Causal Relational Tropes and Evolution: A Case-Study Approach to the Metaphysics of Causation

This thesis is an investigation into the metaphysics of causal relations as particulars (causal relational tropes), and more specifically into their relational features. Two main distinctions from the metaphysics of relations are evaluated and applied to causation: the symmetric/asymmetric distinction and the internal/external distinction. A case-study approach is employed by studying the nature of causal relational tropes from within variational phenomena in evolutionary biology (natural selection, genetic drift). First, the causal relations in the case study are identified by considering the debate in philosophy of biology between causalists and statisticalists and arguing in favour of the neutral individual-level causal relations identified by statisticalists. This results, on the metaphysical side, in the rejection of relations of causal relevance based on difference-making and the acceptance of causation as causal production. Secondly, the more recent thesis of reciprocal causation in niche construction theory is added to the individual-level relations. On the basis of this joint picture of causal relations in variational phenomena, a model of causation is developed. I argue that there are two relational tropes for every causal event: one is the interaction between the entities involved, which is symmetric and external but non-causal, while the other is the causal relation between the interaction and its effects, which is asymmetric and internal. In virtue of eliminativism about internal relations, I claim that only interactions are to be included in the ontology; the relation between cause and effect can be eliminated.