pp. 52-55. 为什么background conditions不是causes

我的理解是，Skow在这本书里做着某种agent causation。他反对了两年前自己在Reason Why（Skow 2016）里对background conditions因果力的理解，在那里background conditions和causes都会对事实有因果力，可以称呼为事实因果论版本。现在他认为，background conditions只能是（由non-stative predicate谓述的、三元的）states而无法影响causes；而causes则必须是（由stative predicate谓述的、也是三元的）events。举最简单的例子：对于“火柴点燃”，含氧是这一事件的background condition而非cause；二者有solid的区分，而不是语境敏感的（例如，假想对于一个无氧的房间，“含氧”可能会是cause么？Skow会认为不是，他大概会继续强调agent的作用）。Btw，他坚持only stative predicates correspond to properties，类似Kim的“property exemplification account of event”是错误的，不能影响以下论述，见上条笔记。
Skow在这里讨论了为什么background conditions不是causes：
One might try to argue that background conditions are causes after all by exploiting a connection between explanation and causation. If every reason why an event happened is a cause of that event, and background conditions are reasons why events happen, then they are causes. More carefully, the main premise will be
If one reason why E happened is that R, then the state or event corresponding to the fact that R (as the case may be) is a cause of E.（前提：如果E发生的一个reason是R，那么，与事实R对应的state或event，是E的cause）
Adapted to my canonical example, the argument looks like this:
1. One reason why the lighting of the match happened is that the room contained oxygen. （含氧是火柴点燃的一个reason）
2.If one reason why E happened is that R, then the state/event corresponding to the fact that R was a cause of E. （引用前提：如果E发生的一个reason是R，那么，与事实R对应的state或event，是E的cause）
3. So the state consisting in the room’s containing oxygen was a cause of the lighting of the match.（因此，含氧这个state，是火柴点燃的cause）
There is room to doubt line 2. Maybe causes are always reasons why their effects happen; but is it really so that every reason why an event happened is a cause of that event? Are there no non-causal explanations? In fact I think there are: there are also “grounding explanations.” An example: one reason why the room’s temperature increased is that the mean molecular kinetic energy of the molecules in the room went up. This increase in kinetic energy didn’t cause the increase in temperature; it grounded the increase in temperature.（作者先怀疑2，即怀疑这个通过“reason”来让state或event成为cause的前提。该前提无法应用于像grounding这样的non-causal explanation。）
This kind of counterexample isn’t much use for resisting the argument, however; line 2 could be replaced by “If one reason why E happened is that R, then the state/event corresponding to the fact that R was a cause or a ground of E.” The counterexample to line 2 is not a counterexample to this replacement; so we can get a revised conclusion: the state consisting in the room’s containing oxygen was a cause or a ground of the lighting. Since it’s clearly not a ground, we get the desired conclusion, that it is a cause.（为了适应上述质疑，可以修改前提。前提*：如果E发生的一个reason是R，那么，与事实R对应的state或event，是E的cause或ground。于是，对该前提的引用就变成了某种二选一。）
One might try to find counterexamples to the revised premise: maybe there are reasons why an event happened that are neither causes nor grounds. I won’t try to do that (not least because I don’t think such reasons exist, a thesis I argued for in (Skow 2016)). Instead, my view is that line 1 is false.24（Skow认为不存在对前提*引用的反例，这是他（2016）的论点，这里就略过去了。我感觉这是某种explanatory dualism，也就是因果vs. 非因果的对立。反对意见，例如Eight Other Questions about Explanation（Angela Potochnik 2018），Potochnik会想要跳出因果vs.非因果这样的对立，认为我们现在只不过都在争explanatory dependence relations，而explanatory还有更多特征可挖。causal covering-law会忽略underlying physical mechanism的信息，因为这些并不蕴涵difference makers（根据Woodward）。那Skow会怎么看待并非dependence relations的cause或ground呢？）
My argument that line 1 is false will be defensive. Why think it is true? I think I can explain away any facts that appear to support its truth.（Skow 2016质疑前提2/前提*，Skow 2018就质疑上述论证的第一步：含氧是火柴点燃的一个reason么？）
