Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T20:44:37.833Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A LOGIC FOR ‘BECAUSE’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2011

BENJAMIN SCHNIEDER*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg
*
*UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG, DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, VON–MELLE–PARK 6, 20146 HAMBURG, GERMANY. E-mail:benjamin.schnieder@uni-hamburg.de

Abstract

In spite of its significance for everyday and philosophical discourse, the explanatory connective ‘because’ has not received much treatment in the philosophy of logic. The present paper develops a logic for ‘because’ based on systematic connections between ‘because’ and the truth-functional connectives.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, R. E. (1970). Plato’s ‘Euthyphro’ and the Earlier Theory of Forms. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ambrose, A. (1956). On entailment and logical necessity. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56, 241258.Google Scholar
Audi, P. (manuscript). Grounding. Toward a theory of the in-virtue-or-relation. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Batchelor, R. (2010). Grounds and consequences. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 80, 6577.Google Scholar
Bender, E., & Kathol, A. (2001). Constructional Effects of “Just Because … Doesn’t Mean …” Berkeley Linguistics Society: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, 27, 1325.Google Scholar
Bolzano, B. (1837). Wissenschaftslehre, (4 Vols.) Sulzbach, Germany: Seidel. Reprinted in Bernard Bolzano Gesamtausgabe I.11–I.14. Stuttgart, Germany: Frommann-Holzboog (1985ff.).Google Scholar
Bromberger, S. (1962). An approach to explanation. In Butler, R. J., editor. Analytical Philosophy, Vol. 2. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, pp. 72105.Google Scholar
Correia, F. (2005). Existential Dependence and Cognate Notions. Munich, Germany: Philosophia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. (2010). Grounding and truth-functions. Logique & Analyse, 53, 251279.Google Scholar
Cross, C. B. (1991). Explanation and the theory of questions. Erkenntnis, 34, 237260.Google Scholar
Dowe, P. (2000). Causality and explanation. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 51, 165174.Google Scholar
Dretske, F. (1972). Contrastive statements. Philosophical Review, 81, 411437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. (1994). Essence and modality. Philosophical Perspectives, 8, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. (2000). Neutral relations. Philosophical Review, 109, 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. (2001). The question of realism. Philosophers’ Imprint, 1, 130.Google Scholar
Fine, K. (forthcoming) A guide to ground. To appear in a volume on grounding edited by Fabrice Correia and Benjamin Schnieder for CUP.Google Scholar
Glanzberg, M. (2005). Focus: A case study on the semantics-pragmatics boundary. In Szabó, Z. G., editor. Semantics versus Pragmatics. Oxford, UK: OUP, pp. 72110.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hesslow, G. (1981). The transitivity of causation. Analysis, 41, 130133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornsby, J. (2005). Truth without truthmaking entities. In Beebee, H., and Dodd, J., editors. Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, pp. 3347.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (2008). Being and truth. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 32, 258273.Google Scholar
Kac, M. B. (1972). Clauses of saying and the interpretation of because. Language, 48, 626632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J. (1974). Noncausal connections Noûs, 8, 4152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1981). Explanatory unification. Philosophy of Science, 48, 507531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Künne, W. (2003). Conceptions of Truth. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986). Causal explanation. In his Philosophical Papers II. Oxford, UK: OUP, pp. 214240.Google Scholar
McQueen, D. (1971). Evidence for necessary propositions. Mind, 80, 5669.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morreal, J. (1979). The evidential use of because. Papers in Linguistics, 12, 231238.Google Scholar
Nickel, B. (2010). How general do theories of explanation have to be? Noûs, 44, 305328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, D. J. (1992). Causes and Coincidences. Cambridge, MA: CUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelletier, F. J. (1999). A brief history of natural deduction. History and Philosophy of Logic, 20, 131.Google Scholar
Railton, P. (1981). Probability, explanation, and information. Synthese, 48, 233256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, S. (2000). Truthmakers and the disjunction thesis. Mind, 109, 6779.Google Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. (2005). Why truthmakers. In Beebee, H., and Dodd, J., editors. Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, pp. 1731.Google Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G. (2006) Truthmaking, entailment, and the conjunction thesis. Mind, 115, 957982.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. (2010). Metaphysical dependence: Grounding and reduction. In Hale, B., and Hoffmann, A., editors. Modality. Oxford, UK: OUP, pp. 109135.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2003). Is there a fundamental level? Noûs, 37, 498517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2009). On what grounds what. In Chalmers, D., Manley, D., and Wasserman, R., editors. Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, UK: OUP, pp. 347383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2010). The least discerning and most promiscuous truthmaker. Philosophical Quarterly, 60, 307324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schnieder, B. (2006). Truth-making without truth-makers. Synthese, 152, 2147.Google Scholar
Schnieder, B. (2008). Truth-functionality. Review of Symbolic Logic, 1, 6472.Google Scholar
Sharvy, R. (1972). Euthyphro 9d-11b: Analysis and definition in Plato and others. Noûs, 6, 119137.Google Scholar
Sharvy, R. (1986). Plato’s causal logic and the third man. Noûs, 20, 507530.Google Scholar
Simons, P. (1987). Parts. Oxford, UK: OUP.Google Scholar
Tatzel, A. (2002). Bolzano’s theory of ground and consequence. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 43, 125.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1980). The Scientific Image. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (1984). Explanatory asymmetries. Philosophy of Science, 51, 421442.Google Scholar