The Effectiveness of Causes presents a strong view of causation seen as an operation between participants in events, and not as a relation holding between events themselves. In it, Emmet proposes that other philosophical views of cause and effect provide only a world of events, each of which is presented as an unchanging unit. Such a world, she contends, is a Zeno universe, since transitions and movement are lost.
Emmet offers a more complex interpretation of the various forms of causal dependence. She sees immanent causation in the mere persistence of things, where effects are not temporarily separable from causes, and she considers the operation of efficacious grace.
This is a new approach to the traditional problem and provides stimulating implications for the other metaphysical questions and for the philosophy of science."
- ISBN10 0873959418
- ISBN13 9780873959414
- Publish Date 30 June 1985 (first published 1 January 1984)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 July 2000
- Publish Country US
- Imprint State University of New York Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 136
- Language English