The Metaphysician's Debate on Causation

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Theories of causes and effects involve counterfactuals, says philosopher. Theory suggests spooky essences of some sort, which I'm against in principle. But the thinnest answer is that you might have particular instances of like one-off correlations or small correlations but the causes are like the big global correlations. There are some counterfactual facts that are grounding or making true the causal claims of this world.

Is metaphysics like physics, but cooler? Or is it a relic of an outdated, pre-empirical way of thinking about the world? Closer to the former than the latter. Rather than building specific quantitative theories about the world, metaphysics aims to get a handle on the basic logical structures that help us think about it. I talk with philosopher Katie Elliott on how metaphysics helps us think about questions like counterfactuals, possible worlds, time travel, mathematical equivalence, and whether everything happens for a reason.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/24/244-katie-elliott-on-metaphysics-chance-and-time/

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Katrina (Katie) Elliott received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After being an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA, she is now on the faculty at Brandeis. Her research covers topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of science, including explanation, chances, and the logic of time travel.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.