Max Kistler

Reducing Causality to Transmission

Erkenntnis 48 (1998), pp. 1-24.

Abstract.
The idea that causation can be reduced to transmission of an
amount of some conserved quantity between events is spelled out
and defended against important objections. Transmission is
understood as a symmetrical relation of copresence in two distinct
events. The actual asymmetry of causality has its origin in the
asymmetrical character of certain irreversible physical processes
and then spreads through the causal net. This conception is
compatible with the possibility of backwards causation and with a
causal theory of time. Genidentity, the persistence of concrete
objects, can be given an explanation in causal terms. The
transmission theory is shown to escape difficulties faced by two
important alternative theories of causation: Salmon's (1984) Mark
Transmission Theory and Dowe's (1992a) Conserved Quantities
Theory.

1. A reduction of the concept of a causal relation in terms of

transmission

The notion of causality is crucial to common sense, yet

philosophers in the empiricist tradition have argued that it is
impossible to provide a naturalistic account of that concept in
such a way as to give it a scientifically respectable foundation.
It would be a substantial achievement to show that causality is
reducible, if only because that would justify the pervasive use of
causal notions in scientific inquiry, from experimental physics to
biology and psychology. A promising strategy to reduce causation
is to explore the intuition that causes somehow transfer something
to their effects. Among others, Aronson (1971a;b) and Fair (1979)
have defended versions of such a "transference theory". However,
they were unable to deal in a satisfactory way with some important
difficulties, and consequently, many authors have remained
skeptical of the possibility of a coherent and satisfying

transference theory of causation. The aim of this paper is to show

that the version of the transference theory built on the following
reduction statement (T) can overcome those difficulties.
(T) Two events a and b are causally related in the sense that
one is a cause of the other if and only if there exists a
conserved quantity Q of which a particular amount P is transmitted
between a and b.
The concepts of transmission, of conserved quantity, and of
event figure prominently in (T). Events are what causality
relates; for the present purpose, they are best conceived of as
what fills some determinate space-time zone1. In this sense, events
are concrete particulars with well defined boundaries in both
space and time; they differ from ordinary objects like tables and
chairs whose identity is determined by their spatial boundaries
only2. The notion of a conserved quantity is taken from physics. It
is in the spirit of a naturalization project that the proposed
reduction cannot be achieved by a priori reasoning only. Both the
justification of the existence of conservation laws to which
quantities such as mass-energy, linear momentum or electrical
charge are subject, and the eventual completion of an exhaustive
list of such quantities are left to scientific, not philosophical,
investigation.
If circularity is to be avoided, the concept of transmission
must be given, in the context of this reduction, a non-causal
meaning3. In this respect it differs from the ordinary meaning of
the word "transmission" which has indeed a causal component.
Furthermore, the fact that this word is currently applied to human
actions gives it an anthropocentric connotation. If we were to
include in the concept of transmission all the aspects of that

ordinary meaning, the transference theory as based on (T) would

therefore not only be circular, but also anthropocentric, in the
sense that it would reduce all causality to the sort specific for
human action. That consequence can be avoided by the following
interpretation of what it means for an amount P of a conserved
quantity Q to be transferred - or transmitted - between one event
a and another event b: it must be understood as meaning that the
amount P is present in both events4. Furthermore, it is crucial
that one conceive of an amount P of, for example, energy present
in a given space-time region as a particular capable of persisting
through time. As a particular, P can be present in two different
events where those events are conceived of as the total content of
space-time zones. Thus, the transference theory requires an
ontology recognizing particular properties P which have also been
called "tropes" by Williams (1953) and "abstract particulars" by
Campbell (1990). In this framework, one conceives of a concrete
event as being constituted by the totality of the intrinsic tropes
present in the space-time zone it occupies. A trope is said to be
intrinsic to the zone where it occurs if it does not depend on
anything outside that zone.
For a and b to be causally related, it is not sufficient that
they possess amounts of some given conserved quantity which are
equal in magnitude, but it is necessary that the amount present in
a be identical as a particular with the amount present in b. Thus
understood, "transmission" isn't a causal notion. But we now face
the task of showing that it makes sense to say of a particular
amount P of a conserved quantity Q that it is present in two
different events. That will be the topic of section 3. Section 2
deals with the objection that a transference theory precludes a

causal theory of time and excludes the possibility of backwards

causation on purely conceptual grounds.

2. The asymmetry of the causal relation

It has been argued5 that transference theories have no

satisfying way of dealing with the asymmetry of causality. If
transmission is understood non-causally the relation it
establishes between two events becomes symmetrical, and then, so
the argument goes, the asymmetry characteristic of causality can
be brought in only from outside, i.e. from the ordering of the
temporal localizations of the cause and the effect, relative to an
independently determined direction of time. This has two
undesirable consequences. First, it would then be, on pains of
circularity, impossible to explain the direction of time by
reference to the asymmetry of causation. Second, such a
presupposition excludes both symmetrical and backwards causation
as impossible on purely conceptual grounds; still it seems
desirable to be able to consider the asymmetry of causality in
this world as an empirical fact and symmetrical or backwards
causation as an empirical possibility.
It is true that according to a transference theory causal
relations are not necessarily asymmetrical6. But the asymmetry
between cause and effect can be explained as a contingent feature
of causation as it exists in the actual world. To do this, let us
distinguish between two fundamental types of causal processes7. The
first contains all processes which are completely determined by
reversible laws of nature. The movement of planets or of billiard
balls in ideal, i.e. frictionless, conditions belongs to this type

of (intrinsically) symmetrical causal relations. The processes of

the second group are irreversible in that their physical nature
gives them an intrinsic asymmetry. Almost all processes taking
place on earth belong to this second type, namely all dissipative
processes or processes producing entropy8. Moreover, these
processes are so pervasive that they constitute a sufficient basis
for attributing asymmetry to all causal processes. Here is why.
Putting aside events which are causally isolated, i.e. which are
neither cause nor effect of anything9, it is possible to represent
the totality of all causal relations as a net, where the nodes
represent the events and the lines linking the nodes represent the
causal relations10. In so doing we have almost all the premises
needed to conclude that there are objective grounds for justifying
the idea that all causal relations existing in the actual world
have a determinate direction.
P1. All events which are either causes or effects are located
in a causal net.
P2. This net contains at least some causal relations which are
intrinsically asymmetrical in virtue of their physical specificity
(in our near neighborhood, namely on the surface of the earth, in
fact countlessly many).
Let us add two further provisonal11 assumptions.
P3. There is only one such net, i.e. all events participating
in causation are linked by the same net.
P4. Among the intrinsically asymmetrical causal relations (cf.
P2), there is a clear majority of processes having the same
direction. This seems indeed to be the case on earth where all
energetically isolated irreversible processes have the same
direction.

