Dorothy Emmet

With a wealth of anecdote Dorothy Emmet looks back on the philosophers who made a personal impact on her. She brings to life the Oxford of the 1920s, and writes particularly about H.A. Pritchard and R.G. Collingwood. She knew A.N. Whitehead and Samuel Alexander, and remembers philosophers who struggled with political dilemmas when a number of intellectuals were turning to Marxism. Describing the post-war period she recalls R.B. Braithwaite, Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre and others. Her personal portraits will interest a wide readership, as well as making essential reading for professional philosophers.

With a wealth of anecdote Dorothy Emmet looks back on the philosophers who made a personal impact on her. She brings to life the Oxford of the 1920s, and writes particularly about H.A. Pritchard and R.G. Collingwood. She knew A.N. Whitehead and Samuel Alexander, and remembers philosophers who struggled with political dilemmas when a number of intellectuals were turning to Marxism. Describing the post-war period she recalls R.B. Braithwaite, Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre and others. Her personal portraits will interest a wide readership, as well as making essential reading for professional philosophers.

The concept of process is often used but seldom discussed. In this book the author looks at how a process differs from a series of events, facts or even just things changing. She claims causation is best seen in terms of processes and subsequently examines various aspects of this subject.

The Effectiveness of Causes presents a strong view of causation seen as an operation between participants in events, and not as a relation holding between events themselves. In it, Emmet proposes that other philosophical views of cause and effect provide only a world of events, each of which is presented as an unchanging unit. Such a world, she contends, is a Zeno universe, since transitions and movement are lost. Emmet offers a more complex interpretation of the various forms of causal dependence. She sees immanent causation in the mere persistence of things, where effects are not temporarily separable from causes, and she considers the operation of efficacious grace. This is a new approach to the traditional problem and provides stimulating implications for the other metaphysical questions and for the philosophy of science."