Filosofia analitica del linguaggio modulo
ONTOLOGIA A.A. 2013-14
Semestre I
Francesco Orilia orilia@unimc.it
• Lez. 7
• Lun. 21 Ott. 2013
• TAVOLA ROTONDA SU PETOEFI: 21 OTT. ore 17, Aula A
• CONCERTO Dedicato a Petoefi: 21 Ott., ore 21, teatro Lauro Rossi
• DOMANI: sospensione delle lezioni per caree day. Sostituiamo con tavola rotonda di oggi e reading group sul libero arbitrio di domani, ore
Castaneda
• Andiamo alla parte finale. Ci aiuta a capire meglio il punto di vista di Castaneda sulla causazione come trasferimento di qualcosa
• Poi torniamo indietro, per cercare di capire cos'è questa causità. Vedremo che non è
esistenza, non è un oggetto, non si identifica con proprietà di un oggetto, ma presuppone delle proprietà "eziologiche"
Dalla parte IV sulla misurazione
• A change is the succession of incompatible properties across a given time. A caused change is a change involving a transfer of causity across the time of the change. A caused change is, thus, productive; but the causity transmitted from the causal setup to the effectal setup does not belong to the change, but to the setups in question.
• A caused change is causative preserving, but not causity increasing. (sembra il principio di conservazione dell'energia)
• Uncaused changes can be causity increasing.(ma qui viene ammesso che l'energia può aumentare e infatti vedi passo finale a p. 27)
Principi sulla misurabilità della causità
• (C.M.1) Causity is measurable.
• (C.M.2) Causity dependency. Sets of
properties, not the individual properties of an object, or field of objects, are assigned (by
nature, of course) amounts of causity.
• (C.M.3) The possibility of epiphenomenalism.
The amount assigned (by nature) to a set of properties may be zero.
Castañeda su Hume
• Let us examine his scrutiny:
• Here is a billiard-ball [let us call it ball B] lying on the table, and another [let us call it ball A]
moving towards it with rapidity. They strike;
and the ball [B], which was formerly at rest, now acquires a motion. This is a perfect
instance of the relation of cause and effect
punti sottolineati
• the motion was communicated
• the impulse of the one produces motion in the other
• constant conjunction betwixt the cause and the effect.
Every object like the cause, produces always some object like the effect. when I try the experiment with the same balls or like balls, in the same circumstances, I find, that upon the motion and touch of the one
ball, motion always follows the other.
• Commento di Castaneda (p. 19) (un po' confuso):
• Point 5. Yet Hume’s discussion reveals an important datum about causality encapsulated in the principle just quoted, namely, the piggybackness of causality:
• (C.3*) If an item c causes an item e, then there are properties -ness and $-ness, and circumstances Z such that: if c is , e is $, c is in Z, and whatever item of the same category as c is and in Z causes an item that is $ and is of the same category as e.
• Obviously, like (C.l*) and (C.2*), (C.3*) is only a
criterion of adequacy for any account of causality.
Tipi di eventi causali
• In breve, C. credo voglia dire che possiamo generalizzare su tipi di eventi:
• Eventi di tipo A causano eventi di tipo B
• Penso questo punto sia da ricollegare a (i) quello che dice nella parte III, p. 23, sulle
proprietà eziologiche: la causazione presuppone un'ordinata successione di proprietà che
cambiano; (ii) quello che dice a p. 25 sulla misurazione, in particolare (C.M.2).
• Hume: I can find nothing farther
• Castaneda: almost palpable how there is no logical necessity in the motion of ball B
following the touching of ball B by ball A. On this we cannot gainsay Hume.
• Ma questo non significa che non ci sia una necessità (più debole) dovuta alle leggi di natura!
• p. 20: pinpoint the most crucial element
Hume has not been able to find: namely, the
• production of the motion in ball B by its being struck by ball A.
• Costruire una situazione come quella di Hume dove però manca la causazione della palla A alla palla B per trovare cosa c'è di diverso
• Gedankenexperiment that conforms to the following:
• Desideratum. The experiment must maintain: (i) the collision of ball A with ball B; (ii) the motion of ball B;
(iii) the immediate and contiguous succession of the collision of both balls and the motion of B; and (iv) the truth of the universal contiguous conjunction of
similar collisions and similar motions. But (v) the experiment must not preserve the production (or causation) of the motion of ball B by the collision of both balls.
