Causación, producción y función

Abstract

Despite repeated attempts, event causation has not been successfully explicated. Two views are possible: that an adequate explication must still be found, or that no causation relation exists, and no explication is due. David Lewis suggests that causation is a natural relation betwen the causally connected events. Eduardo Flichman, instead, considers that the relation is not a natural one: whenever causation is attributed, an anthropomorphic production relation is projected on the events. Here we present counterexamples to both proposals, and suggest a modification of the second that avoids the counterexamples, taking into account another anthropomorphic projected relation: the functional relation. We also try to characterize this notion of function. We agree with Flichman in considering that anthropomorphic relations and hence also causation do not exist in the fields covered by the natural sciences. Finally, we consider the question whether Lewis’s causation and nomologic connection are necessary conditions for cases in which there is talk of causation. 90