With these assumptions in place, we can use the causal net to

attribute a direction even to those causal relations in the net
which are deprived of intrinsic asymmetry. This is because premiss
P4 guarantees the existence of a unique direction D of the
majority of the intrinsically asymmetrical processes in the net.
It suffices to attribute this direction to the whole net, and
indirectly to the intrinsically symmetrical causal relations it
contains. The conception of the causal net makes the transference
theory compatible with a causal theory of time insofar as the
predominant direction D can ground both the asymmetry of causation
and the direction of time12.
We are now in a position to deflect two objections Michael
Tooley has raised against reductionist theories of causation. His
first argument is based on the following thought experiment.
Tooley (1990, pp. 223f.) asks us to consider a very simple
possible world consisting of only two particles, endlessly
rotating around each other. Tooley challenges the reductionist to
explain the asymmetry of causation in such a perfectly reversible
world. Only by relying upon an independently defined direction of
time could this be done. But in such a perfectly symmetrical
possible world, this would be not so much an explanation of the
asymmetry of causation, as an avowal that no such explanation is
available. In Tooley's simple world there is neither ground for
temporal nor for causal asymmetry. There are causally related
events, but no objective difference between cause and effect. This
situation clearly brings out the fact that for the transference
theory, in the absence of intrinsically asymmetrical processes,
all causal relations are symmetrical. Two events consisting of
adjacent temporal parts (or "time-slices") of one of the particles

in Tooley's simple world are causally related by the transmission

of an amount of energy-mass, angular momentum or other conserved
quantities, yet none of these causally related events is the
cause, rather than the effect of the other. Neither is one
objectively earlier than the other. Nevertheless, there is nothing
contradictory or otherwise inacceptable in this result.
A variant of Tooley's thought experiment (not mentioned by
him) has us consider the possibility that our world contains a
region in which all processes are, from a physical point of view,
perfectly symmetrical. As before, the theory implies that both
causality and time are symmetrical in such a hypothetical region.
Yet in order to exclude the possibility of an indirect ascription
of asymmetry via the causal net, we would have to suppose in
addition that such a region is causally isolated from ours13.
Tooley (1990, pp. 224f.) proposes a second argument to show
that a reductionist theory cannot explain the asymmetry of
causality. We are asked to consider the conceptual possibility of
there being two "inverted worlds" which are causally isolated from
each other. It seems in fact more appropriate to speak of two
"regions" within one possible world, for otherwise it would be
impossible to analyse the relevant relations between these
"worlds" existing in parallel. This time, both regions contain
irreversible processes; actually, one of the regions resembles our
own world to the smallest detail. The decisive assumption is that
the two regions are almost completely similar to one another: they
contain the same objects, down to the last elementary particle,
the only difference between them being the direction of motion.
The objects in the second region move in precisely the opposite
direction with respect to their counterparts in the first region.

Now, according to Tooley, this thought experiment shows that the

difference between cause and effect cannot be reduced to the
asymmetry of physically irreversible processes, for in one of the
two regions of that possible world the direction of causality is
the direction of the irreversible processes, while in the other
region these directions are opposite to one another.
In this form, the argument clearly begs the question against
reductionist theories. When constructing his possible world,
Tooley already presupposes that both time and causality have a
unique direction common to both regions and independent of the
type of physical processes going on in each region. Only this
assumption allows him to conclude that in one of the regions the
direction of the irreversible processes is opposite to the
direction of time and causality. Without that question-begging
assumption, nothing stands in the way of analyzing the situation
in light of the transference theory: the two regions of Tooley's
possible world are causally completely isolated from one another.
Therefore, a reductionist theory determines the direction of both
time and causation for each region independently of the other
region. This is done by reducing these directions to the direction
of the (majority of the) physically irreversible processes in each
region. The situation only appears paradoxal in Tooley's
presentation because he undertakes to compare the two regions with
respect to the direction of their irreversible processes. But he
can do this only by presupposing (and thus begging the question)
that there is a global direction of time and causation providing
the basis for such a comparison.
Another widespread argument against the transference theory is
that it excludes the possibility of causation directed backwards

in time14. Yet, the argument is only efficacious against those

versions of a transference theory which ground the direction of
each single causal relation directly on (the direction of) time.
For them, it is true by definition that there cannot be causality
backwards in time. The cause cannot be later than the effect if
the fact that one event is the cause is determined by the fact
that it precedes the other, with respect to an independently given
time ordering. But the conception of the causal net allows us to
acknowledge the possibility of processes evolving backwards in
time. There might be intrinsically asymmetrical processes running
in the direction opposite to the overall direction of the net,
e.g. because their entropy spontaneously diminishes (where this
diminuition of entropy is not compensated by a corresponding
augmentation of the entropy of the environment of the system)15.
This account of backwards causation shows that it does not,
contrary to what Dowe claims, necessarily require a "violation of
the conservation law for the quantity concerned" (Dowe 1992b, p.
194)16.
It may help to explain the widespread rejection of the
transference theory when one considers that Fair's (1979) version
does indeed make backwards causation impossible for conceptual
reasons. Fair tries to make his account compatible with a certain
type of causal judgment in which the attribution of the roles of
cause and effect does not coincide with the objective asymmetry of
the process realizing the transference between those events. Take
the common sense judgment that a floating ice cube cools the water
surrounding it. According to the theory defended here, the
direction of that causal relation is objectively determined by the
direction of the flow of energy (which is an irreversible

process). In this case the direction of the flow is only from the
surrounding water to the ice cube. This means that the only causal
judgment which correctly mirrors the objective asymmetry of that
causal relation is: the water surrounding the ice cube warms it
up. Our theory thus imposes a certain regimentation of the truth
of common sense judgments regarding the direction of causal
relations. Taken as a judgment of the objective direction of
causation, the judgment that the ice cube cools the surrounding
water, is wrong. Saying that the ice cube cools the water
nevertheless remains a valid explanation, though one in which,
contrary to what happens in causal explanations, the explanans
doesn't designate the cause and the explanandum doesn't designate
the effect17.
Fair chooses to avoid such a regimentation and to justify the
literal truth of the common sense judgment according to which the
ice cube causes the cooling. He achieves this by making the
hypothesis that the direction of the causal relation between a and
b grounded on the transmission of energy from a to b is
objectively undetermined (Cf. Fair 1979, pp. 242/3). Whether a or
b is the cause, depends on the perspective one adopts with respect
to that causal relation. As a result both causal judgments appear
as compatible: the one which says that a is a cause of b, and the
one which says of the same particular causal relation that b is a
cause of a. However, Fair's thesis that the difference between
cause and effect is in principle never objective is inacceptable
within a realist theory of causation. Furthermore, Fair's account
has the drawback of ruling out the possibility of symmetrical or
backwards causation as objectively different from standard
causation.

10

In a complex causal net, distant nodes may be causally related

without one being a cause of the other. It may, for example, be
the case that neither of two causes of a common effect or of two
effects of a common cause is a cause of the other, still they may
be said to be "indirectly causally connected". Our reduction (T)
correctly predicts that neither of two such events is a cause of
the other, for no particular amount of a conserved quantity is
present in both of them. The distinction between two events which
are causally connected in a general sense and two events where one
is a cause of the other, can also be applied to more complex cases
in which, for example, both forward and backward causal relations
intervene between two distant events. I shall leave the thorough
exploration of such possibilities for another occasion.

