When you make this claim about the universe’s ontology, it isn’t clear whether you mean the is of identity or predication. Are you saying that the things constituting the universe are parts of a connected fabric of causes and effects or that the universe is reducible to causes and effects. The first claim is a standard part of conventional materialism (Pearl’s recent contributions notwithstanding). The second claim is one that’s set out in Alexander Bird’s recent bookNature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.
This is a somewhat radical program in that it proposes reducing structural properties to dispositional. Are you or aren’t you proposing that (for example) squareness can be reduced to cause and effect.
When you make this claim about the universe’s ontology, it isn’t clear whether you mean the is of identity or predication. Are you saying that the things constituting the universe are parts of a connected fabric of causes and effects or that the universe is reducible to causes and effects. The first claim is a standard part of conventional materialism (Pearl’s recent contributions notwithstanding). The second claim is one that’s set out in Alexander Bird’s recent book Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.
This is a somewhat radical program in that it proposes reducing structural properties to dispositional. Are you or aren’t you proposing that (for example) squareness can be reduced to cause and effect.
Quote? SEP link? As mentioned, I’ve seen “fabric of events” in SR discussion, no one actually saying “fabric of cause and effect”, certainly no Pearl.