The aim of this book is to articulate and defend a theory of physical causation. However, before we can turn to that task there are some important metaphilosophical preliminaries. We begin in this chapter not by discussing theories of causation as such, or particular issues arising from discussions of such theories, but rather with the mataphilosophical question, what is the task of philosophy in setting out a theory of causation? As in the case with many philosophical questions, our question, “What is causation?” is ambiguous, and consequently the philosophy of causation legitimately involves at least two distinct tasks. In approaching the topic of causation we need to be clear about which task we are undertaking.

We begin by considering these two approaches to the task of philosophy. The first is conceptual – to elucidate our normal concept of causation. The second is empirical – to discover what causation is in the objective world. Clearly, it is important to be clear which task one is undertaking. In fact, we shall see that insufficient attention has been paid to this metaphilosophical question, as we examine recent cases where criticism of this or that theory of causation is misdirected simply because no attention has been paid to the relevant theorist's purpose in articulating the theory.

The project of this book is to develop an empirical analysis of causation.The task of this chapter is to reflect on the nature of that project.