Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
Javascript must be enabled to continue!
RELATIVITY AND THE CAUSAL EFFICACY OF ABSTRACT OBJECTS
View through CrossRef
Abstract
Abstract objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, however principled arguments for this claim are rarely given. As a result, a number of recent authors have claimed that abstract objects are causally efficacious. These authors take abstracta to be temporally located in order to enter into causal relations but lack a spatial location. In this paper, I argue that such a position is untenable by showing first that causation requires its relata to have a temporal location, but second, that if an entity is temporally located then it is spatiotemporally located since this follows from the theory of Relativity. Since abstract objects lack a spatiotemporal location, then if something is causally efficacious, it is not abstract.
Title: RELATIVITY AND THE CAUSAL EFFICACY OF ABSTRACT OBJECTS
Description:
Abstract
Abstract objects are standardly taken to be causally inert, however principled arguments for this claim are rarely given.
As a result, a number of recent authors have claimed that abstract objects are causally efficacious.
These authors take abstracta to be temporally located in order to enter into causal relations but lack a spatial location.
In this paper, I argue that such a position is untenable by showing first that causation requires its relata to have a temporal location, but second, that if an entity is temporally located then it is spatiotemporally located since this follows from the theory of Relativity.
Since abstract objects lack a spatiotemporal location, then if something is causally efficacious, it is not abstract.
Related Results
Language Relativity
Language Relativity
We produce language forms via their relations in coordinate systems: languages. That is virtual language relativity. Languages are related to phenomena and work in the real life of...
Expanding crossover research: The crossover of job-related self-efficacy within couples
Expanding crossover research: The crossover of job-related self-efficacy within couples
This article reports a study that examined the crossover of job-related self-efficacy within working couples, its underlying mechanisms, and its work-related consequences. We propo...
Retuning music teaching: Online music tutorials preferences as predictors of amateur musicians’ music self-efficacy in informal music learning
Retuning music teaching: Online music tutorials preferences as predictors of amateur musicians’ music self-efficacy in informal music learning
Music self-efficacy has been acknowledged as a strong predictor of successful performance among musicians and music students, but is less researched among amateur musicians. The pu...
The Roots of Occasionalism? Causation, Metaphysical Dependence, and Soul-Body Relations in Augustine
The Roots of Occasionalism? Causation, Metaphysical Dependence, and Soul-Body Relations in Augustine
Abstract
It has long been thought that Augustine holds that corporeal objects cannot act upon incorporeal souls. However, precisely how and why Augustine imposes limitations up...
Two Informational Theories of Memory: a case from Memory-Conjunction Errors
Two Informational Theories of Memory: a case from Memory-Conjunction Errors
Abstract
The causal and simulation theories are often presented as very distinct views about declarative memory, their major difference lying on the causal condition...
Back to the Present: How Not to Use Counterfactuals to Explain Causal Asymmetry
Back to the Present: How Not to Use Counterfactuals to Explain Causal Asymmetry
A plausible thought is that we should evaluate counterfactuals in the actual world by holding the present ‘fixed’; the state of the counterfactual world at the time of the antecede...
Questioning the causal inheritance principle
Questioning the causal inheritance principle
Mental causation, though a forceful intuition embedded in our commonsense psychology, is difficult to square with the rest of commitments of physicalism about the mind. Advocates o...
Family of Ancient Theories of Relativity. Duncombe, M. (2020). Ancient Relativity: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, and Sceptics. New York: Oxford UP.
Family of Ancient Theories of Relativity. Duncombe, M. (2020). Ancient Relativity: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, and Sceptics. New York: Oxford UP.
Review of Duncombe, M. (2020). Ancient Relativity: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, and Sceptics. New York: Oxford UP....