3. Identity through time of an amount of a conserved quantity

We still have to face the objection that an amount of a

conserved quantity is not the sort of entity that can be
transmitted. I shall distinguish an ontological and an
epistemological version of this objection: according to the
former, the identity of such an amount of a conserved quantity is
ontologically indeterminate; according to the latter, that
identity is epistemically inaccessible.

3.1. The ontological objection

The ontological objection goes as follows: in order for an

entity to be said to have been transmitted between two events,
that entity has to persist through time in the manner of a

11

substance. But an amount P of a conserved quantity Q isn't a

substance, and thus it makes no sense to say that it is
transmitted.
It is indeed crucial for the applicability of the concept of
transmission that what is being transmitted can be said to
conserve its identity through time, in particular during the time
interval of the transmission. This is why we must require of the
transmitted amount P that it be an amount of a conserved quantity18.
With respect to this concept, we can take advantage of its precise
definition in physics. Conserved quantities are properties obeying
a strict law of conservation. The necessity of this requirement is
most obvious when it is contrasted with quantities which are not
conserved through time. Particular forms of energy, like matter,
potential energy or heat, are not conserved for they may be
converted into another, provided the net change of the global
quantity of energy is zero. The fact that there is, e.g., no
conservation of potential energy makes it senseless to say of a
given "amount" of potential energy that it is "transmitted"
between one event and another (or between one place and another).
Thus, if we grant that causality is grounded on transmission, we
get a clear answer to the question: for which quantities is
transmission necessary and sufficient for causation? It is
precisely conserved quantities which can satisfy the requirement
imposed by the very concept of transmission19. Energy-mass, momentum
and electric charge are, according to our present state of
knowledge, such quantities whereas potential energy, heat, force
or information aren't20.
Dieks (1986, pp. 88ff.) has argued that both classical and
quantum physics provide reasons for denying that amounts of

12

conserved quantities like energy and momentum can be considered as

substances. Indeed, classical physics only postulates global, not
local, conservation of energy and momentum. But in the quantum
mechanical theory of interaction, these quantities are considered
as locally conserved, albeit within a certain margin of
imprecision which is, in the case of energy, determined by the
well-known inequality E t h. However, quantum theory also
provides much deeper reasons to doubt the substantial character of
mass-energy, momentum and the other conserved quantities. It is
indeed a fundamental result of quantum mechanics that there are
systems of "identical" particles whose components cannot even be
individuated by their respective positions in space. Contrary to
what is the case for macroscopic objects, if a collection of
interacting bosons share all their intrinsic properties they must
be considered identical to each other in the sense that they also
share their localization. What is decisive for our argument is the
fact that the lack of individual identity which characterizes
interacting bosons of the same type and in the same state carries
over to all of their properties. In particular, conserved
quantities cannot be possessed by individual particles, but only
by the collective formed by all interacting identical particles.
Therefore, Dieks (1986) is right in saying that it makes no sense
to suppose that some particular amount P is possessed by any one
of those particles taken individually, rather than by the whole
interacting system.
Nevertheless, this lack of individuality is not fatal to the
idea of a transmission of P. The reason is that before and after
an interaction, the particles participating in the interaction do
have a sufficient degree of individuality to make it possible to

13

consider them as individual bearers of the amounts of conserved

quantities they possess. Let us consider the example of an
interaction between two pairs of identical bosons, namely the pair
a1 - a2 and the pair b1 - b2, where the members of each pair are
held together by some interaction acting as a "glue". Now, when
there is an elastic collision between the pair a1 - a2 and the pair
b1 - b2, there will be an exchange of momentum between them. In
this situation it makes no sense to ask whether it is b1 rather
than b2 which has received a certain amount of momentum that has
been lost by the pair a1 - a2. In virtue of their being glued
together, b1 and b2 make up an interacting whole within which it is
senseless to ascribe momentum to one rather than the other of its
components. During the collision, this is even true for the
ascription of momentum to one of all four involved particles: by
hypothesis, all four particles are "identical" in the quantum
mechanical sense which means that during the period of interaction
they share their identity, which implies their sharing the
identity of the amount of momentum they collectively bear.
Nevertheless, far away from the region of its interaction with a1 a2, the pair b1 - b2 has, as a pair, a form of diachronic identity
which is admittedly weak, but sufficient to justify its
distinctness from the pair a1 - a2.
What does it mean to call this diachronic form of identity
"weak"? It is intended to express the acknowlegment of the fact
that such particles - and the amounts of conserved quantities they
bear - don't have the character of substances, even outside of
their interactions with other particles identical with them.
Quantum theory conceives of interactions as processes during which
the interacting particles are annihilated and subsequently

14

recreated. The newly created particles share all of their

intrinsic properties with the formerly annihilated ones with the
exception of the properties affected by the interaction. The
Compton effect is, for example, conceived as the scattering of a
photon by an electron during which at one moment the photon gets
annihilated when the electron absorbs it, and at another moment a
new photon gets created when the electron emits it. That physical
conception of what an interaction between individual subatomic
particles comes to prevents the application of the Aristotelian
concept of a substance to such particles21. It is decisive for the
assessment of the present argument against the transference theory
that the restrictions imposed by quantum mechanics on the
annihilation and creation of elementary particles justify the
attribution of a weak form of diachronic identity to them. The
existence of events of annihilation and subsequent creation
doesn't contradict the causal continuity between different
temporal parts of a given particle, as long as it is not involved
in interactions with particles identical with it. In the case of
the Compton scattering of a photon by an electron, the continuity
bridging the gap between the annihilation and the recreation of
the photon is being guaranteed by the "genidentity" - we shall
return to this notion in a moment - of the electron during that
brief interval of time. As to the conserved quantities themselves
possessed by a particle, we can, for the purposes of the
transference theory, substitute the concept of a "flow" (suggested
by Dieks (1986))

for the inadequate concept of a substance. The

transmitted amounts of conserved quantities have the identity of a

flow, weaker than the identity of a substance, but strong enough
to make their transmission possible.

