Causation, Explanation, and the Metaphysics of Aspect

Abstract

This book aims to answer the following questions: what is the difference between a cause and a background condition? What is it to manifest a disposition? Can dispositions be extrinsic? What is the most basic kind of causation? And, what might a structural explanation be? Each chapter takes up a subset of these questions; the chapters are written to be readable independently. The answers defended rely on three ideas. Two of those ideas use a distinction from the study of lexical aspect, namely the distinction between stative verbs and non-stative verbs. The first idea is that events go with non-stative verbs, in the sense that “If S, then an event occurred in virtue of the fact that S” is true when the main verb in the clause going in for “S” is non-stative. The second is that acting, doing something, goes with non-stative verbs, in the sense that “In Ving X did something” is true iff V is a non-stative verb. The third idea is about levels of explanation: “(A because B) because C” does not entail “A because C.”