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Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 2
Lesson 7: MetaphilosophyMetaphilosophy: Contrastivism #3 (Causation)
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University) introduces a new approach to causation: contrastivism. At odds with traditional philosophical approaches to causation, contrastive causation holds that causal statements are true only relative to a set of relevant alternatives.
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why does the majority of these responses go back 5 years?
Did this curriculum reemerge?(1 vote)
Yep, I remember this philosophy course hasn't been on the KA website in the time I've had this account: at least two years.(3 votes)
I am having trouble with the perceived (by me) straw man (straw person?) appearance of the one alternative in the smoking moderately and antidote examples. How can we set up a situation where we could argue that moderate smoking would not cause lung cancer, or that Kate is guilty of murder for administering an antidote? The postulation seems artificially contrived to prove Dr. Sinnott-Armstrong's advocacy of contrastivism.
That said: The contrastivism approach seems uncommonly sensible (but I still have two videos to watch) compared to many of the principles of philosophy in other sections of this site. Snark alert - many philosophers make a simple approach to life much more complicated. It is a luxury to live in a time and place where this can happen, but personally I prefer a little bit more of the unexamined life.(2 votes)