Causation
This chapter argues that understanding ourselves as believing in causal connections held fully independently of us and our having the responses we do is inconsistent with accepting a negative metaphysical verdict about causation. We do regard the causal connections we believe in as independent of us in that way; no reductionist account that would eliminate the modal element is acceptable. So we cannot accept a negative metaphysical verdict about causal dependence and consistently continue to accept all the things we believe involving causal modal connections between things in the world.
Keywords: metaphysics, causation, causal connections, causal dependence, negative metaphysical verdict
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