Sufficient Causes and the Intrinsicness of Causation

这个研究项目的目的是提供一个分析的充分和不充分的原因之间的重要区别。在某些情况下，事件是其他事件的充分原因，例如，在单一效应具有多个充分原因的超决定情景中。如果一个瓶子同时被两块石头击中，其中每一块石头都足以打破它，那么瓶子的破碎是由两个充分的原因决定的。在其他情况下，事件是其他事件的原因，而不是充分的原因。如果两个人推一个很重的橱柜，他们只能一起推，那么橱柜的移动有两个原因，没有一个是，本身，一个充分的原因。尽管充分原因和不充分原因之间的区别与许多哲学辩论有关，但迄今为止几乎没有受到任何关注。该研究项目旨在通过开发第一个系统的充分因果关系分析来缩小这一差距。所提出的方法的基本思想是，如果一个事件是某个结果的充分原因，那么它们之间的因果关系是内在的，因为该结果的发生并不取决于其他原因的存在。

The aim of this research project is to provide an analysis of the philosophically important distinction between sufficient and non-sufficient causes. In some cases, events are sufficient causes of other events, for instance, in overdetermination scenarios where a single effect has several sufficient causes. If a bottle is simultaneously hit by two rocks, each of which alone would be sufficient for breaking it, then the bottle's shattering is overdetermined by two sufficient causes. In other cases, events are causes of other events without being sufficient causes. If two people push a cupboard which is so heavy that they can only move it together, then the cupboard's moving has two causes, none of which is, by itself, a sufficient cause. Even though the distinction between sufficient and non-sufficient causes is relevant to a number of philosophical debates, it has received hardly any attention so far. This research project aims to close this gap by developing the first systematic analysis of sufficient causation. The general idea underlying the proposed approach is that if an event is a sufficient cause of a certain effect, then the causal relation holding between them is intrinsic, because the occurrence of the effect does not depend on the presence of additional causes.