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Causality and Conserved Quantities: A Reply to Salmon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Phil Dowe
Phil Dowe*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Tasmania
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Abstract

In a recent paper (1994) Wesley Salmon has replied to criticisms (e.g., Dowe 1992c, Kitcher 1989) of his (1984) theory of causality, and has offered a revised theory which, he argues, is not open to those criticisms. The key change concerns the characterization of causal processes, where Salmon has traded “the capacity for mark transmission” for “the transmission of an invariant quantity.” Salmon argues against the view presented in Dowe (1992c), namely that the concept of “possession of a conserved quantity” is sufficient to account for the difference between causal and pseudo processes. Here that view is defended, and important questions are raised about the notion of transmission and about gerrymandered aggregates.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 321 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Huw Price and an anonymous referee of this journal for comments on a draft version of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests and correspondence to the author, Department of Philosophy, The University of Tasmania GPO Box 252C, Hobart 7001 Australia.

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