15

It is crucial for our project to distinguish two kinds of

identity through time. Genidentity characterizes the persistence
of concrete22 objects, whereas the individual amounts of conserved
quantities possessed by those objects persist in the manner of a
flow. The latter is the more fundamental type of persistence which
can be considered as grounding the former. Indeed, our theory
allows us to give a causal analysis of the relation of genidentity
between the different temporal parts of a concrete object. Carnap,
who adopted the notion from Russell (1914)23 and Lewin (1923),
explicates the concept of genidentity as the property of two world
points belonging to the same world-line (cf. Carnap 1928, p. 170).
Carnap explains that genidentity, i.e. "the belonging of two
different states of an object to the same object" (op.cit., p.
218) is one of a class of relations of "improper identity" (ibid.)
which language groups together under the heading of identity but
which fall short of logical identity proper : two temporal parts
of the same object at different times aren't identical with each
other in a logical sense for one satisfies predicates which the
other doesn't.
The transference theory proposes to give genidentity a causal
meaning24. It is grounded on the transmission of amounts of
conserved quantities from each temporal part of an object to its
adjacent temporal parts. The theory thereby relies on a more
primitive kind of identity through time which characterizes
amounts of conserved quantities themselves. It would be viciously
circular if one tried to explain the persistence of such an amount
P in turn as a causal process. But our theory doesn't do this. P
stays identical with itself in virtue of the conservation law
governing the conserved quantity of which it is an amount. The

16

validity of the relevant conservation law is taken as a primitive

fact. On this basis we can explain the persistence of an object
possessing such amounts by conceiving of that object as a
structured entity with respect to its existence in time, more
precisely as a continuous series of events. The object persists
because each of its "time-slices" transmits the amounts of
conserved quantities it contains - mass being the most fundamental
of these for material objects - to adjacent time-slices. Thus
genidentity, the identity of an object through time, appears as
derivative with respect to the more basic identity through time of
the objects' ultimate constituents, which are the amounts of
conserved quantities constituting it.
This distinction also enables us to explain how objects can
persist in spite of complete substitution of all of their
constitutive parts, as happens regularly with the cells in the
human body. The genidentity of such an object in spite of its
"regeneration" can be explained by the (primitive) identity of the
majority of the amounts of conserved quantities it contains from
one instant to the next. Mass being subject to a conservation law,
the body's material parts persist through time. By contrast, if
all material parts constitutive of an object were to be replaced
simultaneously, there would be no transmission linking the object
before and after that substitution event. In this case the theory
correctly predicts that there is no one object persisting in spite
of the substitution. Rather, the former object ceases to exist and
a different, qualitatively similar object is brought into being.
Distinguishing between the primitive persistence of the
transmitted particular quantities themselves and the genidentity
based on it that characterizes the persistence of concrete

17

objects, allows us to deflect the following objection. Dowe

(1995b) argues that one is led into a dilemma if one tries to
figure out how a property could be genidentical. Either a property
is conceived of as a universal, in which case it can be possessed
by different objects or by the same object at different times, but
it makes no sense to say that the property it has later is
genidentical to the property it had earlier. Indeed, the concept
of genidentity applies exclusively to concrete objects, not to
properties as universals, nor to property-particulars, like an
individual amount of energy. Or "x possesses y" - as in "object x
possesses the individual amount of energy y" - is a two-place
predicate which, says Dowe, "suggests that energy is not a
property at all, but a thing, a substance, separate from the
object. (...) But energy cannot stand alone, possessed by nothing"
(Dowe, 1995b, p. 369). The account presented here escapes the
dilemma because it conceives of individual amounts of conserved
quantities in a still different way. An individual amount of
energy is an abstract particular, a trope. Tropes of conserved
quantities have a primitive identity through time, different both
from genidentity of concrete objects and from the identity of
universals. The relation between an object and the tropes it
contains can be understood as a third sense of the predicate "x
possesses y". Yet it seems less misleading to state that relation
by saying: "The concrete particular object x contains the trope
y".

3.2. The epistemological objection and the difference between

causal processes and pseudo-processes

18

Sometimes the argument throwing doubt upon the diachronic

identity of particular amounts of conserved quantities has been
stated in epistemological terms. It is impossible, it is said, to
recognize that an amount P* is identical with some amount P when
these are encountered in different events25. Dowe expresses this
objection by saying that, if energy is the relevant conserved
quantity, a transference theory lacks the conceptual equipment
necessary "to distinguish energy transmission from a regular
appearance of energy" (Dowe 1992a, p. 214). The background for
this criticism is Reichenbach's (1928; 1956) and Salmon's (1978;
1984) theory of causal processes whose central idea is that a
causal process can be characterized by its capacity for
transmitting marks26. Put in terms of this theory, the objection is
that transference theories don't provide any objective grounds for
the distinction between pseudo-processes and causal processes. In
a given situation, Dowe claims, it is in principle impossible to
decide whether an amount P of a conserved quantity has been
transmitted between a and b or whether the presence of an amount
of equal magnitude of the same conserved quantity in both a and b
is due to a coincidence or to some reason independent of the link
between a and b. A reduction like (T), it is said, can't tell real
from merely apparent causation, as in the following situation:
event a bears a certain amount P of energy. Independently of this,
a different although qualitatively indistinguishable amount P* is
present in a spatio-temporally nearby event b. Moreover, the
neighborhood of a and b makes it look as if P and P* were
identical, in the sense of being one particular amount of energy.
This objection could only defeat the transference theory
within a radically verificationist framework. Once we distinguish

19

between an objective fact and our perhaps limited possibility to

obtain knowledge of that fact, the problem pointed out by Dowe
disappears27. We have made the hypothesis that amounts of conserved
quantities have the diachronic identity of a flow which is strong
enough to admit of transmission. This makes it possible to
distinguish between, on the one hand, the transmission of P
between a and b and, on the other hand, the accidental presence of
two different amounts P and P* of the same conserved quantity and
of equal magnitude in a and b, even if it is perhaps difficult to
find out about this objective difference. Barring extreme
verificationism, pointing out the epistemic difficulty of finding
out about that difference does not constitute an ontological
argument against its existence.

4. The Mark Transmission Theory and the Conserved Quantity

Theory

I would now like to compare the explanatory power of the

transference theory to that of two prominent competitors, namely
Salmon's (1984) theory of causal processes28, and Dowe's
(1992a;1995a) "Conserved Quantity Theory". The former
characterizes causal processes by their capacity of transmitting
marks. There are two reasons for thinking that the transference
theory provides a deeper explanation of causality than Salmon's
theory. The first reason is that the transference theory can
explain why causal processes are capable of transmitting marks
whereas Salmon simply defines a causal process by its having this
capacity. The second reason is that the process theory explains
causality in the framework of a dichotomy - namely of causal and

20

pseudo-processes - which is observer-relative and not

ontologically exhaustive. The transference theory provides a more
complete picture of the world for it can deal appropriately with
world-lines which are neither causal nor pseudo-processes and so
fall out of the picture drawn by the process theory.
Let us begin with the claim that a process theory doesn't have
the conceptual resources to explain both the capacity of processes
to transmit marks and the corresponding incapacity of pseudoprocesses. A process theory takes processes to be the entities
which are fundamental for the analysis of causation29. Salmon (1984,
pp. 147-157) then defines causal processes as those capable of
transmitting a mark. Taking processes as the point of departure
excludes the possibility of giving an "analytical" explanation30 of
the property of being capable of transmitting a mark, by analysing
processes (and pseudo-processes) into their constitutive
components. The transference theory can provide such an analysis
by taking a more fundamental kind of entity as its point of
departure, namely events conceived of as what fills a space-time
zone. This allows it to characterize (causal) processes as a
subclass of all world-lines. A world-line is a continuous (with
respect to both space and time) series of events. Those worldlines whose constitutive events are linked by a relation of
transmission of some amount of conserved quantities, are causal
processes.
Next, we can explain why these causal processes can transmit
marks. A mark can be thought of as a property of an event. If the
mark is determined by an amount of a conserved quantity possessed
by the event, it can be transmitted to neighboring events in any
world-line in which the event takes part. In this case, we can

