In ethics and the philosophy of mind, there is a notion called supervenience. Basically, this is a way to try to get around the problem in the last post: if something is entirely determined by something else, how does it exist? The epiphenomenalist in philosophy of mind would say that there are mental events, but these events a) are completely and regularly correlated to physical events, and b) have no causal power of their own. So, if physical state P1 gives rise to mental state M1, and P2 to M2, then if P1 causes P2, M2 will follow M1. However, M1 does not cause M2, and in some versions P1 and P2 do not cause their respective mental states; in any case, though, the existence of P1 would guarantee the existence of M1.
I'm not the biggest fan of this application to mind (indeed, in a moment I will try to reverse it), but I think that there is a logical structure here which would be helpful. In order to bring it out, let me call attention to Scotus' notion of accidental and essential causes. If A, B, and C, are in a chain of accidental causes, then A causes B and B causes C, but B's causing C is independent of A. So, a grandfather might beget a father, and the father a son, and the father's begetting of the son can take place even if the grandfather were dead.
Essential causation, however, is transitive. If I hit a ball with a bat, we can both say that I hit the ball and also that the bat hit the ball while I swung the bat. Also, due to this feature, all the members of an essential chain of causation are simultaneous.
This appears then to be a good way of parsing out the notion of hierarchical levels of reality, within submitting on to an other. Let us take causal classes C(n), where for every member x,y in C(n) for a given n, x and y can causally interact (they have accidental causation). Further, for x in C(n) and y in C(n+1), x can be a member of an essential chain of causation with y (we could expand this to y from C(m) where m > n), though the two do not interact in the typical fashion. This would seem to explain the supervenience relation: we have two types of causation which hierarchically relate to each other. Unlike supervenience, mental events would interact with each other if they are in the same causal category, but as that appears to be the most unattractive part of epiphenomenalism, I don't see the problem.
Finally, we could say that if x from C(n), y from C(m), and z from C(o) (where o < m < n) are in a causal chain, then it is an essential chain in which it could be said that y causes z and that x causes z. This is not in supervenience theories, but it seems inescapable if supervenience were to apply to multiple levels of reality.
So, we could say that God is in C(0) by himself. Everything that occurs in any other layer of causation is due to God, and so we can say that God is more real than creation. There is a fundamental difference between God's causative actions and ours. However, I do not see that this must entail that God's actions completely determine ours; I'm still working on what both the affirmation and negation of this would entail. We could place agents on C(1), and finally non-volitional aspects of creation of C(2) (of course, this could be modified as need be; maybe animals do not qualify as agents, but still have a level of causative reality higher than plants). Therefore, it could be said that God causes everything. It could also be said that minds cause everything (where "mind" refers to God and the non-divine agents). It, finally, could also be said that there is causation in the physical world.
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You write:>> Therefore, it could be said that God causes everything. It could also be said that minds cause everything (where "mind" refers to God and the non-divine agents). It, finally, could also be said that there is causation in the physical world.
This sounds perfect, if you can pull it off. :)
I need to read your post a few more times to grasp what you're saying exactly. But I do want to comment that supervenience *is* characterized as a causal relationship in both metaethics and philosophy of mind by some thinkers (Audi is an example in metaethics, and I've never actually heard of someone deny that the relationship between physical and corresponding mental states is not a causal relationship according to epiphenomenalism).
Ok, I've changed that on the post now. I actually am more familiar with it in phil. of mind (read: I may have skimmed over a couple metaethics articles once that referred to it), and I was taught that by a dualist with no great love for any sort of physicalism.
Let me make sure I have a handle on your distinction (from Scotus) between a chain of accidental causes and a chain of essential causes:
>>…Scotus’ notion of accidental and essential causes. If A, B, and C, are in a chain of accidental causes, then A causes B and B causes C, but B's causing C is independent of A. So, a grandfather might beget a father, and the father a son, and the father's begetting of the son can take place even if the grandfather were dead.
Here you’re saying that B’s causing C is independent of A, although not independent of A’s causing B. These counterfactuals are both true: Had A not caused B, then B would not have caused C, and Had A never existed, B would not have caused C. (The latter since A’s causing B is dependent upon A’s having existed). However, this entailment is false, both logically and causally: A’s causing B entails that B must cause C. The father’s existence is dependent upon the grandfather’s begetting him, but the grandfather did not cause the father to beget the son. So the father is responsible for his begetting the son, but not responsible for his own existence. We might say the grandfather is responsible for the father’s existence and for the father’s capacity to beget the son. So we should say that A’s causing B is a necessary but not sufficient condition for B’s causing C.
In the case of essential causation (the bat-and-ball example), A’s causing B’s hitting C causes B’s causing C’s motion. And that description contains some redundancy. It is sufficient to say that A’s causing B’s hitting C caused C’s motion. So A bears responsibility for C’s motion. A’s swinging the bat is sufficient for the ball’s motion.
>>Let us take causal classes C(n), where for every member x,y in C(n) for a given n, x and y can causally interact (they have accidental causation).
So the grandfather, father, and son are in non-transitive or accidental causal relationships; they are all inside causal class C(a). (Or, is the grandfather-father pair in a separate causal class than the father-son pair? I don’t think you mean that because you need a longer chain than x,y in order to support a meaningful distinction between accidental and essential chains.)
