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Causation and Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

William Charlton
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Extract

From the way we speak it appears that we think changes do not merely come about but are brought about. Can we really think this? Have we any idea of the bringing or being brought about of a change distinct from our idea of its coming about? In the first part of this paper I shall try to describe some of the forms of causal thinking which are reflected in our ordinary causal judgments. In the second, having criticized two current analyses of the notion of change, I shall argue that to think of a change as something which comes about is to think of it as a causal explanandum, and to think of a change as a coming about of something is to think of it as a causal explanans.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1983

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