Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T13:37:07.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in the Philosophy of Physics

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2023

Alison Fernandes
Alison Fernandes
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin

Summary

Causes always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts are complete yet and a full explanation of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs.
Get access

Keywords

causationtimetemporal asymmetrystatistical mechanicsagency
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Physics
Online ISBN: 9781108914765
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 01 June 2023

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

Ahmed, A. (2021). Evidential Decision Theory, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (1992). Quantum Mechanics and Experience, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (1994). Quantum mechanics and the approach to thermodynamic equilibrium, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 45, 669−77.Google Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (2000). Time and Chance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (2014). The sharpness of the distinction between past and future, in Wilson, A., ed., Asymmetries of Chance and Time, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 160−74.Google Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (2015). After Physics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Albert, D. Z. (2023). Conclusion, in Loewer, B., Weslake, B., and Winsberg, E., eds., The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s Time and Chance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 351–74.Google Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1975). Causality and determination, in Sosa, E., ed., Causation and Conditionals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 63–81.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D. M. (2004). Going through the open door again: Counterfactual versus singularist theories of causation, in Collins, J., Hall, N., and Paul, L., eds., Causation and Counterfactuals, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 445−57.Google Scholar
Arntzenius, F. (1990). Physics and common causes, Synthese, 82(1), 77–96.Google Scholar
Arntzenius, F. (1992). The common cause principle, Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992, 2, 227−37.Google Scholar
Arntzenius, F. and Maudlin, T. (2013). Time travel and modern physics, in Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2013 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/time-travel-phys/.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. (2020). The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beebee, H. (2015). Causation, projection, inference and agency, in Johnson, R. N. and Smith, M., eds., Passions and Projections: Themes from the Philosophy of Simon Blackburn, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 25−48.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (1984). Counterfactuals and temporal direction, The Philosophical Review, 93(1), 57−91.Google Scholar
Blanchard, T. (2014). Causation in a physical world, Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University.Google Scholar
Blanchard, T. (2015). Douglas Kutach: Causation and its basis in fundamental physics, Philosophy of Science, 82(2), 330−3.Google Scholar
Blanchard, T. (2016). Physics and causation, Philosophy Compass, 11(5), 256−66.Google Scholar
Bromberger, S. (1966). Why-questions, in Colodny, R. G., ed., Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 86−111.Google Scholar
Carroll, J. (1994). Laws of Nature, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1979). Causal laws and effective strategies. Noûs, 13(4), 419−37.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1983). How the Laws of Physics Lie, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. (1940). An Essay on Metaphysics, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dieks, D. (1986). Physics and the direction of causation, Erkenntnis, 25(1), 85−110.Google Scholar
Dorr, C. (2016). Against counterfactual miracles, Philosophical Review, 125(2), 241−86.Google Scholar
Dowe, P. (1992). Process causality and asymmetry, Erkenntnis, 37(2), 179−96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowe, P (2000). Physical Causation, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dummett, M. (1964). Bringing about the past, The Philosophical Review, 73(3), 338−59.Google Scholar
Eagle, A. (2007). Pragmatic causation, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 156−90.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (1974). An attempt to add a little direction to ‘the problem of the direction of time’, Philosophy of Science, 41(1), 15−47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, J. (1976). Causation: A matter of life and death, The Journal of Philosophy, 73(1), 5−25.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (1986). A Primer on Determinism, Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (2006). The ‘past hypothesis’: Not even false, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 37, 399–430.Google Scholar
Eells, E. (1982). Rational Decision and Causality, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elga, A. (2001). Statistical mechanics and the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence, Philosophy of Science, 68(3), S313−24.Google Scholar
Elliott, E. (2019). Normative decision theory, Analysis, 79(4), 755−72.Google Scholar
Evans, P. (2020). Perspectival objectivity, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 10(2), 1−21.Google Scholar
Farr, M. and Reutlinger, A. (2013). A relic of a bygone age? Causation, time symmetry and the directionality argument, Erkenntnis, 78(2), 215−35.Google Scholar
Faye, J. (2019). Backward causation, in E. N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2021 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/causation-backwards/.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2016a). Varieties of epistemic freedom, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 94(4), 736–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2016b). A deliberative account of causation: How the evidence of deliberating agents accounts for causation and its temporal direction, Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2017). A deliberative approach to causation, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 95(3), 686–708.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2018). Causation, further themes, in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Online Encyclopaedia. www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/causation-further-themes/v-2.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2021). Time travel and counterfactual asymmetry, Synthese, 198(3), 1983–2001.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2022a). Back to the present: How not to use counterfactuals to explain causal asymmetry, Philosophies, 7(2), 43.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2022b). How to explain the direction of time, Synthese, 200, 389.Google Scholar
