Three Concepts of Causation

Abstract

Abstract I distinguish three different concepts of causation: The scientific concept, or causal structure, is the subject of recent work in causal modeling. The folk attributive concept has been studied by philosophers of law and social psychologists. The metaphysical concept is the one that metaphysicians have attempted to analyze. I explore the relationships between these three concepts, and suggest that the metaphysical concept is an untenable and dispensable mixture of the other two.