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Absences and late preemption

Oisin Deery

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

I focus on token, deterministic causal claims as they feature in causal explanations. Adequately handling absences is difficult for most causal theories, including theories of causal explanation. Yet so is adequately handling cases of late preemption. The best account of absence‐causal claims as they appear in causal explanations is Jonathan Schaffer's quaternary, contrastive account. Yet Schaffer's account cannot handle preemption. The account that best handles late preemption is James Woodward's interventionist account. Yet Woodward's account is inadequate when it comes to absences. I propose an account that handles both absences and preemption by transposing Schaffer's account into an interventionist framework.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)309–325
Number of pages17
JournalTheoria: a journal of social and political theory
Volume79
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • causation
  • absences
  • preemption
  • causal modelling

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