A Causal Power Semantics for Generic Sentences
Robert van Rooij, Katrin Schulz · Topoi · 2019
Abstract Many generic sentences express stable inductive generalizations. Stable inductive generalizations are typically true for a causal reason. In this paper we investigate to what extent this is also the case for the generalizations expressed by generic sentences. More in particular, we discuss the possibility that many generic sentences of the form ‘ks have featuree’ are true because (members of) kindkhave the causal power to ‘produce’ featuree. We will argue that such an analysis is quite close to a probabilistic based analysis of generic sentences according to which ‘relatively many’ks have featuree, and that, in fact, this latter type of analysis can be ‘grounded’ in terms of causal powers. We will argue, moreover, that the causal power analysis is sometimes preferred to a correlation-based analysis, because it takes the causal structure that gives rise to the probabilistic data into account.