Start with these plausible claims:
If x causes y, the causal relation between x and y is not posterior to the existence of y.
A relation between two entities is never prior to the existence of either entity.
So, the causal relation between x and y is neither prior nor posterior to the existence of y.
But the causal relation is, obviously, intimately tied to the existence of y. What is this tie? The best answer I know is that the causal relation is the existence of y or an aspect of that existence: for y to exist is at least in part for y to have been caused by x.
18 comments:
I don't think 2 is plausible at all, unless the causation is a purely random event. If x intentionally causes y, then there is an intention for y to exist and this intention does exist prior to the existence of y.
It seems to me that if there is relation between x and y, then y has a property of being in some relation. But if something has any property, than it surely exists. So if there is relation between two entities, then both entities exist.
Y doesn't have the property of being in a relation until y exist, but x does have the property of being in a relation prior to y's existence.
Walter, was there some moment when Shakespeare was the author of Hamlet but Hamlet had not been written? Suppose Shakespeare had died at that moment. Would we then say that Shakespeare was the author of Hamlet, even though Hamlet was never written?
Do you think that "existence of y" refers to some entity? Last part of your post seems to indicate that. I would take claim 1 to be just another way of saying 'If x causes y, then there is not a moment in time such that y exists and the causal relation between x and y does not exist. In this way or similar the phrase "existence of ___" can be useful in communication, even if a person doesn't really believe it refers to something. If you think that "existence of y" actually refers to something, do you think that a person who doesn't believe it, and interprets the phrase in claim 1 in the sense I described and believes that in that sense this is true, genuinely agrees with you? Do you think that it is possible for a person who doesn't believe in this reference, to agree with claim 1 as you meant it?
SMatthewStolte
Yes, of course there was such moment. Shakespeare had Hamlet in mond before he wrote it. What 'we'wpuld say doesn't matter. Je may not have written Hamlet, but he thought about it
Chmiel
'A moment in time' implies that causation cannot be simultaneous.
I interpret prior as logically prior but not necessarily temporally prior.
Sometimes causation is via a process. While Vesuvius was the cause of the destruction of Pompeii, there was a point in time when Vesuvius had erupted toward Pompeii's destruction but Pompeii was not yet destroyed. Here the cause and the relation do precede the thing caused, because the cause has a duration.
There are also causes without durations, such as my getting an item from you causing you having given me that item, and those can happen simultaneously with the start of the thing caused, because, for example in the above case, they are logical causes that do not have a duration.
I think 2 might depend on the ontology of relations endorsed. If you think of relations as polyadic properties holding between particulars in states of affairs - e.g., the state of affairs "Tom's being as tall as Frank" includes the particulars Tom and Frank and the property "being as tall as" - then I definitely feel the pull of 2. The state of affairs "Tom's being as tall as Frank" needs Tom and Frank to obtain and, if relations are polyadic properties contained in states of affairs, then a relation holding between particulars just is its being in the relevant state of affairs.
However, you could hold that relations are properties possessed by individual substances - e.g., the proposition "Tom is as tall as Frank" is made true by Tom and his property "being as tall as" and Frank and his property "being as tall as." In which case, you open yourself up to the possibility of their being what Aquinas called "mixed relations" - namely, a case where only one substance has the relational property. Aquinas' example of a mixed relation is knowledge. If Tom knows Frank, then Tom has the property "knows," but Frank does not have a corresponding "being known" property.
I think there might be space for denying 2 if we believe in mixed relations. Here is the best example I have off the top of my head: assume a view about time where the future doesn't exist (presentism, growing block theory, etc.), now you have a prophet in the present who knows about an individual in the future who does not exist in the present. In this case, the prophet knows the future individual, the prophet has the relevant relational property (namely, "knows"), and the future individual doesn't exist. Since the prophet has the relational property, I think we can say the relation "holds" between the prophet and the future individual even though the future individual doesn't exist.
Does this account imply that contingent things require sustaining causes? It seems that if x's existence consists in x's being caused by y, then we ought to say that x is caused by y for as long as it exists.
Bracketing the difficult case of divine creation, normally when one intentionally causes something, the thing one causes doesn't enter _de re_ into one's intention. Parents engaging in procreation may intend to have *a* child, but do not intend to have *that* specific child.
Michael:
I think the prophet example is reason to deny the conjunction of the claims: (a) the future doesn't exist, and (b) it is possible to know future individuals.
But then at least the thing the parents cause partially enters into their intentions. Unless they did not really intend to have a child.
Alex:
There might be other relevant knowledge examples. For example, can we know impossible objects/impossible kinds? Can we know merely possible individuals/kinds?
I can imagine different ways of avoiding these concerns, but I am curious about your thoughts.
What I am unclear on is, for either claim 1 or 2, what senses of causal relation and prority/posteriori are being used: ontological, logical or temporal. This is not helped by dropping the word causal in 2.
Claim 2 seems inescapable if we use the logical sense of both, but not claim 1. Claim 1 seems clear if we are talking ontologically of both, such that the causal relation is the causal act itself and the priority is about direction of existential dependence, but claim 2 is then not intuitive. Other combinations of connotation can be imagined. So, I am not sure the apparent paradox that purportedly excludes both priority and posteriority is real, as opposed to verbal (due to ambiguity).
Edit: I am pretty sure I typed posteriority in the first sentence but my phone decided to "autocorrect", apparently. Indeed, I just had to force it to accept autocorrect instead of autocorrelation!
I was thinking about explanatory priority.
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