The Conditional Theory Of Causal Relation

"The rejection of Metaphysics" is a main trend of the analytic philosophy in the first half of the twentieth-century. This trend continued to the publication of Strawson’s Individuals, An Essay on Descriptive Metaphysics. Its a book which changed the the analytic philosophers’attitude towards Metaphysics, and which have also changed analytic philosophers’attitude on the issue of causation. Beginning in the1960s, analytic philosophers’discussion of causal relation sprung up like mushrooms quietly and grow to prosperity gradually. So, the second half of the twentieth-century is a booming period of the causal relation studies in analytic philosophy. The theories discussed in this article belongs to this period.The main point of this article is that the research of causal relation in analytic philosophy are all conditionalism. Conditionalism is a research method advocated by us, whose main feature is to research the causal relation with the Relational Reduction Method. the first chapter of this article elaborated the meaning of "conditionalism" and its features. According to the introduction of the first chapter, the concept of "conditionalism" roots in Hume’s causal theory and logical principles, and is a summary and abstract of Hume’s causal theory with logical conceptions. Then, the followed two chapters discussed two issues about the two sources:Hume’s causal theory and the relation between conditionalism and logical principles.If we take the first three chapters for a expound of the methodological conditionalism, then we can threat the last two chapters as the discussion of the theories which applied this methodology. Chapter Four discussed the INUS condition, included the theory and its problems. Chapter Five discussed the theory of counterfactuals and its problems, and then analyzed the relation between counterfactuals and conditionalism.