Hi, all, Thanks for your wonderful contributions to the Discussion Forum in the

Hi, all,
Thanks for your wonderful contributions to the Discussion Forum in the

Hi, all,
Thanks for your wonderful contributions to the Discussion Forum in the last two weeks, and I look forward to great discussion in this week and future weeks.
Please respond to the following prompts, and you are always welcome to raise your own questions and post your comments.
On Monday, we gave an introduction to David Lewis’s 2000 paper, in which he proposed a theory of causation as influence. He considered it as an upgrade over his original counterfactual theory of causation. What do you think of the two theories? Do you feel the causation as influence theory is a better version? Why or why not?
There are four major theories of causation: regularity, Counterfactual (including Influence), Mechanism, and Manipulation (Intervention) theories. The paper by Dowe introduced the mechanism (process) theory, which Salmon also defended. James Woodward’s book will defend a version of Manipulation (Intervention) theory, though it covers more methodological issues than a typical theory of causation. So far, we have briefly introduced the first three theories, and how do you think of these theories? Which one is your favorite? Do you have some comments on methodological approaches? You don’t need to be very precise or accurate — it is just the start of the journey to our understanding of causation.
After you finish this I will post it and I will also need replies to the classmates. 2 posts