Introduction to Efficient Causation
Tad M. Schmaltz · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2014
Abstract This introduction begins with a consideration of the assumption—central to the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series—that it is possible to write a history of philosophical concepts that crosses different historical periods and social contexts. One objection to such an assumption is that there are no timeless concepts, but only conceptions of efficient causation from different historical periods that are “incommensurable” (to use a term Thomas Kuhn has made famous). One response is that a history of a concept may have as its object not a timeless and immutable unit, but rather something akin to a biological “population” that consists in a collection of different contextually dependent conceptions. It is then an empirical question whether particular conceptions are sufficiently interrelated to preclude total incommensurability. After a discussion of these issues, the introduction closes with a summary of the content of each of the eleven chapters and four “Reflections” in the volume.