Fernandes, A. (2023). Time, flies, and why we can’t control the past, in Loewer, B., Weslake, B., and Winsberg, E., eds., The Probability Map of the Universe: Essays on David Albert’s Time and Chance, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 312–34.Google Scholar
Feynman, R. (1965). The Character of Physical Law, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Field, H. (2003). Causation in a physical world, in Loux, M. J. and Zimmerman, D. W., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 435–60.Google Scholar
Friederich, S. and Evans, P. W. (2019). Retrocausality in quantum mechanics, in Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2019 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/qm-retrocausality/.Google Scholar
Frisch, M. (2007). Causation, counterfactuals, and the past-hypothesis, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 351−96.Google Scholar
Frisch, M. (2010). Does a low-entropy constraint prevent us from influencing the past? in Ernst, G. and Hüttemann, A., eds., Time, Chance and Reduction, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 13−33.Google Scholar
Frisch, M. (2012). No place for causes? Causal skepticism in physics, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2(3), 313–36.Google Scholar
Frisch, M. (2014). Causal Reasoning in Physics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Faye, J. (2021). Backward causation, in Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2021 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/causation-backwards/.Google Scholar
Gasking, D. (1955). Causation and recipes, Mind, 64, 479–87.Google Scholar
Glynn, L. (2013). Causal foundationalism, physical causation, and difference-making, Synthese, 190(6), 1017−37.Google Scholar
Gödel, K. (1949). A remark about the relationship between relativity theory and idealistic philosophy, in Schilpp, P.A., ed., Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, La Salle, IL: Open Court, pp. 557−62.Google Scholar
Greco, J. and Groff, R., eds., (2013). Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (1982). Causal and explanatory asymmetry, Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982, 1, 43−54.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (1997). Causation, agency, and independence, Philosophy of Science, 64(4 Suppl.), S15−S25.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (1998). Causal Asymmetries, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, C. (1996). Causal decision theory and decision-theoretic causation, Noûs, 30(4), 508−26.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, C. (2007). What Russell got right, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 45−65.Google Scholar
Horgan, T. (1981). Counterfactuals and Newcomb’s problem, Journal of Philosophy, 78(6), 331−56.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (1987). Asymmetries in Time: Problems in the Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. [1739−40] (2000). A Treatise of Human Nature, Norton, D. F. and Norton, M. J., eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ismael, J. (2007). Freedom, compulsion and causation, Psyche, 13(1), 1−11.Google Scholar
Ismael, J. (2012). Decision and the open future, in Bardon, A., ed., The Future of the Philosophy of Time, London: Routledge, pp. 149−68.Google Scholar
Ismael, J. (2013). Causation, free will, and naturalism, in Ladyman, J. and Ross, D., eds., Scientific Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 208−35.Google Scholar
Ismael, J. (2016). How do causes depend on us? The many faces of perspectivalism, Synthese, 193(1), 245−67.Google Scholar
Jackson, F. and Pargetter, R. (1983). Where the Tickle defence goes wrong, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61(3), 295−9.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. C. (1981). The logic of decision defended, Synthese, 48, 473−92.Google Scholar
Joyce, J. (2007). Are Newcomb problems really decisions? Synthese, 156(3), 537–62.Google Scholar
Kant, I. [1781/1787] (1996). The Critique of Pure Reason, W. S. Pluhar, trans., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Kim, J. (1973). Causation, nomic subsumption, and the concept of event, Journal of Philosophy, 70, 217–36.Google Scholar
Kutach, D. (2002). The entropy theory of counterfactuals, Philosophy of Science, 69(1), 82–104.Google Scholar
Kutach, D. (2007). The physical foundations of causation, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 327−50.Google Scholar
Kutach, D. (2013). Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ladyman, J., Ross, D., and Spurrett, D. (2007). Causation in a structural world, in Ladyman, J. and Ross, D., eds., Every Thing Must Go, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 258−97.Google Scholar
Leeds, S. (2003). Foundations of statistical mechanics – Two approaches, Philosophy of Science, 70(1), 126−44.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973a). Causation, Journal of Philosophy, 70, 556–67 (reprinted in Lewis, 1986).Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973b). Counterfactuals, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1976). The paradoxes of time travel, American Philosophical Quarterly, 13(2), 145−52.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1979). Counterfactual dependence and time’s arrow, Nous, 13, 455−76 (reprinted in Lewis, 1986).Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1981a). Causal decision theory, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 59(1), 5−30.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1981b). Are we free to break the laws? Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy, 47, 113−21.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986). Philosophical Papers, Vol. II, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Loew, C. (2017). The asymmetry of counterfactual dependence, Philosophy of Science, 84(3), 436−55.Google Scholar
Loewer, B. (2007). Counterfactuals and the second law, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 293−326.Google Scholar
