Interventionism and Non-Causal Dependence Relations: New Work for a Theory of Supervenience

Causes must be distinct from their effects. If the temperature in a room is 15 degrees F, this can cause water pipes to freeze. However, the temperature's being 15 degrees F is not a cause of the temperature's being below the freezing point. In general, conceptual, logical, mathematical, and other non-causal dependence relations should not be misclassified as causal. In this paper, I discuss how interventionist theories of causation can meet the challenge of distinguishing between (direct or indirect) causal relations and dependence relations that are due to non-causal factors. I survey several approaches to solving this problem, and propose a novel criterion based on the notion of supervenience. According to this criterion, variables are sufficiently distinct to qualify as the relata of a causal relation iff they do not have overlapping minimal supervenience bases.