Résumé
Constant Conjunction (CC) is criticized by causal realists as being insufficient for causation. Realists often want causation to be CC + something more, such as necessity. But CC is not even a necessary condition for causation, which ought really by understood as CC-. Many strategies have been deployed to protect causation against the problem of failure. It is only through the failure of CC, however, that we can understand A to be a cause of B. Such an understanding fits with the way we make causal claims and inductive inferences. And it fits with the way that we intervene in order to discover causes. Where we had CC, there would be real problems in saying that we had causation as opposed to identity or classification. And in cases where we invoke CC in causation, it seems always to be assumed rather than demonstrated.