>>Further, for x in C(n) and y in C(n+1), x can be a member of an essential chain of causation with y (we could expand this to y from C(m) where m > n), though the two do not interact in the typical fashion
It sounds like you’re saying that when members are in the same causal class, they may interact with accidental causation, but when members are in different causal classes, they can interact with each other with essential causation. So in the begetting example, the grandfather, father, and son are all in the same causal class. But in the bat-and-ball example, the swinger is in C(n), the bat is in C(n+1), and the ball (or its motion) is in C(n+2)? I’m not sure I’m getting this right…
>>Unlike supervenience, mental events would interact with each other if they are in the same causal category, but as that appears to be the most unattractive part of epiphenomenalism, I don't see the problem.
So as far as your philosophy of mind goes here, you’re suggesting that mental events are in the same causal class. So chains of mental events are chains of accidental causation? Let’s use something other than a chain of deduction for an example—that might seem better for essential causation? How about thoughts in free-association, or loosely connected in a stream of consciousness? I think about being hungry (A), then about cake (B), then about making plans for Sarah’s birthday (C). Thought A causes thought B and thought B causes thought C, but thought A and thought C have nothing to do with each other. Is that right? That sounds right.
I don’t entirely understand what you’re saying about epiphenomenalism here. I get that you’re rejecting epiphenomenalism and providing a view that allows for causal interaction between mental objects/states/events (e.g. thoughts). I notice that you aren’t commenting on the relationship between body and mind (or vice versa). What is the point of the “but” in your quote? Are you just saying that an epiphenomenalist won’t agree with you but you don’t care?
BTW—Some philosophers of mind (C.D. Broad) make supervenience compatible with a kind of dualistic interactionism, I think. So I’m not sure supervenience has to be married to the epiphenomenalist doctrine that mind cannot affect body. Also, I would still call a view epiphenomenalist if it allowed that mental events can only effect other mental events, but denied that mental states can effect physical events. But I could be wrong to do so.
>>Finally, we could say that if x from C(n), y from C(m), and z from C(o) (where o < m < n) are in a causal chain, then it is an essential chain in which it could be said that y causes z and that x causes z. This is not in supervenience theories, but it seems inescapable if supervenience were to apply to multiple levels of reality.
I understand your essential chain, I think. What are you saying about supervenience here? What is supervening on what? Is the causal relationship between x & z supervening upon the causal relationship between x & y and that between y & z? I don’t think I’m following you here.
>>So, we could say that God is in C(0) by himself. Everything that occurs in any other layer of causation is due to God … However, I do not see that this must entail that God's actions completely determine ours
I’m confused here. It sounds like you’re saying that God is in a chain of essential causation with everything else that exists. But it seems to me that that would be a pro-determinist position. The non-determinist would have God and man and sin in an accidental chain of causation. God causes Adam, Adam causes Cain, Cain kills Abel. This is an accidental chain. God does not cause Adam’s causing Cain (although causes Adam’s ability to procreate). God does not cause Cain’s killing Abel (although he may cause Cain’s ability to kill [and Abel’s ability to die] via an essential chain of causation through Adam and Adam’s procreation, perhaps).
I think you more or less have the distinctions right, though I'm not positive that they can be reduced to a logical form; it seems like it could be possible for A, B, and C all necessarily exist, and that this is explainable as either:
(1) A, B, and C bear no causal relation (perhaps abstract objects?)
(2) A causes B, and B causes C, in an accidental causal chain (Can't think of any examples, but I don't see why it's logically impossible)
(3) A causes B causes C in an essential causal chain (Neo-Platonic emanation)
As far as the causal classes go, the grandfather, father, and son are all in the same class.
I think you may have pointed out a problem with the notion of transitivity; maybe I should say that, for m>n and n>=o, if A is in C(m), B in C(n), and C in C(o), and A causes B while B causes C, then A causes C. So, the ball and bat would be in the same causal class, but the human agent would be in a higher one. We could maybe say that the interaction between ball and bat strictly regarded in itself is accidental causation, or that "accidental/essential" are predicates applying only to ordered triples.
Mental events would also interact with each other on the level of accidental interaction.
Concerning epiphenomenalism, you seem to have interpreted me correctly. I would start wondering just how epiphenomenalist a view would be that allowed either mind-mind or mind-body interaction, but it's only a label. If the community has changed it's use of it, that's fine by me. The connection to supervenience was mainly just a starting point, though one could perhaps say that higher causal orders supervene on lower (so, on the view I present, the physical world supervenes on the mental, and all supervenes on the divine; or something like that. I wonder if this would entail that the universe is God's body?)
As far as determinism goes, I'm running into a dead end. Three options seem possible:
(1) The scheme is determinist, but it at least explains why determinism isn't a strict pantheism. Which would be a pity, because I would dearly love to show determinism to entail falsehoods.
(2) Determinism/Non-determinism just don't really apply. Those are labels for chains of accidental causation, while essential causation is just something else entirely. The mystical side of me likes this, the logician does not.
(3) The examples from which we gain our intuitions are all mental-physical situations, in which the mental does determine the physical. The idea of something on which free volition supervenes just is beyond anything we can imagine, but not necessarily impossible. Maybe one could say that all of our actions are partially determined by our will, and partially determined by God's concurrent willing (with qualifications that the intent is not the same, so my sinning is part of God's overall plan but God is not sinning Himself). These "partial" determinations are both necessary, and such that one does not causally entail the other, but such that they are different orders and always conjoined. This is Scotus' answer, which I'm not completely satisfied with, but also which I don't fully understand yet. Maybe Molinism would fit in here as well?
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