21

also speak in a more natural way of the mark as a property of the

whole world-line all of whose constituent events possess it. We
can illustrate this idea with the example of an acoustical signal.
Such a signal typically consists of a packet of sound waves or of
a local modification of a continuous sound wave. Both are forms of
energy which are subject to a local conservation law. A signal
exhibited by an event can be transmitted to neighboring events
insofar as it is the appearance of an amount of a conserved
quantity, namely of energy. Its propagation is just a special case
of transmission of such an amount.
Our second argument against the process theory is that an
ontology based on the categories of causal process and pseudoprocess is not sufficiently fundamental for the aim of elaborating
a theory of objective causality. First, these two categories do
not exhaust the class of world-lines because some of them, of
which I shall present an example shortly, are constitutive neither
of a causal process nor of a pseudo-process31. Second, the concept
of a pseudo-process shouldn't play any fundamental role in the
ontology of causation for the following reason. Whether a given
world-line is a pseudo-process or not depends not only on its not
being causal, but also on the epistemological question of whether
it appears as causal to observers in virtue of its structural
continuity. This makes the category observer-relative and illsuited for ontological purposes. Consider for example the fact
that, as Kitcher (1989, p. 463) and Dowe (1992c, pp. 124/5) have
noted, many causal processes do not possess structural uniformity
over time because their evolution is subject to radical phenomenal
change. Now, shadows of causal processes are paradigm cases of
pseudo-processes. But if there are non-uniform causal processes,

22

then they may cast non-uniform shadows. Are such shadows pseudoprocesses or not? We leave this question to the advocate of the
process ontology. It simply has no unique answer, independently of
the epistemic attitude of a particular observer.
An example will show that shadows of non-uniform causal
processes are only the tip of an iceberg of world-lines falling in
neither of Salmon's fundamental categories. We can construct it as
a variant of the example Salmon (1984, pp. 145/6) uses to
illustrate the distinction between causal processes and pseudoprocesses. In the centre of an astrodome, a rotating beacon
illuminates a spot on the surrounding wall. The movement of the
spot along the wall has become the paradigm of a pseudo-process
while, e.g., the spread of light radiation from the central source
to the wall provides a clear example of a causal process. Now,
consider the world-line which is constituted by a series of spots
on the wall which are located at some fixed distance from the
illuminated spots but not themselves illuminated. Having the same
temporal evolution as the world-line of the illuminated spot, it
differs from the latter by a fixed spatial shift. The so defined
series of events32 is a world-line because it is spatio-temporally
continuous, and it is not a (causal) process because nothing is
transmitted between its constitutive events. Yet the question
whether it is a pseudo-process or not has no unique answer, for it
depends on the observer and his attitude: to qualify as a pseudoprocess, a world-line must have the (deceptive) appearance of a
process. Does the series of spots neighboring the illuminated ones
share some phenomenally salient property which gives the
impression of causality to an observer? It depends on whether the
observer directs his attention to the relational property by which

23

that world-line was defined. Moreover, our world-line also

displays intrinsic uniformity: If the wall is uniformly painted,
the continuous series of non-illuminated time-slices of wall
patches display uniform surface structure, colour, and shape. The
transference theory ignores the observer-relative category of
pseudo-processes and focuses instead on what distinguishes causal
relations in an ontological respect. It thereby provides an
objective and exhaustive dichotomy based on an ontological
criterion, namely that distinguishing between world-lines
consisting of a series of events which are causally related by
transmission and world-lines which are not.
As I noted earlier, Salmon has recently changed his mind and
moved towards Dowe's proposal to define causal processes in terms
of their "manifesting" (Dowe 1992a, p. 210) or "possessing" (Dowe
1995a, p. 326) a conserved quantity. But, as I shall now try to
show, both manifestation and possession are too weak to make a
reconstruction of the concept of causality possible. Nothing
falling short of transmission will do. The most direct way to
argue for this claim is by showing that a theory like Dowe's and, for that matter, Salmon's (1994) - is bound to judge that
certain clearly non-causal world-lines are causal processes.
Dowe (1992a;1995a;b) defines "a causal process" as "a worldline of an object that possesses a conserved quantity" (1995a, p.
323). Let us apply this criterion to the paradigmatic pseudoprocess of the spot of light moving along the wall in the
astrodome. On Dowe's criterion it turns out to be a causal process
after all: Firstly, the series of spots clearly is a world-line,
i.e. a temporally and spatially continuous series of events.
Secondly, as Dowe recognizes, the continuous "series of different

24

patches of the wall" on which the light spot appears manifests, or

possesses, (an amount of) a conserved quantity, namely energy.
Thirdly, within Dowe's own conception, we should not give the
expression "object" its usual meaning. The reason is that he must
deny that objects are identical through time in any sense which
goes beyond their continuous manifestation or possession of
certain properties. Whoever denies, as Dowe does, any form of
diachronic identity to amounts of conserved quantities, is
condemned also to deny diachronic identity to material objects in a strong sense of identity. Matter, after all, is just one form
of appearance of one of the conserved quantities, namely massenergy. But if one conceives of anything as an object that merely
manifests some kind of regularity, or even some fixed amount of a
conserved quantity, then one cannot avoid counting the spot on the
wall as an object.
One might try to escape the conclusion that denying the
possibility of transmission implies identifying pseudo-processes
with causal processes, by imposing stronger constraints on the
notion of an object. Thus, Dowe has proposed to improve the notion
of an object appearing in his definition of a causal process by
requiring that
"an object must be wholly present at a time in order to exist
at that time. That is, when you have an object at a time, it is
not that strictly speaking you just have a part of that object - a
temporal part. If you have an object then you have the whole
object at that time" (Dowe 1995a, p. 329; his emphasis).
This is meant to exclude "time-wise gerrymandered" aggregates
from the class of objects. Such an aggregate can be constructed as
the mereological sum of temporal parts of (what intuitively would
count as) different objects, according to a relational definition
such as, for example, "the closest ball to the black ball" (Dowe
1995a, p. 328) in a billiards game. The description "being the
25

closest ball to the black ball" might be satisfied by the pink

ball before the instant t1 and by the red ball after t1. The
requirement that in order to count as an object, something must be
wholly present at each time of its existence, is intended to
ensure that it doesn't suffice to just give a relational
definition, in order for the thus defined mereological sum to
constitute a genuine object. The problem with this proposal is its
circularity. For what does it mean to say that the gerrymandered
object defined by that relational description is "not wholly
present" at some instant t0 < t133? Awaiting a more thorough
explication of that notion, it simply seems to mean that the red
ball is not the same object as the pink ball, and that therefore
"when you have" - to use Dowe's expression - the pink ball at time
t0, you don't have the whole gerrymandered object at that time. If
it means just that, Dowe's characterization of what it is to be a
genuine object is circular.
The upshot is that the refusal to admit transmission seems to
deprive an account of causation like Dowe's of any means to
exclude the spot from the class of objects. But let us consider
one last move in order to avoid that result. Dowe (1992c; 1995a)
introduces a distinction between the spot and the patch of the
wall on which the spot appears. This enables him to deny that the
spot possesses conserved quantities, whereas the series of patches
of the wall possesses them. Thus the spot would be ruled out as a
causal process because it doesn't fulfil the second of the above
listed requirements. But this defence only pushes the problem one
step further rather than solving it. For if it is the series of
wall spots which possesses conserved quantities, then it will
serve as a counter-example to Dowe's account. What we said about

