Filosofia analitica del linguaggio
modulo
ONTOLOGIA
A.A. 2013-14
Semestre I
Francesco Orilia
[email protected]
• 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)