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  1. (1 other version)There is No Exclusion Problem.Tim Crane & Steinvör Thöll Árnadóttir - 2013 - In Sophie Gibb, E. J. Lowe & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 248-66.
    Many philosophers want to say both that everything is determined by the physical and subject to physical laws and principles, and that certain mental entities cannot be identified with any physical entities. The problem of mental causation is to make these two assumptions compatible with the causal efficacy of the mental. The concern is that this physicalist picture of the world leaves no space for the causal efficacy of anything non-physical. The physical, as it is sometimes said, excludes anything non- (...)
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  • Causalidade.Eduardo Castro - 2014 - Compêndio Em Linha de Problemas de Filosofia Ananlítica.
    State of art paper on the topic causation, around the problem of the nature of causation. Central theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, namely, regularity theories of Hume and Mackie, counterfactual theories of Lewis, probabilistic theories of Reichenbach, Lewis and Menzies and causal processes theories of Salmon and Dowe.
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  • Indexical Realism by Inter-Agentic Reference.Daihyun Chung - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Ideas (Seoul National University):3-33.
    I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...)
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  • Epistemic and non-Epistemic Theories of Remembering.Steven James - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly:109-127.
    Contemporary memory sciences describe processes that are dynamic and constructive. This has led some philosophers to weaken the relationship between memory and epistemology; though remembering can give rise to epistemic success, it is not itself an epistemic success state. I argue that non-epistemic theories will not do; they provide neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for remembering that p. I also argue that the shortcomings of the causal theory are epistemic in nature. Consequently, a theory of remembering must account for both (...)
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  • Covariation in natural causal induction.Patricia W. Cheng & Laura R. Novick - 1992 - Psychological Review 99 (2):365-382.
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  • Causality, mosaics, and the health sciences.Olaf Dammann - 2016 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 37 (2):161-168.
    Thinking about illness causation has a long and rich history in medicine. After a hiatus in the 1990s, the last one-and-a-half decades have seen a surge of publications on causality in the biomedical sciences. Interestingly, this surge is visible not only in the medical, epidemiological, bioinformatics, and public health literatures, but also among philosophical publications. In this essay, I review and discuss one most recent addition to the literature, "Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice" written by philosophers Phyllis Illari and (...)
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  • Causal Argument.Ulrike Hahn, Frank Zenker & Roland Bluhm - 2017 - In Michael Waldmann (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 475-494.
    In this chapter, we outline the range of argument forms involving causation that can be found in everyday discourse. We also survey empirical work concerned with the generation and evaluation of such arguments. This survey makes clear that there is presently no unified body of research concerned with causal argument. We highlight the benefits of a unified treatment both for those interested in causal cognition and those interested in argumentation, and identify the key challenges that must be met for a (...)
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  • The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning.Michael Waldmann (ed.) - 2017 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. In the past decades, the important role of causal knowledge has been discovered in many areas of cognitive (...)
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  • Reasons, Reason, and Context.Daniel Fogal - 2016 - In Errol Lord & Barry Maguire (eds.), Weighing Reasons. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA.
    This paper explores various subtleties in our ordinary thought and talk about normative reasons—subtleties which, if taken seriously, have various upshots, both substantive and methodological. I focus on two subtleties in particular. The first concerns the use of reason (in its normative sense) as both a count noun and as a mass noun, and the second concerns the context-sensitivity of normative reasons-claims. The more carefully we look at the language of reasons, I argue, the clearer its limitations and liabilities become. (...)
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  • The Emergence of Causation.Jeffrey Dmitri Gallow - 2014 - Journal of Philosophy 112 (6):281-308.
    Several philosophers have embraced the view that high-level events—events like Zimbabwe's monetary policy and its hyper-inflation—are causally related if their corresponding low-level, fundamental physical events are causally related. I dub the view which denies this without denying that high-level events are ever causally related causal emergentism. Several extant philosophical theories of causality entail causal emergentism, while others are inconsistent with the thesis. I illustrate this with David Lewis's two theories of causation, one of which entails causal emergentism, the other of (...)
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  • Tempered pragmatism.Ian Rumfitt - 2016 - In Cheryl Misak & Huw Price (eds.), The Practical Turn: Pragmatism in Britain in the Long Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oup/Ba.
