Absences and late preemption

I focus on token, deterministic causal claims as they feature in causal explanations. Adequately handling absences is difficult for most causal theories, including theories of causal explanation. Yet so is adequately handling cases of late preemption. The best account of absence-causal claims as they appear in causal explanations is Jonathan Schaffer’s quaternary, contrastive account. Yet Schaffer’s account can’t handle preemption. The account that best handles late preemption is James Woodward’s interventionist account. Yet Woodward’s account is inadequate when it comes to absences. I propose an account that handles both absences and preemption by transposing Schaffer’s account into an interventionist framework.