Abstract
Several of the most prominent theories of actual causation make use of a minimality condition to prevent irrelevant elements from being tacked onto a cause so that the conjunction or sum passes for a cause. Focusing on one theory in particular - the influential Halpern-Pearl definition of actual causation - we argue that either the minimality condition or its rationale ought to be revised. We produce proposals showing that both are live options and demonstrate their potential usefulness within the larger family of counterfactual approaches to causation.
| Original language | English |
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| Journal | British Journal for the Philosophy of Science |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 15 Mar 2025 |
Funding
We would like to thank audiences at Shanghai University and Shandong University, as well as participants in the Causation in Kyoto conference and the Formal Approaches to Meta physics conference at the University of Konstanz. We are also grateful to two referees for this journal whose comments have significantly improved the article. Jiji Zhang’s research was supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (grant GRF13602720). Jingzhi Fang’s research was supported in part by the National Social Science Foundation Key Programme in China (grant 23&ZD240).