Where?
Uni Duisburg-Essen,
S06 S00 B41
Universitätsstraße 2, 45141 Essen
When?
Nov. 25 2025; 18:00 Uhr / 6PM
What?
I provide an outline of a general theory of concepts of explanation, understanding and causal and non-causal dependence, which is Humean in spirit, while, at the same time, meeting conditions that pose serious problems for standard Humean accounts. Very roughly, a general notion of dependence is here defined in terms of priority and non-coincidence. It is suggested that this general notion can be employed to define derivative conceptions of causal dependence, ontic dependence, mechanistic dependence, ground, truth-making and related notions, as well as explanation and understanding. What is perhaps the most obvious difficulty of this theory is that it is far from obvious that the notion of non-coincidence employed here is independent of the notion of dependence which it is used to define. I propose two strategies to respond to this potential problem.
Raphael van Riel (Universität Duisburg-Essen)