Can Causal Powers Cause Their Effects?

Abstract

Causal Dispositionalism provides an account of causation based on an ontology of causal powers, properties with causal essence. According to the account, causation can be analysed in terms of the interaction of powers and its subsequent production of their effect. Recently, Baltimore, J. A. (2022. “Dispositionalism, Causation, and the Interaction Gap.” Erkenntnis 87: 677–92) has raised a challenge against two competing approaches, the compositional view (CV) and the mutual manifestation view (MMV), to explain what makes powers interactive – the interaction gap. In this paper, we raise the challenge of explaining what makes powers productive – the production gap. While Baltimore’s verdict is tentatively favouring (MMV), we find both approaches wanting. Our conclusion is that Causal Dispositionalists should take Baltimore’s and our critique seriously. Powers cannot cause their effects just by bearing the name “causal”. To deserve their names, more metaphysical details are needed.

Dispositions, Virtues, and Indian Ethics

“…On the other hand, the Sāṃkhya school propounds, in its satkārya‐vāda theory of causation, that manifestations preexist in the dispositions (see again Section 3). This disagreement neatly maps onto the current debates about the disposition‐based theories of causation and between what is dubbed the mutual manifestation model and the contributions model (see Baltimore 2020; Raimondi 2022). We might expect the two schools to disagree over the manifestation of virtues being a single affair—where one can instantiate a virtue independently of other virtues—or a plural affair—where virtues must be instantiated in concert, if at all.…”

“…Similarly, Dharmakīrti argues that smoke, as an effect, depends ontologically on the potency of fire; the cause has a nature to produce the effect, and the “indispensability of effect with respect to cause is due to the former's arising from the latter” (Gillon 2009, 203). What the discussions in the Sāṃkhya Kārikā and in the Pramānavārttika have in common is, therefore, the idea that a single potency contributes causally with a single manifestation, or contribution to a causal outcome (see Raimondi 2022; Baltimore 2020).…”