Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Anaxarchus, Michael Esfeld and David Fair

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism

3061	Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing.
	From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation

8326	Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
	Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
	A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.

10379	Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
	A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow

13440	Causation is the power of one property to produce another, and this gives time its direction [Esfeld]
	Full Idea: The metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is linked with an intrinsic direction of time. There is a causal connection if an F-property produces a G. One can argue that causation thus is the basis for the direction of time.
	From: Michael Esfeld (Humean metaphysics vs metaphysics of Powers [2010], 7.2)
	A reaction: I think this is my preferred metaphysic - that both time and causation are primitive, but the direction of time is the result of the causal process. Viewing some new world, we would just say that time went in whichever direction the causation went.