26

the spot applies mutatis mutandis to the series of patches: it is

a world-line, it possesses conserved quantities, and it is an
object on the weak standards which an account denying transmission
has at its disposal34, given that it denies that the amounts of
mass-energy constituting an object can be strictly identical to
themselves through time. Dowe's account doesn't seem apt to avoid
the disastrous consequence of judging the paradigmatic case of a
pseudo-process, namely the world-line constituted by the
illuminated series of (time-slices of) wall patches, as causal.
This result refutes his account in its present form35.

5. Conclusion

The aim of this paper has been to propose and defend a

naturalistic account of causation based on the idea of reducing
causation to a relation of transmission. Two major kinds of
objections have been considered. Against the first kind of
objection, it has been shown that the transference theory can
account for both symmetrical and backwards causation, and that it
is compatible with a causal theory of time. The concept of a
causal net has played a crucial role in this endeavor. According
to the transference theory, causation itself is a symmetrical
concept whereas the asymmetry of the causal relations in our
(region of the) actual world is a contingent feature which is due
to the particular physical processes occurring there. Backwards
causality is possible in a net like ours in which a majority of
intrinsically asymmetrical causal relations determines a direction
of forward causality. Symmetrical causality might exist either
within our own causal net or in a different net which might be

27

causally isolated from ours. In the former case the net bestows
indirect asymmetry on all intrinsically symmetrical causal
relations it contains. In the latter case, the whole net might be
perfectly symmetrical with respect to both causality and time.
The persistence of a concrete object through time, i.e.
genidentity, can be explained as resulting from transmission of
amounts of conserved quantities - in the first place, energy-mass
- from one time-slice of the object to its adjacent time-slices.
But in order to avoid circularity, the diachronic identity of
those amounts themselves must be taken to be primitive and
directly grounded on the validity of the relevant conservation
laws. If we conceive of those particular amounts as tropes whose
diachronic identity is that of a flow, the theory seems able to
cope with certain difficulties raised by quantum phenomena. Both
the diachronic identity of particular amounts of conserved
quantities and the genidentity of concrete objects fall short of
the strong identity of an Aristotelian substance. What is crucial
is that the former's diachronic identity is sufficiently strong to
allow them to be transmitted from one event to another. The
epistemic difficulty to tell genuine transmission of particular
amounts of conserved quantities apart from the mere appearance of
such transmission doesn't show that this difference is
ontologically ill-grounded unless we accept radical
verificationism.
Process theories, as Salmon's (1984) and Dowe's
(1992a;b;c;1995a), are among the major rival realist theories of
causation. But taking processes to be the most fundamental
entities in the ontology of causation is a weakness for it makes
it impossible to explain why causal processes can transmit marks

28

or why objects persist through time. Instead of taking these as

primitive facts, the transference theory explains them by taking
events to be the most fundamental entities in the ontology of
causation where events are contents of space-time zones. The
process theory's central distinction between processes and pseudoprocesses is firstly epistemic and observer-relative and secondly
not exhaustive. By contrast, the transference theory's distinction
between causal and non-causal relations is observer-independent
and exhaustive of all world-lines.
Our defence of the idea that transmission is the crucial
conceptual ingredient of objective causation has been completed by
an argument intended to show that the weaker notions of regular
appearance, manifestation or possession of a conserved quantity,
are too weak indeed to be able to justify the judgment that
paradigmatic cases of pseudo-processes are not causal. Dowe's
(1992a;1995b) and Salmon's (1994) denial of the diachronic
identity of particular amounts of a conserved quantity deprives
them of a strong enough notion of an object which would allow
them, on the grounds of their own definitions, to justify the
judgment that the world-line constituted by the series of
illuminated time-slices of wall-patches is not a causal process36.

References

Armstrong, D. M.: 1980, Identity through Time. In: Time and Cause,
ed. Peter van Inwagen, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Aronson, J. J.: 1971a, On the Grammar of 'Cause', Synthese 22,
417-418.

29

Aronson, J. J.: 1971b, The Legacy of Hume's Analysis of Causation,

Stud.Hist.Phil.Sci. 2,

135-165.

Aronson, J. J.: 1982, Unentangling Ontology from Epistemology in

Causation, Erkenntnis 18, 293-305.
Aronson, J. J.: 1985, Conditions versus Transference: A Reply to
Ehring. Synthese 63, 249-

257.

Campbell, K.: 1990, Abstract Particulars, Blackwell, Oxford.

Carnap, R.: 1928, Der logische Aufbau der Welt. Weltkreis Verlag,
Berlin-Schlachtensee.
Cummins, R.: 1983, The Nature of Psychological Explanation. MIT
Press, Cambridge, MA.
Davidson, D.: 1980, Essays on Actions and Events. Clarendon Press,
Oxford.
Dieks, D.: 1986, Physics and the Direction of Causation,
Erkenntnis 25, 85-110.
Dowe, P.: 1992a, Wesley Salmon's Process Theory of Causality and
the Conserved Quantity Theory, Phil. of Science 59, 195-216.
Dowe, P.: 1992b, Process Causality and Asymmetry, Erkenntnis 37,
179-196.
Dowe, P.: 1992c, An empiricist defence of the causal account of
explanation, International

Studies in the Philosophy of Science

6, 123-128.
Dowe, P.: 1995a, Causality and Conserved Quantities: A Reply to
Salmon, Phil. of Science 62, 321-333.
Dowe, P.: 1995b, What's Right and What's Wrong With Transference
Theories, Erkenntnis 42,

363-374.

Dowe, P.: 1996, Backwards Causation and the Direction of Causal

Processes. Mind 105, 1-22.

30

Ehring, D.: 1986, The Transference Theory of Causation, Synthese

67, 249-258.
Fair, D.: 1979, Causation and the Flow of Energy. Erkenntnis 14,
219-250.
Grnbaum, A.: 1973, Philosophical Problems of Space and Time.
Reidel, Dordrecht.
Horwich, P.: 1987, Asymmetries in Time. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Kitcher P.: 1989, Explanatory Unification and the Causal Structure
of the World, in: P. Kitcher and W. Salmon (eds.), Minnesota
Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 13, Scientific
Explanation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 410505.
Krajewski, W.: 1982, Four Conceptions of Causation, in W.
Krajewski (ed.), Polish Essays in the Philosophy of the Natural
Sciences, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Lewin, K.: 1923, Die zeitliche Geneseordnung. in: C.-F. Graumann
(ed.), Kurt-Lewin Werkausgabe, vol. I (A. Mtraux ed.), Hans
Huber, Bern, and Klett, Stuttgart, 1981, 213Quine,

W.

v.

