Substance and cause in Broad's philosophy

Abstract

The conceptual distinction between continuants (things) and occurrents (processes) hinges on their divergent temporal characteristics and linguistic descriptions. While common opinion treats these as fundamentally distinct categories of particulars, a reductive analysis explores whether “things” can be dispensed with in favor of “absolute processes.” This reduction interprets physical objects as the pervasion of regions of absolute space by determinate qualities over time. Although dispositional properties are traditionally attributed only to substances, they may be reinterpreted as descriptions of how similar processes behave under specific conditions, potentially allowing for a process-based ontology. However, the continuant remains functionally difficult to eliminate, particularly as a tool for navigating unperceived processes and maintaining causal continuity. Regarding causality, four principles are posited as self-evident: every change has a cause, causes must contain changes as factors, causes enter a moment while effects issue from it, and a change cannot have more than one total cause. This framework identifies the “total cause” as the sum of necessary conditions rather than sufficient ones, thereby distinguishing causal necessity from complete determinism. Furthermore, the analysis of singular causal statements suggests that the identification of a cause in a particular instance does not necessarily rely on a prior appeal to general laws, challenging the orthodox view that generalities are essential to the meaning of individual causal relations. – AI-generated abstract.