What Causes Effects

I shall defend three basic claims. First, that Vendler’s argument (Chapter 6, 1967b) that causes are facts rather than events is fallacious. Second, that Vendler’s account of the grammatical facts which serve as premises in his argument is seriously flawed. Third, that the correct account of the grammatical facts supports the more ordinary presumption that causes are events rather than facts. I defend the first claim in Section 2 by showing that even if Vendler’s grammatical analysis were correct, still there is an alternate interpretation of the results of analysis wherein the philosophical conclusion that causes are facts does not follow. (This involves showing that so-called ‘cause sequences’ are not necessarily heterogeneous, as Vendler claims.) The second claim is defended in Section 3 by simple re-examination of the data. In defense of the third claim, rather detailed re-analysis of the linguistic data in Sections 4 through 6 reveals that (contrary to Vendler though still on appropriately Vendlerian grounds) genuine causes are events after all.