O.:

1973,

The

Roots

of

232.

Reference,

Open

Court,

LaSalle, Ill.
Quine, W. v. O.: 1976, The Ways of Paradox, Revised and enlarged
edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Quine, W. v. O.: 1985, Events and Reification. In: Actions and
Events: Perspectives on the

Philosophy of Donald Davidson, eds.

Ernest LePore and Brian McLaughlin, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Reichenbach, H.: 1928, Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre. Berlin;
engl. transl.: The Philosophy

of Space and Time, Dover, New

York, 1957.

31

Reichenbach, H.: 1956, The Direction of Time. University of

California Press, Berkeley.
Russell, B.: 1914, Our Knowledge of the External World. Allen and
Unwin, London, 1926.
Russell, B.: 1948, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Allan
and Unwin, London, 5th

edition, 1966.

Salmon, W.: 1978, Why Ask "Why?"? - An Inquiry Concerning

Scientific Explanation, Proc. and Addresses of the Am. Phil.
Association 51/6, 683-705.
Salmon, W.: 1984, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure
of the World. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Salmon, W.: 1994, Causality Without Counterfactuals,

Phil. of

Science 61, 297-312.

Sosa E. et Tooley M.: 1993, Introduction. In: Causation, eds.
Ernest Sosa and Michael Tooley, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Tooley, M.: 1990, Causation: Reductionism Versus Realism, Phil.
and Phen. Res. 50, Suppl.

Vol., 215-236.

Vendler, Z.: 1967, Facts and Events, in: Linguistics and

Philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.
Williams, D.: 1953, On the Elements of Being, Rev. of Metaphysics
7, 3-18 and 171-192.
Zucchi A.: 1993, The Language of Proposition and Events, Kluwer,
Dordrecht.
1

The fact that it takes events rather than objects as the fundamental relata of
causation, distinguishes my version of the transference theory from those
defended by Aronson (1971a;b) and Fair (1979). In virtue of this difference the
theory defended here doesn't fall prey to Dowe's (1995b, pp. 366-8) objection
that transference theories are incapable of conceiving the persistence of an
object through time as a causal process. In section 3.1. below, I say more on
how this can be done.
2
Quine (1985) holds that both objects and events can be identified with the
content of a space-time zone. For Quine, the difference between an object and an
event is one of degree, depending on the length of the time interval defining
the zone. Quine's conception has the counterintuitive consequence that shortlived objects and long-lasting events are inconceivable.

32

Salmon (1994, p. 308) says of his own most recent definition of a causal
process in terms of transmission: "This definition introduces the term
'transmits', which is clearly a causal notion."
4
The conception of transmission as a symmetrical relation of presence of some
particular amount of a conserved quantity in two different events entails
restrictions on the maximal spatio-temporal distance by which two events can be
separated so that a causal relation between them is still possible. It excludes
pairs of events which are separated by a space-like (or as the limiting case, a
light-like) distance, in the sense of the special theory of relativity, from the
domain of potential cause-effect pairs.
5
Cf. Ehring (1986), Dieks (1986), Dowe (1992a; 1995b) and Sosa and Tooley
(1993).
6
The concept of a symmetrical causal relation has been introduced by Grnbaum
(1973, p. 188ff.).
7
I use the terms "causal relation" and "causal process" interchangeably. This
usage is justified by the thesis defended here that causal relations are
grounded on a process of transmission.
8
These processes can also be used to explain the origin of the asymmetry of time
(cf. Reichenbach 1956, Grnbaum 1973). A relatively rare phenomenon which shows
violation of time invariance (i.e. invariance with respect to reversal of the
direction of the time axis in a spatio-temporal representation) and thus
constitutes a further basis of the asymmetry of time and causation, is kaon
decay (Cf. Dowe 1992b).
9
Such events exist for a theory like ours which identifies events with the
contents of space-time zones. Cf. note 32 below.
10
The concept of a causal net has been introduced by Reichenbach (1956). Dowe
(1992b) has recently put it to work within his "Conserved Quantity Theory" of
causality. The fundamental difference between his theory and mine is that in
Dowe's account, the basic notion is that of a process, where a process is
defined by its manifesting (or possessing, as he now prefers to say - cf. Dowe
1995a) a conserved quantity, while I take events and a transmission relation
between them to be fundamental. Other differences concern the issues of
backwards causation and symmetrical causation. Cf. note 16 below.
11
While examining Tooley's (1990) objections below I shall examine where
abandoning these assumptions leads.
12
According to this conception, one should rigorously speak only of the direction
of the processes going on in time, and not of the direction of time itself.
However, it seems unnecessary to try to eliminate the usual way of talking, as
far as one is aware that it should not be taken literally. Cf. Horwich (1987).
13
This condition puts heavy restrictions on the possibility of the existence of
such a region (which would make premiss P3 false): nothing screens off
gravitation, and the gravitational influence has spread from our part of the
universe in all directions with the speed of light, since this part of the
universe came into existence. A causally isolated part of the world would have
to be outside the reach of the spreading gravitational field.
14
An adequate theory of causation should be capable of accounting for cases of
backwards causation if there are any (cf. Dowe 1996).
15
This account of backwards causation is immune to Dowe's (1996, p. 16)
objections against Reichenbach's (1956) explanation of the direction of
causation. Reichenbach gives all processes in the net the same direction, namely
that of the (majority of) entropy-increasing processes. My account differs from
his in that the net imposes its global direction only on intrinsically
symmetrical processes, thus leaving open the possibility of intrinsically
asymmetrical processes pointing to the direction opposite to that of the
majority. Dowe (1996, p. 17) arrives at a similar account in this respect,
except that it is formulated in terms of "open forks", instead of "intrinsical
asymmetry".
16
Dowe (1992b; 1996) also explains the possibility of backwards causation with
the help of the concept of a causal net. Yet, Dowe links backwards causation to
a "conservation anomaly" - of the type allowed for by quantum physics as far as
it confined to a small space-time region surrounding an annihilation/production
event. Dowe (1992b) discusses neither the possibility of macroscopic backwards
causation, nor the question of whether there are, or could be, intrinsically
symmetrical causal relations, nor the possibility of the existence of regions
with either symmetrical causation or causation directed in the opposite
direction with respect to our region of the world. With respect to the latter
issue, he only says that this could be possible in an "'uncoupled' portion of
the universe" (Dowe 1992b, p.188). Yet, the argument against Tooley in the text
shows that coupling to the same network is precisely required to be able to
assess the direction of one (portion of the) net with respect to another. If two
33