The main strategy for defending line 1 looks like this: in such and such a scenario, someone would be asserting something true by saying “One reason why the lighting of the match happened is that the room contained oxygen” (or the less round about “the match lit because oxygen was present,” which I’ll regard as equivalent here). I agree that there are such scenarios. But there is a gap between asserting something true by uttering S and asserting the proposition that S. That’s the gap I will exploit.（1.通过“言说 S”来断言某事为真，和2.断言命题S，两者是不同的。）
First I recommend changing the example. Obviously in a scenario in which someone offers the words in line 1 as an answer to “why did the match light?” is a scenario in which someone has asked why the match lit. But unless something strange is going on, that’s a silly question; we know why matches light. And the silliness is liable to interfere with our judgments about the case. So suppose the match doesn’t light when struck, instead it shoots off sparks like a Fourth of July sparkler. That’s unusual, and one might very well want to know why. So: Smith is in a room with Jones, Jones picks up a match and strikes it, the match sparkles. Smith asks “Why did the match sparkle?” Jones answers “because it is coated with compound X.” Now the match’s being coated with compound X is a background condition to the sparkling. It looks like Jones has asserted an analogue of line 1, and that we can conclude that the match’s being coated with X helped cause the match to sparkle.
I disagree. Certainly Jones asserted something true; but, in my view, it wasn’t the proposition that the match sparkled because it was coated with X. Why not? Well, Jones answered the question Smith asked, but on my view the question Smith asked wasn’t the question of why the match sparkled. Yes, that’s the question Smith’s words expressed, but that needn’t be the same as the question Smith asked, and in this case, it is not. On my view, the interrogative sentence Smith uttered is elliptical; Smith left a bit out in the way she worded the question. Made fully explicit, the question she asked is why the match sparkled as a result of being struck.（在这个“非寻常”的例子中，问句所问的是不是“为什么火柴闪光”这个cause（作为对这个cause的回答：它涂了某某物质。对cause的回答是reason），而是针对background conditions的“为什么火柴划一下会闪光”。）
Why think this? Well, think some more about the context of the exchange. Smith saw Jones strike the match, and saw the match sparkle. Certainly Smith knows enough about how matches work, even these strange matches, to know that one cause of the match’s sparkling was the striking. I submit that what Smith wanted to know in the situation was not what the other causes of the sparkling were, but instead why the striking resulted in sparkling (rather than, say, lighting). She wanted to know why striking the match had such an unusual effect. Now in an efficient conversation the parties leave out stuff they both already know and can easily fill in themselves. Smith and Jones both know that he struck the match, and that the striking caused the sparkling; after all, they both watched those things happen. So Smith leaves out reference to them. Smith says the words “Why did the match sparkle?” as shorthand for “Why did the match sparkle as a result of being struck?” It follows that when Jones said “because it was coated with compound X” he asserted that the match sparkled as a result of being struck because the match was coated with X. But this proposition is not the (analogue of the) proposition in line 1. Moreover, the truth of this proposition is consistent with (in fact entailed by) my theory.（我的理解是，Skow在这里诉诸的是agents的默会知识。换而言之，类似“含氧是火柴点燃的一个reason”这样的句子会被agents（包括观察者，I think）理解为默会知识，它们这些reasons不必在问句和回答中出现。但Skow似乎必须在类似上例这样的，被认为是追问background conditions的例子里才能明确地如此区分。我不觉得这对所有例子都能有效。）
Note 24: In (Skow 2016) I flirted with the idea that line 1 is false, that a background condition to C’s causing E is a reason why C caused E but is not a reason why E happened, but did not endorse it; I endorse it now.（Skow 2018对Skow 2016的反对）