’s argument. In particular, one line of protest, due to Michael Della Rocca, notes that Fine’s examples are of necessities which seem trivially true of all objects or existents, and the modal understanding of essence can be recast by a focus on non-trivial necessary properties.

For present purposes, though, I want to concede that there is an intuitive sense that essence seems prior to its modal understanding (even if the latter turns out to be extensionally equivalent):  when I try to think of what properties are necessary to an object I seem to be appealing to some non-modal definition I have in mind.

But do we really want to add essences as irreducible elements in our ontology? While I’m attracted to some Aristotelian or neo-Aristotelian notions (such as causal powers), my inner Occam wants to resist essences.

One clue to a way to think about this dilemma occurred to me while reading Michael Gorman’s paper, “The Essential and the Accidental”.  Gorman highlights one of the passages about the nature of essential properties discussed by Fine in another paper (“Senses of Essence”, which I have not read):  “An essential property of an object is a constitutive part of the essence of that object if it is not had in virtue of being a consequence of some more basic essential properties of the object; and otherwise it is a consequential part of the essence.”  Perhaps this constitutive subset should be the real target of our idea of essence.

While Fine’s idea of distinguishing consequential properties from constitutive properties is one of logical consequence, Gorman takes this as an inspiration to develop an account of essence that depends on the notion of explanation. Perhaps the essential properties of an object are those which cannot be explained by appeal to other characteristics (while accidental properties are those that can be so explained).  The paper elucidates this argument and considers possible objections.  This view is distinct from the modal understanding because it can accomodate necessary but non-essential properties.

For myself, being in a very preliminary stage of studying these issues, I reserve my opinion about Gorman’s particular strategy, but am led to a desire to link essences to some other metaphysical problem, such as causation (which is obviously related to explanation).  By the time we conceive of an object, we already have in mind something which has been caused and has its own causal powers.  And we already know (I believe) that modality alone, say a mosaic of categorical properties distributed across possible worlds as in David Lewis, doesn’t provide a theory of causation.  So, it shouldn’t be a surprise if there is a problem with defining essence solely in modal terms if essence relates to causation.   I’ll try to see what’s been written along these lines.

UPDATE: 20 November 2011:
Kathrin Koslicki has posted a preprint of a chapter for a forthcoming book called "Essence, necessity, and explanation" which fleshes out a discussion similar to Gorman's.  She uses an analysis of Aristotelian notions of explanation, including cause, to account for how necessary but not essential properties follow from constitutive essential ones.  However, the scheme here is that essence is basic and prior to cause (I was wondering if there was a way to reverse this priority.)

Philosophy for Children Forum: 29 October

Coming up very soon is the next event on this year’s GPPC program: our Public Issues Forum. The topic this year is Philosophy for Children. The date is Saturday October 29th, 1pm, at the University of Pennsylvania. The event is free and open to the public.

Dispositional Modality as Restricted Possibility

I’ve been interested in the metaphysics of dispositional properties (or powers), and I’ve ordered Getting Causes from Powers, a new book from Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum. I look forward to reading this later in the fall, but it the meantime I have read a couple of related papers by the authors (see an earlier post here).

In “Dispositional Modality” Anjum and Mumford argue that the modal value of dispositions is distinct from necessity and possibility: it is described as “sui generis” and “irreducible”. What I thought was interesting, though, is that the authors themselves include a nice account of dispositional modality in terms of restricted possibility, which seemed to me had the flavor of a reduction.

I’ll pass over the first several sections of the paper, which covered some familiar ground: the fundamental disagreement with Hume about powers; the failure of the semantic reduction of dispositional ascriptions to conditionals; and the fact that dispositions, by their nature, clearly do not necessitate their manifestations (they are disposed toward, or tend toward their manifestations).

So, dispositional modality is distinct from necessity, but what about possibility? In section 5, Anjum and Mumford argue that dispositional modality is also distinct from possibility, in the sense that it is different from “pure” possibility. By pure possibility, the authors mean the broadest sort of logical or metaphysical possibility. A glass vase is disposed to shatter when dropped. One might suppose it is logically possible that the vase will turn to jelly when dropped, but it is clearly not disposed to do so – at least in our world.

The authors say we might think of dispositional modality as a subclass or restricted version of possibility. But this is already a familiar idea. Modal theorists talk about various nested classes of possibility: logical possibility (typically the broadest notion), various formulations of metaphysical possibility, and nomological possibility -- the subclass which holds the laws of nature fixed (some philosophers would identify one or more of these). Anjum and Mumford see dispositions as giving rise to “natural” possibility: “The reason some things are naturally possible is because there are dispositions for them.”

The authors don’t elaborate greatly on this point, but it seems as if natural possibility is the set of all the possibilities inherent in the dispositions contained in the state of the natural world at a given time. Building on this idea: when it comes to individual natural objects or systems, in saying they possess dispositional properties (or powers), we might equally well say they possess a certain restricted bundle of possibilities. Then we might turn to a discussion of how causation is explained in terms of the “actualization” of some of these possibilities (compare the “manifestation” of a disposition), perhaps depending on how a system interacts with other systems which similarly bear possibilities.

If one can retell the story of dispositions with restricted sets of possibilities, might this be a reductive analysis? It’s not completely clear to me, because one might say the introduction of restricted sets of possibility of the type needed is an irreducible extension of our notions of modality. And perhaps the idea of an object bearing a set of possibilities, rather than bearing properties, isn’t coherent (but maybe the terminology can be worked out). In any case, this paper’s comparison of dispositional modality to the idea of restricted possibility was very thought-provoking.