    This paper assesses the prospects of a pragmatist theory of content. I begin by criticising the theory presented in D.H. Mellor’s essay ‘Successful Semantics’. I then identify problems and lacunae in the pragmatist theory of meaning sketched in Chapter 13 of Dummett’s The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. The prospects are brighter, I contend, for a tempered pragmatism, in which the theory of content is permitted to draw upon irreducible notions of truth and falsity. I sketch the shape of such a (...)
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  • Big Data – The New Science of Complexity.Wolfgang Pietsch - unknown
    Data-intensive techniques, now widely referred to as 'big data', allow for novel ways to address complexity in science. I assess their impact on the scientific method. First, big-data science is distinguished from other scientific uses of information technologies, in particular from computer simulations. Then, I sketch the complex and contextual nature of the laws established by data-intensive methods and relate them to a specific concept of causality, thereby dispelling the popular myth that big data is only concerned with correlations. The (...)
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  • Ymmärtäminen ja selittäminen ihmistieteissä.Panu Raatikainen - 2015 - Kasvatus 46:281-286.
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  • Natural Experiments and Pluralism in Political Science.Sharon Crasnow - 2015 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 45 (4-5):424-441.
    Natural experiments are an increasingly popular research design in political science. This popularity raises a number of questions. First, what are natural experiments and why are they appealing? Second, what makes a good natural experiment? And finally, are natural experiments able to provide resources for knowledge production that other methodologies cannot or do not provide? Using Mary Morgan’s and Thad Dunning’s recent work on natural experiments, I offer answers to the first two questions and use the analysis to argue that (...)
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  • Advancing the Counterfactual Analysis of Causation.Ethan R. Colton - 2003 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    What does it mean to say that one event is a cause of another? The simplest counterfactual analyses identify causation with one of two counterfactual-dependence relations: if event c had not occurred, then event e would not have occurred; if c had not occurred, e's probability would have been lower. These analyses enjoy some success. For the first: the dart-throw caused the balloon-pop, because if the throw had not occurred, the pop would not have occurred. For the second: suppose two (...)
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  • Experimental Philosophy and Causal Attribution.Jonathan Livengood & David Rose - 2016 - In Wesley Buckwalter & Justin Sytsma (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 434–449.
    Humans often attribute the things that happen to one or another actual cause. In this chapter, we survey some recent philosophical and psychological research on causal attribution. We pay special attention to the relation between graphical causal modeling and theories of causal attribution. We think that the study of causal attribution is one place where formal and experimental techniques nicely complement one another.
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  • Causal Networks or Causal Islands? The Representation of Mechanisms and the Transitivity of Causal Judgment.Samuel G. B. Johnson & Woo-Kyoung Ahn - 2015 - Cognitive Science 39 (7):1468-1503.
    Knowledge of mechanisms is critical for causal reasoning. We contrasted two possible organizations of causal knowledge—an interconnected causal network, where events are causally connected without any boundaries delineating discrete mechanisms; or a set of disparate mechanisms—causal islands—such that events in different mechanisms are not thought to be related even when they belong to the same causal chain. To distinguish these possibilities, we tested whether people make transitive judgments about causal chains by inferring, given A causes B and B causes C, (...)
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  • Is Free Will Necessary for Moral Responsibility?: A Case for Rethinking Their Relationship and the Design of Experimental Studies in Moral Psychology.Carrie Figdor & Mark Phelan - 2015 - Mind and Language 30 (5):603-627.
    Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We report experimental results that show that the folk do not think free will is necessary for moral responsibility. Our results also suggest that experimental investigation of the relationship is ill served by a focus on incompatibilism versus compatibilism. We propose an alternative framework for empirical moral psychology in which judgments of free will and moral responsibility can vary independently in response to many factors. We also suggest (...)
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  • Negative Properties, Determination and Conditionals.Nick Zangwill - 2003 - Topoi 22 (2):127-134.
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  • For a History of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. First Formulations and Their Historical Background.Francesco Piro - 2008 - In Marcelo Dascal (ed.), Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? Springer. pp. 463--478.
    How many formulations of Principle of Sufficient Reason can one find in Leibniz's works? This paper suggests that there are at least two different formulations, which start from different basic concepts, trying to sketch the relations between them and the evolution from the more ancient formulation to the mature one.
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  • (2 other versions)Lost in time..Ceci Verbaarschot, Jason Farquhar & Pim Haselager - 2015 - Consciousness and Cognition 33:300-315.
