Philosophy Lexicon of Arguments

Author Item Excerpt Meta data
Lewis, David
Books on Amazon
Causes V 159
Cause/Lewis: nowadays: cause can only be an indispensable part of something. - Never a whole. - A set of law propositions and a set of fact propositions must imply C>E together. - Where E is the proposition that e exists and C that c exists. - ((s) these are general statements.)
V 167
Cause/Lewis: an event is the cause of another if there is a causal chain that leads from one to another. - Causal chain: we get it when we make a causal dependency (which is not actually transitive) transitive.
V 191f
Cause/omission/Lewis: omission can be a cause. - For that we need a different kind of counterfactual conditionals - Sleep would also be an event in this case. - Difference: a) to assume an event as not given - b) thinking it away qua omission.
V 201f
Prevention/Cause/Lewis: problem: how can a preavious prevention be a cause? - (For the omission) - Solution: intermediate event between too early and too late. - So we distinguish the real cause from the prevented alternative - late prevention: is more difficult. - The prevention must come after the last alternative. - Lewis: That is not the way we see possible worlds - Better: common sense.
V 326
Backtracking: E.g. of concluding various causes from different effects.
Schwarz I 139
Cause/causing/Armstrong: Absence is not a real cause. - LewisVsArmstrong: yes it is, but just so common that it is ignored. - Problem: in vacuum countless absences.
I 140
Solution/Lewis: Absences are nothing, because there is nothing - problem: if absence were merely an empty time-space region, why is there oxygen without it and not nitrogen? -> Solution/Lewis: Impact, slight increase in probability.
I 141
Counterfactual dependence between the how, when and where of the action.

D. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

D. Lewis
Konventionen Berlin 1975

D. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

D. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

LwCl I
Cl. I. Lewis

Schw I
W. Schwarz
David Lewis Bielefeld 2005

> Counter arguments against Lewis
> Counter arguments in relation to Causes

Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2017-03-29