ABSTRACT
After David Hume proposed his first definition of cause, he added the sentence: 'Or in other words, if the first object had not been, the second never had existed'. Many have found this addition puzzling since the idea it puts forward seems quite different from the idea of a pattern or regularity. Over-determination cases are cases where A and B cause C, and where either would have done so in the absence of the other. It would be premature to conclude that the reductionist project is a failure. Some future reductionist theory may be proposed which meets with more success than the two standard theories. If a property or relation is thought to be problematic, philosophers often attempt to domesticate it by reducing it to more basic, less problematic, components. Thus, for example, knowledge was long held to be reducible to justified true belief.