• Here is billiard ball B lying on the table and ball A is moving toward it with rapidity. There is, however, a mechanism M under the table such that when ball A reaches ball B, mechanism M will both stop ball A cold and prevent ball B from moving. There is, besides
another mechanism M‘, such that it is timed by a certain clock to release the hold, if any, of M on B and set B in motion at an appropriate speed precisely at the moment that M stops ball A cold. Thus, when the collision takes place, ball B moves as if it had been caused to move by its collision with ball A.
• La differenza: manca il trasferimento di movimento, direzione, ecc. da una palla all'altra
• Il movimento è un particolare tipo di energia
• Perhaps what is nowadays called energy is all the causity there is in the world. But perhaps there are still unknown forms of energy =
causity.
causazione mentale
• p. 23: And perhaps there are further forms of causity that should better not be called energy because of their anomalous or bizarre
properties. Perhaps psychological [nel ms.:
PSYCHOPHYSICAL] logical interaction involves peculiar specifications of causity.
Causalità ed esistenza
• p. 23: causity is not existence
• Motivo: Existence is not a quantity, nor does it allow of
degrees. Existence is exactly the same everywhere. On the other hand, causity is a quantity and must be measurable
• la causità è una quantità misurabile e divisibile: some amount of motion and causity stays in bouncing ball A, and some amount of motion and causity transfers to ball B. (p. 23)
• Però nella Guise Theory C. sembra pensarla diversamente.
O no?
esistenza e sostanze
• Causity is so intimately bound up with transfer
and preservation across time that one cannot help aslung whether the postulation of enduring
objects involves the postulation of causity,
whether substance and causation go conceptually hand in hand. The correct answer to this question seems to me to be emphatically affirmative. But we will not explore the connections between
causity and substance here. (p. 27)
Che tipo di ente è la causità?
• Causity is not a part of an object, but migrates from object to object riding on the backs of
the objects that abide in the causal
transaction. Causity, like space, time, and motion, remains an abstract quantifiable structure that unifies sets of objects into tightly organized systems. (p. 24)
causità e proprietà eziologiche
• Although causity is a structure that unifies the patterns of changes that objects can undergo, causity is a dependent structure and the causal powers of objects are dependent properties. They depend on properties that objects must possess for causity and causal powers to come into being. We may call all those properties that ground causity and causal powers etiological properties, leaving it open whether all nondependent properties that objects can have by themselves are etiological.
• Causity is not an etiological property. In
particular, since causity abides through [si conserva, persiste] causal transactions, it
cannot be identical with any of the properties that objects change in such transactions.
Prossime lezioni
• 2 lezioni di Ernesto Graziani su
– 1) Primitivismo, analisi a priori, riduzionismo a posteriori, eliminativismo
– 2) Desiderata per teorie sulla causalità
• 6 (?) lezioni da assegnare su teorie sulla causalità (vedi diapositive successive)
• 1 lezione di Michele Paolini Paoletti su disposizioni e causalità
• 1 lezione dell'avv. Marco Caldarelli sulla causalità in giurisprudenza
• Orilia: lezioni di introduzione al tema della causazione mentale
• 1 lezione di Michele Paolini Paoletti sull'agent causation
• lezioni su causalità e libero arbitro
Approaches (from Schaffer)
• contiguous change (Ducasse 1926)
• counterfactual dependence(Lewis 1986a and 2000, Swain 1978, Menzies 1989b, McDermott 1995 and 2002, Ganeri, Noordhof, and Ramachandran 1996, Yablo 2002, Sartorio 2005),
• nomological subsumption (Davidson 1980d, Kim 1973, Horwich 1987, Armstrong 1999),
• agential manipulability (Collingwood 1940, Gasking 1955, von Wright 1975, Price and Menzies 1993,
Woodward 2003). BUZZONI?
• statistical correlation (Good 1961 and 1962, Suppes 1970, Spirtes, Glymour, and Scheines 1993, Kvart 1997 and 2004, Pearl 2000,
Hitchcock 2001, Mellor)
• energy flow (Fair 1979, Castaneda
1984), physical processes (Russell 1948,
Salmon 1984 and 1998, Dowe 1992 and 2000)
• property transference (Aronson 1971, Ehring 1997 [based on tropes], Kistler 1998).
• Da Maurin (tropes, SEP): Every reason for thinking that tropes are the world's basic
causal relata is therefore also a reason to think that this role is played by states of affairs.
• According to Ehring, this is not true.
• primitivism (Anscombe 1975, Tooley 1987 and 2004, Carroll 1994, Menzies 1996)
• eliminativism (Russell 1992, Quine 1966)
• hybrids of some of the above (Fair 1979, Dowe 2000, Paul 2000, Schaffer 2001, Hall 2004,
Beebee 2004b)
