Abstract
It is a common opinion that chance events cannot be understood in causal terms. Conversely, according to a causal view of chance, intersections between independent causal chains originate accidental events, called “coincidences.” The present paper takes into proper consideration this causal conception of chance and tries to shed new light on it. More precisely, starting from Hart and Honoré’s view of coincidental events (Hart and Honoré in Causation in the Law. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1959), this paper furnishes a more detailed account on the nature of coincidences, according to which coincidental events are hybrids constituted by ontic (physical) components, that is the intersections between independent causal chains, plus epistemic aspects; where by “epistemic” we mean what is related, in some sense, to knowledge: for example, access to information, but also expectations, relevance, significance, that is psychological aspects. In particular, this paper investigates the role of the epistemic aspects in our understanding of what coincidences are. In fact, although the independence between the causal lines involved plays a crucial role in understanding coincidental events, that condition results to be insufficient to give a satisfactory definition of coincidences. The main target of the present work is to show that the epistemic aspects of coincidences are, together with the independence between the intersecting causal chains, a constitutive part of coincidental phenomena. Many examples are offered throughout this paper to enforce this idea. This conception, despite—for example—Antoine Augustine Cournot and Jacques Monod’s view, entails that a pure objectivist view about coincidences is not tenable.
Highlights
A subclass of chance events1 of particular interest is that called ‘‘coincidences.’’ Coincidences are events that come from the intersections between independent causal chains
One example, provided by David Owens, is an accidental collision between a person sitting in a particular place and a falling cargo door: It is a coincidence that I was sitting at the spot where the cargo door fell—this event can be analyzed into two events (a) my sitting at place A and (b) the cargo door’s landing at place A, events which have quite independent causal histories [...] (Owens 1992: 12)
The main problems we investigate in this work are the following: 1. The ontic dimension of coincidences: Are there intersections between truly independent causal sequences? Even if we state that there are some intersections between independent causal lines, one may say that the independence is not real, but only illusory
Summary
A subclass of chance events of particular interest is that called ‘‘coincidences.’’ Coincidences are events that come from the intersections between independent causal chains. When Dr Brown comes across Mr Jones’ work site, Mr Jones inadvertently drops his hammer, and the trajectory of the hammer intersects with the trajectory of Dr Brown, who dies (Fig. 1) In this case, it is possible to explain why Dr Brown is going to visit his patient and why Mr Jones’ hammer is falling, as events considered in isolation, but—since the causal lines involved are independent from each other—it is not possible to explain the intersection between Dr Brown’s trajectory and the hammer’s trajectory. The main goal of this work is to defend the idea that the epistemic aspects of coincidences are constitutive parts of coincidental phenomena This view was stated by Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart and Antony Maurice Honore, who said—in their Causation in the Law—that coincidences, as well as the fact that they come from the intersection of independent causal lines, (a) are events that are very unlikely by ordinary standards, (b) for some reason are significant or important, and c) occur. This means, for example, that for an agent A, an event comes from the intersection between independent causal chains (and maybe A is right in believing this) while for an agent B, the same event comes from the intersection between non-independent causal chains (and maybe B is wrong about the nature of this non-independence)
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