Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada.
Psychol Rev. 2007 Oct;114(4):1087-94. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.1087.
L. J. Rips, S. Blok, and G. Newman (2006) proposed that singular concepts, which support the tracing of individual objects across their existence, are governed by a principle of causal continuity. They purported to show that causal continuity is better than existing theories at explaining judgments of the persistence of individual objects. This article makes 3 points. First, the construct of causal connectedness entails a wide variety of different explanatory factors; calling them all causal has questionable explanatory value. There is little evidence that the ultimate basis for identity judgments in many cases is causal. Second, the authors suggest that causal knowledge is indeed important to identity, but that it is important in the context of sortal concepts; different causal information matters for different kinds of things. Finally, the authors consider whether causal knowledge or sortal concepts are more fundamental to tracing individual identity, that is, whether causal knowledge is necessary for identity judgments. The authors appeal to research in developmental psychology that has begun to address this debate, supporting the primacy of sortal concepts. Although there continues to be shortcomings of all theories of object persistence, it is not clear that the causal continuer theory brings new clarity to the puzzle.
L.J.里普斯、S.布洛克和 G.纽曼（2006 年）提出，支持个体对象在其存在过程中被追踪的单一概念受因果连续性原则的支配。他们声称，因果连续性比现有理论更好地解释了个体对象持续存在的判断。本文提出了 3 点。首先，因果关联性的构建需要各种各样的不同解释因素；将它们都称为因果关系，其解释价值值得怀疑。几乎没有证据表明，在许多情况下，身份判断的最终基础是因果关系。其次，作者认为因果知识确实对身份很重要，但它在类概念的背景下很重要；不同的因果信息对不同种类的事物很重要。最后，作者考虑因果知识还是类概念对追踪个体身份更重要，也就是说，因果知识是否是身份判断的必要条件。作者援引发展心理学的研究来支持这个论点，这些研究已经开始解决这个争论，支持类概念的首要地位。尽管所有关于物体持续存在的理论都有缺点，但因果连续性理论是否能为这个难题带来新的清晰性还不清楚。