Loewer, B. 2012. Two accounts of laws and time, Philosophical Studies, 160(1), 115−37.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. (2002). A Survey of Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. (1974). The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Maudlin, T. (2002). Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, 2nd ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Maudlin, T. (2007). The Metaphysics within Physics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maudlin, T. (2019). Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Mechanics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mellor, D. H. (1998). Real Time II, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Menzies, P. (2007). Causation in context, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 191−223.Google Scholar
Menzies, P. and Price, H. (1993). Causation as a secondary quality, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44, 187–203.Google Scholar
Ney, A. (2009). Physical causation and difference-making, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 60(4), 737−64.Google Scholar
North, J. (2008). Two views on time reversal, Philosophy of Science, 75(2), 201−23.Google Scholar
Norton, J. D. (2009). Is there an independent principle of causality in physics? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 60(3), 475−86.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. (1969). Newcomb’s problem and two principles of choice, in Rescher, N., ed., Essays in Honour of Carl G. Hempel, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 114−46.Google Scholar
Papineau, D. (1985). Causal asymmetry, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 36(3), 273−89.Google Scholar
Papineau, D. (1992). Can we reduce causal direction to probabilities? Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992, 2, 238−52.Google Scholar
Papineau, D. (2001). Evidentialism reconsidered, Noûs, 35, 239–59.Google Scholar
Pearl, J. (2000). Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1984). The philosophy and physics of affecting the past, Synthese, 61(3), 299−323.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1986). Against causal decision theory, Synthese, 67(2), 195−212.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1991). Agency and probabilistic causality, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 42, 157–76.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1992a). Agency and causal asymmetry, Mind, 101(403), 501–20.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1992b). The direction of causation: Ramsey’s ultimate contingency, Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992, 2, 253–67.Google Scholar
Price, H. (1996). Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, H. (2007). Causal perspectivalism, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 250−92.Google Scholar
Price, H. (2012). Causation, chance and the rational significance of supernatural evidence, Philosophical Review, 121(4), 483−538.Google Scholar
Price, H. (2017). Causation, intervention and agency – Woodward on Menzies and Price, in Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., and Price, H., eds., Making a Difference, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 73−98.Google Scholar
Price, H. and Weslake, B. (2009). The time-asymmetry of causation, in Beebee, H., Hitchcock, C., and Menzies, P., eds., The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford: University Press, pp. 414–43.Google Scholar
Ramsey, F. P. [1929] (1978). General propositions and causality, in Mellor, D. H., ed., Foundations: Essays in Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics and Economics, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 133−51.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1956). The Direction of Time, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ross, D. and Spurrett, D. (2007). Notions of cause: Russell’s thesis revisited, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 58(1), 45−76.Google Scholar
Rovelli, C. (2018). The Order of Time, London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1912−13). On the notion of cause, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 13, 1−26.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. (2016). The metaphysics of causation, in Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2016 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/causation-metaphysics/.Google Scholar
Sklar, L. (1993). Physics and Chance, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1980). Causal Necessity, New Haven, CT: Yale University.Google Scholar
Smith, S. R. (2000). Resolving Russell’s anti-realism about causation: The connection between causation and the functional dependencies of mathematical physics, The Monist, 83(2), 274−95.Google Scholar
Sobel, J. H. (1994). Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. (1988). The principle of the common cause, in Fetzer, J. H., ed., Probability and Causality: Essays in Honor of Wesley C. Salmon, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 211–28.Google Scholar
Sober, E. and Barrett, M. (1992). Conjunctive forks and temporally asymmetric inference, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 70(1), 1–23.Google Scholar
Spirtes, P., Glymour, C., and Scheines, R. (1993). Causation, Prediction and Search, New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Strevens, M. (2007a). Why represent causal relations? in Gopnik, A. and Schulz, L., eds., Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, Computation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 245−60.Google Scholar
Strevens, M. (2007b). Mackie remixed, in Campbell, J. K., O’Rourke, M., and Shier, D., eds., Causation and Explanation: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 4, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 93–118.Google Scholar
Suppes, P. (1970). A Probabilistic Theory of Causality, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Tooley, M. (1987). Causation: A Realist Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. (1993). Armstrong, Cartwright, and Earman on laws and symmetry, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 53(2), 431−44.Google Scholar
Vihvelin, K. (1991). Freedom, causation and counterfactuals, Philosophical Studies, 64, 161−84.Google Scholar
von Wright, G. (1971). Explanation and Understanding, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Weslake, B. (2006). Review of making things happen, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84(1), 136−40.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2003). Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2007). Causation with a human face, in Price, H. and Corry, R., eds., Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 66−105.Google Scholar
Woodward, J. (2016). Causation and manipulability, in Zalta, E. N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2016 Edition, Online Encyclopaedia. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/causation-mani.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Causation
Available formats
×