Causation and the Rule of Law

Metropolitan State University Of Denver, Denver CO

Investigators

Abstract

SES 0114492 Sheldon Smith, Metropolitan State College Denver Causation and the Rule of Law At least since the time of David Hume, philosophers -- including such notable ones as Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell -- as well as certain physicists -- including Ernst Mach and Gustav Kirchhoff -- have wondered about the connection between the laws of nature and the relation of cause and effect. This project contributes to that discussion in a way that remains closer to the content of actual physical theories than most of the literature on the subject. After criticizing various standard accounts of lawhood, this project delineates three different classes of laws of physics. The distinction between these three different classes of laws is arrived at by an examination of the structure of classical continuum mechanics, but it is shown that these classes appear in other physical theories, such as Quantum Mechanics, as well. It is further shown that what is known as the Green's function (for a differential operator) is the mathematical locus of causal claims within physics. Once the causal relation and laws have been located within a physical theory, standard views of the relationship between laws and causation including what are known as the "singularist" view and the "covering-law" approach are evaluated and found wanting. Other concepts closely related to those of law and of causation, such as the notion of physical necessity, are explored as well. The project results in an accurate and precise account of the relationship between physical laws -- of each of the three types -- and causation as embodied in the Green's function.