ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a distinction between philosophical attempts to characterise vs. explain a phenomenon and argues that powers-based accounts of causation are best understood as attempts to explain, while neo-Humean accounts can only hope to characterise causation. As a consequence, it is argued, powers-based accounts need not be understood as rivals to neo-Humean approaches. The explanation that powers-based approaches offer entails that causation appears to us in the way that neo-Humean approaches characterise causation. Neo-Humean accounts are only contrary to powers-based accounts when seen as committing to the basic tenet of neo-Humean metaphysics, notably that there are no substantial connections in nature. However, it is not obvious that everyone that endorses neo-Humean accounts of causation also commits to the ontology of neo-Humean metaphysics.
