Consider this theory, a modification of my causal power account of possibility:
- A proposition p is contingent provided that something has a power for p and something has a power for not-p.
It follows from this theory that every contingent true propositions has a causal explanation.
For suppose for reductio ad absurdum that p is contingently true and has no causal explanation. Let q be the conjunction of p with the claim that p has no causal explanation. Then q is true, and it is not necessarily true since p is not necessarily true, so q is contingent. It follows from our account of contingency that something has the power to ... bring q about (where the "..." is a possible chain of causal power claims). But that's absurd, since something that brings q about thereby also brings p about, and then p isn't bereft of causal explanation!
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I'm not seeing how the proof is supposed to go. My thought is that just because something has a power to bring about p, doesn't mean that it exercised that power. What is wrong with the conjunction of (a) p, (b) something has a power to bring about p, (c) something has a power to bring about not-p, and (d) nothing exercised its power to bring about p. Then by (a) p is true, by (b) and (c) it is contingent on your definition, but by (d) it has no causal explanation.
Yeah, but if it has that power, then it *can* exercise it.
As for your case, apply the account not to p, but to q: "p and p has no causal explanation".
Dr. Pruss,
Clearly in supposing p is contingent, q is contingent. But your say that your account of contingency means that q has a causal explanation. If so, are you not begging the question that p has an explanation simply by stipulating a definition of "contingent" that entails some sort of causal-power explanation?
Best,
Daniel
Questions of begging the question are tricky. Of course, like in any valid argument, the premises imply the conclusion. But notice that I don't say in the account of contingency that p has a causal explanation, only that *something* has the power to cause (a chain causing) p to be true. Prima facie (but not ultima facie) that's compatible with nothing actually causing p to be true.
Let's define a "holding back" as something with a power to prevent x from exercising its power that not p.
q is "p and p has no causal explanation".
Then a "holding back" for p can be one of the explanations for q.
So, because of the "holding back" causal explanation factor for q, "p and p has no causal explanation."
Of course, this is also compatible with the proposition
"(not p) and p has no causal explanation"
also. But you stipulated p as true already.
But if something explains a conjunction, it explains each conjunct. So the holding back will explain p, too.
I think the holding back explains only the proposition below without or prior to the stipulation that p is true:
( p and p has no causal explanation ) OR ( (not p) and p has no causal explanation )
and then since you stipulated p is true, it explains p, because of the stipulation otherwise not.
It confuses me, but I think maybe this means a universe where the above definition of contingency holds, everything has a causal explanation AFTER the fact, but there can be no causal necessity for something like
( p will be true and p has no causal explanation until it is true )
to allow valid predictions before the fact is stipulated.
Dr. Pruss,
Would you say that there is a valid argument from contingency that does not depend on the existence of the exterior world (anything other than the subject reflecting on the argument)?
Well, given that it's plausible that the subject is contingent, that's enough, no?
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