Aaronson on QM and Free Will

One thing that has frustrated me in the past is the fact that folks tend to think indeterministic means “just random”, where by random they mean some stochastic process (like a dice roll) where one can’t predict which outcome will be chosen from some probability distribution. Quantum indeterminism doesn’t work this way, but it’s a difficult subject and experts don’t agree on exactly how to characterize it. It seems clear one cannot simply use a “frequency" interpretation, the way you can with a classical stochastic system. There seems to be something more involved, something spontaneous which resists reduction, but I have a hard time being more precise about this.

Computation theorist Scott Aaronson (home page, blog) recently gave a presentation on free will (at an FQXi conference) which was very thought-provoking (see this Sciam piece with helpful links), and had an interesting take on this issue.

GPPC 2011-2012 Program

Lots of good Philly-area philosophy coming up!

The GPPC website has the updated program information for 2011-2012. The site also has other news, including this year's discussion groups and other lectures at the member schools which are open to the public. I'm also anticipating that, like last year, there will be further GPPC-sponsored events added to the calendar as we move forward.

Coming up soon (Saturday 1st October) is the "Bertrand Russell in Pennsylvania" event at Ursinus College. Three speakers will give talks inspired by the time Russell spent living west of Philadelphia in the early 1940's.

Priority of Actual over Potential in Aristotle

Aquinas follows Aristotle in utilizing the interplay of potentiality and actuality to explain substance and change. And the idea that the actual is prior to the potential, which I got a bit hung up on when reading Edward Feser’s book Aquinas, is from Aristotle as well.

The relevant discussion appears in book Θ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics; a summary is included in Marc Cohen’s SEP article (section 12).

First, Actuality is prior in sense of logos (account or definition), because we cite the actuality or actualities in describing a potential (something is fragile because it is capable of being broken). I think this is a good point, as it relates to everyday examples we can describe. However, if you think there is novelty in the world, then latent potentials exist which we cannot so define. A novel actuality may very well be described after the fact in terms of potentials which were previously unknown.

Next, Aristotle also views the actual as prior in a temporal sense: while an acorn’s potential to be a tree is prior to its actually becoming one, actual adult trees had to exist beforehand. This seems like a chicken and egg situation.

Finally, Aristotle argues that the actual is prior “in substance” because the actuality is the end or telos, and the potentiality exists for the sake of the end – actuality is the final cause of the potential.

An added argument is that Aristotle looks at the bigger picture and sees that potentials may or may not be fulfilled, therefore they are perishable. On the other hand, something eternal would have to be imperishable, hence actual. Since the eternal can exist without the perishable, but not conversely, this is another way to see that the actual is prior in substance. Just to be devil’s advocate here, though, I can easily conceive of eternal potentials: if potentiality is truly a mode of being.

These points about the priority and eternal nature of actuality lead us into the territory of the unmoved mover being seen as pure Act, utilized by Aquinas in arguments for God. I have been entertaining the different idea that if there is an ultimate being it should encompass both (infinite) potential and the power to act. But we’ll see how this holds up with further reading.

Thoughts on Edward Feser’s Aquinas

I recently read Aquinas, by Edward Feser (home page, blog). I would recommend the book; it is an excellent introduction to the thought of Aquinas (it deals with his philosophy – it is not a biography of his life and times, nor does it cover all the theology). It is very accessible to the non-expert, but is best suited for those with some background knowledge of philosophy. In about 200 well written pages, Feser both presents and advocates for Thomist positions through 4 chapters devoted respectively to metaphysics, natural theology, psychology, and ethics.

I think Feser‘s greatest success is in his arguments for a re-consideration of Aquinas’ Aristotelian metaphysical ideas, especially with regard to causation, but also with regard to an ontology of potency and action, and hylomorphic (form/matter) dualism.

My main criticism is that while Feser’s assumed role as Aquinas’ champion is usually a benefit to the reader, as Aquinas is presented in most sympathetic light, he is inclined to insist that all of Aquinas' ideas are equally meritorious. In some cases this leads him to present arguments which seem to go beyond what would have occurred to Thomas himself.

But, with plenty of references for further reading, Feser has given the reader a roadmap for further study to follow onto his fine introduction.

Below are somewhat scattershot notes and comments I made while reading the book. To briefly summarize my own views: I'm attracted to some of the metaphysical elements of Aquinas/Aristotle as they relate to causation and mind, and I'm even sympathetic to some of the cosmological arguments. On the other hand, I was unconvinced by significant parts of the Thomist package, including arguments by analogy for some of the divine attributes, God's nature as pure act and his separateness from matter, and the special nature of the human soul.

Composing the Mind

William Seager, of the University of Toronto, has written a number of interesting papers over the years on the mind, with panpsychism and emergence/reduction included as frequent topics. I’m grateful for his contributions on panpsychism, which remains a neglected option in philosophy of mind.

Causal Regularity is not Universal but Rare

The picture of our universe as a machine governed by deterministic laws is hard to shake. Physics has profoundly undermined this vision of course, but even before this was known, it is a bit surprising that philosophers and scientists were inspired by everyday macroscopic experience to form such a conception. Was Hume so talented at billiards that he experienced constant conjunction? I can’t come close! Certainly to build and maintain a machine which achieves any determined outcome with regularity takes a lot of human effort.

This last point was made by philosopher John Dupré in a 1995 paper called “A Solution to the Problem of the Freedom of the Will” (hat tip: tweet by Rani Lill Anjum). This paper has a number of thought-provoking insights: contrary to the title, it’s doesn’t put forth a full theory of free will, but argues that the way the world works makes human autonomy unsurprising. (Dupré, a philosopher of biology among other research interests, took part in an interesting debate regarding reduction and emergence on Philosophy TV here). Most assume the world is governed by global microphysical laws, such that autonomy would require an exception to these laws. Dupré argues that we actually have no reason to think the world is governed by such globally applicable laws. Using his terminology, the world is far from causally complete.