Lexicon of Arguments

 

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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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V 326
Backtracking: E.g. of concluding various causes from different effects.
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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.
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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. >Counterfactual dependence
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I 141
Counterfactual dependence: exists also between the how, when and where of the action.