Vol. 31 No. 1 (2011)
Articles

La preservación de la tesis de la localidad para los casos de doble prevención en la crítica de Ned Hall al análisis contrafactual

Pablo Melogno
Universidad de La República

Published 2011-05-01

Keywords

  • Causación,
  • Contrafácticos,
  • Doble prevención,
  • Localidad
  • Causation,
  • Counterfactuals,
  • Doble prevention,
  • Locality

Abstract

This paper discusses one of the objections made by N. Hall to D. Lewis's counterfactual analysis. According to Hall, the attempts to strengthen the counterfactual analysis are supported by the acceptance of transitivity, locality and intrinsic nature of causal relationships. This is problematic, as the concept of double prevention demonstrates the tensions existing among these three theses and the concept of dependence which is central in Lewis's analysis.

By studying one of the examples given by Hall, we can sustain that his criticism to counterfactual analysis partially fulfills its goal in reference to locality, taking into account that only one of the causal structures exposed by Hall accept dependence but not locality and is not a typical example of double prevention. Finally we suggest the name of early double prevention for those cases that accept the dependency but not the locality, and late double prevention for those accepting both theses.

References

  1. Hall, N. (2004), “Two concepts of causation” en Collins, J., Hall, N. y Pual, L.A. (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals, Cambridge-London, The MIT Press, pp. 225-276.
  2. Hellings, S. J. (1969), Radar: principios generales y aplicaciones, Madrid, Paraninfo.
  3. Lewis, D. (1973), “Causation”, Journal of Philosophy, 70, pp. 556-567.
  4. Lewis, D. (1986), “Postcripts to ‘causation’”, Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 172-212.
  5. Lewis, D. (2004), “Causation as Influence”, en Collins, J., Hall, N. y Pual, L.A. (eds), Causation and Counterfactuals, Cambridge-London, The MIT Press, pp. 75-106.