Abstract
The counterfactual and regularity theories are universal accounts of causation. I argue that these should be generalized to produce local accounts of causation. A hallmark of universal accounts of causation is the assumption that apparent variation in causation between locations must be explained by differences in background causal conditions, by features of the causal-nexus or causing-complex. The local account of causation presented here rejects this assumption, allowing for genuine variation in causation to be explained by differences in location. I argue that local accounts of causation are plausible, and have pragmatic, empirical and theoretical advantages over universal accounts. I then report on the use of presheaves as models of local causation. The use of presheaves as models of local variation has precedents in algebraic geometry, category theory and physics; they are here used as models of local causal variation. The paper presents this idea as stemming from an approach using presheaves as models of local truth. Finally, I argue that a proper balance between universal and local causation can be assuaged by moving from presheaves to fully-fledged sheaf models.
Highlights
An account of causation is universal, I will say, if it is committed in any way to the following universal assumption (UA), (UA) If C is a cause of E, C is a cause of E always and everywhere
This, I argue in the last section, is because the gluing axiom of sheaves provides an alternative to universality in accounts of causation
The empirical reason to provide for local causation is familiar: underdetermination of any account or model of causation that is restricted to locally limited evidence for its universally general causal claims
Summary
An account of causation is universal, I will say, if it is committed in any way to the following universal assumption (UA),. (UA) If C is a cause of E, C is a cause of E always and everywhere (at every space-time location V) How this assumption should be interpreted depends on which account of causation we employ, since this determines how we define both the general causal relata types C and E and what it means to be “a cause”. UE itself is logically complex: it is universal and conditional, metaphysical, epistemic, ontological, and “locative” or topological It refers to causes, apparent failures of causation, the existence of potentially unobserved event types, and to locations. A local account of causation involves no such assumption, It allows that some apparent variation in causation is what we might term irreducibly de locus—the most fundamental explanation we can provide may be differences in location. This, I argue in the last section, is because the gluing axiom of sheaves provides an alternative to universality in accounts of causation
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