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  • Causes versus enabling conditions.Patricia W. Cheng & Laura R. Novick - 1991 - Cognition 40 (1-2):83-120.
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  • On formalizing causation based on constant conjunction theory.Hu Liu & Xuefeng Wen - 2013 - Review of Symbolic Logic 6 (1):160-181.
    Constant conjunction theory of causation had been the dominant theory in philosophy for a long time and regained attention recently. This paper gives a logical framework of causation based on the theory. The basic idea is that causal statements are empirical, and are derived from our past experience by observing constant conjunction between objects. The logic is defined on linear time structures. A causal statement is evaluated at time points, such that its value depends on what has been in the (...)
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  • Because you’ll find out anyway, your wife is having an affair - If and Because.Rani Lill Anjum - manuscript
    In an explanation ‘y because x’, because can be used to express an explanatory relation between an explanandum ‘y’ and an explanans ‘x’. But because can also be used to express the speaker’s reason for uttering ‘y’. This difference will be elucidated by connecting it with the distinction between the at-issue dimension and the speaker dimension of meaning. There are also internal relations between if and because that can help us find and analyse different uses of because, and thus also (...)
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  • Natural Kinds as Scientific Models.Luiz Henrique Dutra - 2011 - Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 290:141-150.
    The concept of natural kind is center stage in the debates about scientific realism. Champions of scientific realism such as Richard Boyd hold that our most developed scientific theories allow us to “cut the world at its joints” (Boyd, 1981, 1984, 1991). In the long run we can disclose natural kinds as nature made them, though as science progresses improvements in theory allow us to revise the extension of natural kind terms.
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  • Closing in on Causal Closure.Robert K. Garcia - 2014 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 21 (1-2):96-109.
    I examine the meaning and merits of a premise in the Exclusion Argument, the causal closure principle that all physical effects have physical causes. I do so by addressing two questions. First, if we grant the other premises, exactly what kind of closure principle is required to make the Exclusion Argument valid? Second, what are the merits of the requisite closure principle? Concerning the first, I argue that the Exclusion Argument requires a strong, “stringently pure” version of closure. The latter (...)
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  • Unifying diseases from a genetic point of view: the example of the genetic theory of infectious diseases.Marie Darrason - 2013 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (4):327-344.
    In the contemporary biomedical literature, every disease is considered genetic. This extension of the concept of genetic disease is usually interpreted either in a trivial or genocentrist sense, but it is never taken seriously as the expression of a genetic theory of disease. However, a group of French researchers defend the idea of a genetic theory of infectious diseases. By identifying four common genetic mechanisms (Mendelian predisposition to multiple infections, Mendelian predisposition to one infection, and major gene and polygenic predispositions), (...)
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  • Introduction to Special Issue on 'Actual Causation'.Michael Baumgartner & Luke Glynn - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (1):1-8.
    An actual cause of some token effect is itself a token event that helped to bring about that effect. The notion of an actual cause is different from that of a potential cause – for example a pre-empted backup – which had the capacity to bring about the effect, but which wasn't in fact operative on the occasion in question. Sometimes actual causes are also distinguished from mere background conditions: as when we judge that the struck match was a cause (...)
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  • An Anatomy of Moral Responsibility.M. Braham & M. van Hees - 2012 - Mind 121 (483):601-634.
    This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the ‘avoidance potential’, which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of ‘the problem of many hands’. We also show how it allocates (...)
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  • Presidential Address: Will This Policy Work for You? Predicting Effectiveness Better: How Philosophy Helps.Nancy Cartwright - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (5):973-989.
    There is a takeover movement fast gaining influence in development economics, a movement that demands that predictions about development outcomes be based on randomized controlled trials. The problem it takes up—of using evidence of efficacy from good studies to predict whether a policy will be effective if we implement it—is a general one, and affects us all. My discussion is the result of a long struggle to develop the right concepts to deal with the problem of warranting effectiveness predictions. Whether (...)
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  • Actions as Events.Ming Xu - 2012 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 41 (4):765 - 809.
    We present a theory of actions based on a theory of events in branching time, in which "particular" or "token" actions are taken to be sets of transitions from their initial states to the outcomes. We also present a simple theory of composition of events by which composite events can be formed out of other events. Various kinds of actions, including instantaneous group actions and sequential group actions, are introduced by way of composition, and an extended stit theory of agency (...)
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  • Negative causation in causal and mechanistic explanation.D. Benjamin Barros - 2013 - Synthese 190 (3):449-469.
