Cause for Thought – An Essay in Metaphysics Burbidge Paperback John Wiley & Sons

Cause for ThoughtAn Essay in Metaphysics\nAuthor(s): John W. Burbidge\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, Canada\nImprint: McGill-Queen's University Press\nISBN-13: 9780773543546, 978-0773543546\nSynopsis\nDoes the fact that everything has a cause imply that all events are causally determined? Drawing on discussions from the history of philosophy, John Burbidge's Cause for Thought captures the diverse dynamics found in physics, chemistry, biology, animal psychology, and rational action. At each level, forms of activity emerge that cannot be reduced to the functioning of simpler, more elementary components. By exploring the logic of what happens when two causal conditions reciprocally interact, Burbidge develops a concept of complex cause in which an agent generates effects not simply because of the action of its constituent components, but also because of the way those components mutually supplement and reinforce one another. By extending this to the inter.