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Inverse View
It is not the case that Conjunct (2) is not a state of affairs to be 'brought about' but rather an absence of causation, which is a relational property of the total causal history.
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Reasons For
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Reason for
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1.
We routinely describe ourselves as 'bringing about' absences—e.g., stopping a process or preventing an event from occurring.
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2.
If causal histories are relational properties of total states, they can still be altered by our interventions, making them actionable.
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3.
The distinction between 'brought about' and 'relational property' may be merely semantic rather than ontologically significant.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Absence of causation is fundamentally different from positive events, so it cannot be 'brought about' through action.
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2.
Causal histories are determinate facts about the world that obtain or fail to obtain, not states we can engineer.
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3.
Treating absences as relational properties avoids the category mistake of treating negations as causally efficacious entities.
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