    Instances of negative causation—preventions, omissions, and the like—have long created philosophical worries. In this paper, I argue that concerns about negative causation can be addressed in the context of causal explanation generally, and mechanistic explanation specifically. The gravest concern about negative causation is that it exacerbates the problem of causal promiscuity—that is, the problem that arises when a particular account of causation identifies too many causes for a particular effect. In the explanatory context, the problem of promiscuity can be solved (...)
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  • Mechanisms and Constitutive Relevance.Mark B. Couch - 2011 - Synthese 183 (3):375-388.
    This paper will examine the nature of mechanisms and the distinction between the relevant and irrelevant parts involved in a mechanism’s operation. I first consider Craver’s account of this distinction in his book on the nature of mechanisms, and explain some problems. I then offer a novel account of the distinction that appeals to some resources from Mackie’s theory of causation. I end by explaining how this account enables us to better understand what mechanisms are and their various features.
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  • Causation Without Influence.Tomasz Bigaj - 2012 - Erkenntnis 76 (1):1-22.
    David Lewis’s latest theory of causation defines the causal link in terms of the relation of influence between events. It turns out, however, that one event’s influencing another is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for its being a cause of that event. In the article one particular case of causality without influence is presented and developed. This case not only serves as a counterexample to Lewis’s influence theory, but also threatens earlier counterfactual analyses of causation by admitting a particularly (...)
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  • Narrativity and Knowledge.Paisley Nathan Livingston - 2009 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (1):25-36.
    The ever-expanding literature on narrative reveals a striking divergence of claims about the epistemic valence of narrative. One such claim is the oftstated idea that narratives or stories generate both “hot” and “cold” epistemic irrationality. A familiar, rival claim is that narrative has an exclusive capacity to embody or convey important types of knowledge. Such contrasting contentions are not typically presented as statements about the accidents or effects of particular narratives; the ambition, rather, has been to identify a strong link (...)
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  • Explaining differences and weighting causes.Germund Hesslow - 1983 - Theoria 49 (2):87-111.
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  • The Logical vs. the Ontological Understanding of Conditions.Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson - 2008 - Metaphysica 9 (2):129-137.
    According to the truth-functional analysis of conditions, to be ‘necessary for’ and ‘sufficient for’ are converse relations. From this, it follows that to be ‘necessary and sufficient for’ is a symmetric relation, that is, that if P is a necessary and sufficient condition for Q, then Q is a necessary and sufficient condition for P. This view is contrary to common sense. In this paper, I point out that it is also contrary to a widely accepted ontological view of conditions, (...)
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  • Holism and Reductionism in Biology and Ecology the Mutual Dependence of Higher and Lower Level Research Programmes.Rick C. Looijen - 2000 - Springer.
    Holism and reductionism are usually seen as opposite and mutually exclusive approaches to nature. Recently, some have come to see them as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. In this book I have argued that, even stronger, they should be seen as mutually dependent and co-operating research programmes. I have discussed holism and reductionism in biology in general and in ecology in particular. After an introductory chapter I have provided an overview of holistic and reductionistic positions in biology, and of the (...)
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  • Norms and Customs: Causally Important or Causally Impotent?Todd Jones - 2010 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 40 (3):399-432.
    In this article, I argue that norms and customs, despite frequently being described as being causes of behavior in the social sciences and ordinary conversation, cannot really cause behavior. Terms like "norms" and the like seem to refer to philosophically disreputable disjunctive properties. More problematically, even if they do not, or even if there can be disjunctive properties after all, I argue that norms and customs still cannot cause behavior. The social sciences would be better off without referring to properties (...)
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  • A powerful theory of causation.Stephen Mumford & Rani Anjum - 2010 - In Anna Marmodoro (ed.), The Metaphysics of Powers: Their Grounding and Their Manifestations. New York: Routledge. pp. 143--159.
    Hume thought that if you believed in powers, you believed in necessary connections in nature. He was then able to argue that there were none such because anything could follow anything else. But Hume wrong-footed his opponents. A power does not necessitate its manifestations: rather, it disposes towards them in a way that is less than necessary but more than purely contingent. -/- In this paper a dispositional theory of causation is offered. Causes dispose towards their effects and often produce (...)
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  • Leibniz's Models of Rational Decision.Markku Roinila - 2008 - In Marcelo Dascal (ed.), Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? Springer. pp. 357-370.