regions were causally uncoupled, it would make no sense to ask whether their
directions are the same or different.
It is possible to reformulate the distinction between an explanation whose
truth only depends on the existence of a causal link between the facts
designated respectively by the explanans and the explanandum (or, for that
matter, on the existence of a nomic link between them) and a genuine causal
judgment whose truth requires in addition that the explanans designates the
cause and the explanandum designates the effect, in terms of the distinction
between (causal relations between) facts and (causal relations between) events.
Cf. Davidson (1980), Vendler (1967), Zucchi (1993).
18
Dowe (1992a) has insisted on the crucial role that conserved quantities play
for causation although his own "Conserved Quantity Theory" doesn't allow amounts
of these quantities to persist or to be transmitted.
19
This account of causation has the following interesting consequence: If we
assume that the validity of conservation laws is only a matter of natural law
but not of metaphysical necessity, so that some possible worlds lack conserved
quantities, then those worlds might also lack causality and in particular, their
objects might neither all nor always persist through time. But that consequence
seems plausible: if mass-energy weren't conserved, it would be possible that
material objects appear from nothing or disappear into nothing. Similarly, if
energy and momentum were allowed to get lost or created, objects could sometimes
spontaneously start or stop moving without any cause.
20
This is a reason to reject both Aronson's proposals that the transmission of
force (Aronson 1971b, p. 145) or heat (Aronson 1985, p. 249) counts as a basis
for causation and Krajewski's (1982, p. 225) and Salmon's (1984, p. 156; 1994,
p. 303) suggestion that transmission of information does. Heat can't be said to
be transmitted because, being just one particular form of energy, it isn't
conserved but can be transformed in different forms of energy. Force and
information are not transmitted in the physical sense required for causality
because they are not conserved quantities. In particular, the sense in which
information can be transmitted doesn't fit the requirements for causation.
Firstly, the transmission of information is relative to a frame which previously
fixes the set of all possible events, and their a priori chances of occurrence.
Subjects with different epistemic backgrounds get different information by the
same physical signals. Thus, the transmission of information is observerrelative and cannot ground an objective, absolute notion of causality. Secondly,
the transmission of information only requires a reliable statistical dependence
between two series of events. Nomic dependence between effects of a common cause
which could not possibly be causally linked as cause and effect creates such a
dependence, and so do purely accidental correlations.
21
This doesn't preclude the application of the concept of a substance to
macroscopic objects.
22
An object is concrete if it fills some determinate position of space. No
properties other than the object's own can be exemplified at that place without
modifying the concrete object itself.
23
Russell doesn't use the expression "genidentity". He has later (Russell 1948,
pp. 333f.) introduced the notion of a "causal line" and used it to explain the
identity of physical objects over time. However, Russell's notion radically
differs from the one used here in being epistemic, rather than ontological. "A
'causal line', as I wish to define the term, is a temporal series of events so
related that, given some of them, something can be inferred about the others
whatever may be happening elsewhere" (Russell 1948, p. 477). Other passages of
Russell's work (1948, pp. 476f., 500, 510) make it clear that a causal line is
defined in terms of our ability to recognize the same object at different times,
not in terms of its being the same object independently of any observers.
24
No such attempt is made by Carnap in his analysis of the notion of genidentity.
The idea that the identity of an object through time could be explained in
causal terms, has been defended by Grnbaum (1973) and Armstrong (1980). Russell
(1914, pp. 108ff.; 1948, pp. 333f., 476f.) has made clear that the concept of
substance isn't adequate within a theory which considers the persistence of
physical objects as a causal process.
25
Cf. Quine (1973, p. 6); Ehring (1986, p. 256); Dowe (1992a, p. 203).
26
Salmon (1994) has now abandoned this theory. Below, I shall give additional
arguments against the mark transmission theory, beside Kitcher's (1989) and
Dowe's (1992a;c) which Salmon recognizes as defeating his earlier theory.
27
Cf. Aronson (1982; 1985) for a similar line of defense.
28
The arguments I shall give presently have not been among the reasons for which
Salmon (1994) himself has abandonded that theory. Given the importance and
widespread echo Salmon's (1984) theory has encountered, it still deserves
critical examination nonwithstanding the change of mind of its author.
17

34

29

This choice is common to Fair (1979), Salmon (1984; 1994) and Dowe
(1992a;c;1995a) who differ only in their answer to the question of which
property of a process is decisive for its being causal.
30
On this notion, cf. Cummins (1983).
31
Compare Kitcher's remark that "we could succeed in Salmon's project without
distinguishing the pseudoprocesses from the spatio-temporal junk. It will be
enough if we can separate the genuine causal processes from the rest." (Kitcher
1989, p. 462).
32
The conception of an event as the content of a space-time zone enables us to
conceive of this world-line easily. Such theoretical fecundity is what
ultimately justifies the chosen ontology of events. According to conceptions of
events which are closer to common sense, there wouldn't be any events at all in
this world-line for "nothing happens" in it whereas for common sense only
changes count as events. Note that if we tried to follow common-sense in this
respect, we couldn't hope to explain the persistence of objects through time in
causal terms, for objects can persist without changing.
33
The expression "to be wholly present" is mainly being used to characterize the
relation between a universal and an individual object instantiating it. It is
part of the definition of what it is to be a universal that it is "wholly
present" in each of its instances, and therefore at each time at which some
object exemplifies it. However, in order to apply meaningfully this locution to
particulars instead of universals it is necessary to spell out which sense it
has to be given in this quite different context.
34
Dowe repeatedly says that "the precise characterization of 'object' is
unimportant" (1992c, p. 126), or that "what counts as an object is unimportant;
any old gerrymandered thing qualifies" (1995b, p. 371). These statements are
contradicted by his own efforts (1995a, pp. 326-331) to exclude "time-wise
gerrymanders" from the range of genuine objects (as I argue in the text, so far
without success). Apart from the suggestion discussed in the text that an object
must be "wholly present at a time", Dowe cites with approval Quine's (1976)
conception according to which a physical object is "an intrinsically determinate
portion of the space-time continuum" (Dowe 1992c, p. 126). Now, this is
definitely too weak to exclude either the spot or the continuous series of timeslices of wall-patches (illuminated or not) from the domain of objects.
35
Curiously, Dowe says about the spot on the wall that the reason why it doesn't
qualify as a causal process is that "no energy is [...] carried off by the spot"
and that "it cannot transmit a conserved quantity" (1992c, p. 127). I take this
indeed to be the correct answer, but it is an answer that only a transference
theory is capable of giving: As long as Dowe contests that energy can be
transmitted at all, he cannot at the same time characterize the spot by its not
carrying any energy. Carrying is, after all, a way of transmitting.
36
I am grateful to Wolfgang Balzer, Bernd Buldt, Phil Dowe, Dan Hausman, Kevin
Mulligan, Jolle Proust, Elliott Sober and Wolfgang Spohn, and to my auditors in
Leipzig and Konstanz where I presented parts of an earlier version of this
paper, for helpful suggestions and critique, and to Marcel Lieberman and Joan
Cullen for linguistic advice.

35