Philosophy and Theology

published on April 23, 2019

Occasionalism and Contemporary Analyses of Causation

This paper will survey the most prominent contemporary analyses of causation, and evaluate their compatibility, or otherwise, with the doctrine of Occasionalism, with the ultimate aim of formulating an occasionalist analysis of causation. Though reductive analyses of causation are incompatible with Occasionalism, it seems that the denial of reductionism is as well. I will suggest a solution to the problem, involving an analysis of causation as the relation of extensional identity, between God’s will that an event actually occur, and the intensionally distinct event itself.