    Leibniz frequently argued that reasons are to be weighed against each other as in a pair of scales, as Professor Marcelo Dascal has shown in his article "The Balance of Reason." In this kind of weighing it is not necessary to reach demonstrative certainty – one need only judge whether the reasons weigh more on behalf of one or the other option However, a different kind of account about rational decision-making can be found in some of Leibniz's writings. In his (...)
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  • Mental models and causal explanation: Judgements of probable cause and explanatory relevance.Denis J. Hilton - 1996 - Thinking and Reasoning 2 (4):273 – 308.
    Good explanations are not only true or probably true, but are also relevant to a causal question. Current models of causal explanation either only address the question of the truth of an explanation, or do not distinguish the probability of an explanation from its relevance. The tasks of scenario construction and conversational explanation are distinguished, which in turn shows how scenarios can interact with conversational principles to determine the truth and relevance of explanations. The proposed model distinguishes causal discounting from (...)
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  • Causes need not be physically connected to their effects: The case for negative causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2004 - In Christopher Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary debates in philosophy of science. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 197--216.
    Negative causation occurs when an absence serves as cause, effect, or causal intermediary. Negative causation is genuine causation, or so I shall argue. It involves no physical connection between cause and effect. Thus causes need not be physically connected to their effects.
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  • Coercive Interference and Moral Judgment.Jan-Willem van der Rijt - 2011 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (5):549 - 567.
    Coercion is by its very nature hostile to the individual subjected to it. At the same time, it often is a necessary evil: political life cannot function without at least some instances of coercion. Hence, it is not surprising that coercion has been the topic of heated philosophical debate for many decades. Though numerous accounts have been put forth in the literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the question what exactly being subjected to coercion does to an individual (...)
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  • Corrupting the youth: a history of philosophy in Australia.James Franklin - 2003 - Sydney, Australia: Macleay Press.
    A polemical account of Australian philosophy up to 2003, emphasising its unique aspects (such as commitment to realism) and the connections between philosophers' views and their lives. Topics include early idealism, the dominance of John Anderson in Sydney, the Orr case, Catholic scholasticism, Melbourne Wittgensteinianism, philosophy of science, the Sydney disturbances of the 1970s, Francofeminism, environmental philosophy, the philosophy of law and Mabo, ethics and Peter Singer. Realist theories especially praised are David Armstrong's on universals, David Stove's on logical probability (...)
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  • (1 other version)Contemporary debates in philosophy of science.Christopher Hitchcock (ed.) - 2004 - Malden, MA: Blackwell.
    Showcasing original arguments for well-defined positions, as well as clear and concise statements of sophisticated philosophical views, this volume is an ...
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  • Causality.Jessica M. Wilson - 2005 - In Sahotra Sarkar & Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. pp. 90--100.
    Arguably no concept is more fundamental to science than that of causality, for investigations into cases of existence, persistence, and change in the natural world are largely investigations into the causes of these phenomena. Yet the metaphysics and epistemology of causality remain unclear. For example, the ontological categories of the causal relata have been taken to be objects (Hume 1739), events (Davidson 1967), properties (Armstrong 1978), processes (Salmon 1984), variables (Hitchcock 1993), and facts (Mellor 1995). (For convenience, causes and effects (...)
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  • The metaphysics of causation.Jonathan N. D. Schaffer - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Questions about the metaphysics of causation may be usefully divided as follows. First, there are questions about the nature of the causal relata, including (1.1) whether they are in spacetime immanence), (1.2) how fine grained they are individuation), and (1.3) how many there are adicity). Second, there are questions about the metaphysics of the causal relation, including (2.1) what is the difference between causally related and causally unrelated sequences connection), (2.2) what is the difference between sequences related as cause to (...)
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  • Necessary and sufficient conditions.Andrew Brennan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Describes the received theory of necessary and sufficient conditions, explains some standard objections to it, and lays out alternative ways of thinking about conditions and conditionals.
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  • Overdetermining causes.Jonathan Schaffer - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 114 (1-2):23 - 45.
    When two rocks shatter the window at once, what causes the window to shatter? Is the throwing of each individual rock a cause of the window shattering, or are the throwings only causes collectively? This question bears on the analysis of causation, and the metaphysics of macro-causation. I argue that the throwing of each individual rock is a cause of the window shattering, and generally that individual overdeterminers are causes.
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