Laurie Paul has posted the

Laurie Paul has posted the introduction to the famous-before-it’s-even-published Collins Hall and Paul volume on causation. The intro is 67 pages long and there is still more to be added, so these may yet become the Collins Hall and Paul volumeson causation before all is said and done.

Now even if I don’t write a paper for the day there will still be interesting material on the webpage tomorrow. This isn’t the motivation I needed I think.

UPDATE: And Laurie has a paper on pre-emption co-written with Ned Hall posted today. I’d like to say my complaining about slow news days was having an effect, but that would be too transparent a lie I’m afraid. I only saw the paper about four minutes ago, so I haven’t quite had time to read it all, but the conclusion seemed striking.

We leave those questions with the reader, hoping she will treat them with the seriousness they deserve. For we think that there is no hope of undertaking a meaningful philosophical investigation of causation without addressing them. The days of seeking out clever counterexamples—while ignoring the deeper issues that lie behind them—are over.

Not around here they aren’t! I have a God-given right to seek out clever counterexamples for their own sake, and I’m not giving it up without a fight. I wonder if I could get research funding for a pool table so I can work on billiard ball examples…