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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The bilking argument does not successfully demonstrate that backward causation is impossible

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The bilking argument claims backward causation is impossible because one can always intervene after observing the alleged effect B and prevent the alleged cause A from occurring
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    • 2.When intervention actually occurs and A is prevented after B has occurred, only that particular token instance of A is shown not to be the cause of that particular token instance of B
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    • 3.In all cases where no intervention occurs, events of type A may still be the cause of events of type B
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Dummett's 1954 analysis shows the bilking argument presupposes causal asymmetry rather than deriving it, making it question-begging against backward causation.
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    • 2.A world with stable backward causal laws would include compensating factors preventing successful bilking, just as forward causal laws permit overdetermination and preemption.
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    • 3.The impossibility of bilking in such a world is a feature of the causal structure, not evidence against it, as Lewis's counterfactual framework applied retrogradely demonstrates.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Price's agency theory establishes that causal direction is indexed to the perspective of agents, meaning backward causation is coherent wherever an agent's earlier actions systematically influence later states.
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    • 2.If bilking experiments themselves constitute interventions in the causal structure, Woodward's interventionist framework entails they must respect the very causal relations they purport to test.
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