BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Cause\, causatives and theories of causation - Julian Reiss (Durha
 m University)
DTSTART:20150205T153000Z
DTEND:20150205T170000Z
UID:TALK57274@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the difficulties
  the ubiquity of causatives such as oxidise\, transduce\, dampen and prolo
 ng in scientific language raise for truth-conditional theories of causatio
 n which have the form 'C causes E if and only if...' or a near variant. Th
 e difficulties are a consequence of three features of the use of causative
 s in science: they are ineliminable\, they represent causal relations and 
 processes of many different metaphysical kinds\, and they are polysemous. 
 I argue that no truth-conditional theory of causation can do justice to th
 e use of causatives in scientific language. I then sketch an alternative\,
  inferentialist theory of causation and finally show how it deals with cau
 satives.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR