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Causation and Explanation

Routledge (2002)

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  1. Constructivist Set-Theoretic Analysis: An Alternative to Essentialist Social Science.James Mahoney - 2023 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 53 (4):327-366.
    Psychological essentialism is a cognitive bias through which human beings conceive the entities around them as having inner essences and basic natures. Social scientists routinely generate flawed inferences because their methods require the truth of psychological essentialism. This article develops set-theoretic analysis as a scientific-constructivist approach that overcomes the bias of psychological essentialism. With this approach, the “sets” of set-theoretic analysis are mental phenomena that establish boundaries and identify similarities and differences among entities whose natural kind composition is not known. (...)
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  • Natural Kinds, Mind-independence, and Unification Principles.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-23.
    There have been many attempts to determine what makes a natural kind real, chief among them is the criterion according to which natural kinds must be mind-independent. But it is difficult to specify this criterion: many supposed natural kinds have an element of mind-dependence. I will argue that the mind-independence criterion is nevertheless a good one, if correctly understood: the mind-independence criterion concerns the unification principles for natural kinds. Unification principles determine how natural kinds unify their properties, and only those (...)
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  • Leis da Natureza.Eduardo Castro - 2013 - Compêndio Em Linha de Problemas de Filosofia Analítics.
    State of art paper on the topic laws of nature, around the problem of identification what is to be a law of nature. The most prominent theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, such as: the simple regularity theory, from Hume; the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis best systems theory; the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong theory of laws as relations among universals; Ellis’s essentialist theory; Cartwright’s theory of laws as ceteris paribus laws; the anti-reductionist theories of Lange, Maudlin and Carroll, the anti-realist theories of Mumford, (...)
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  • Empiricism Must, but Cannot, Presuppose Real Causation.Hans Radder - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 (4):597-608.
    In this article, I put forward a basic philosophical claim: empirical scientific knowledge, that is, knowledge generated in experimental and observational practices, presupposes real causation. My discussion exploits two core notions from the philosophical analysis of scientific experimentation and observation: the aim of realizing object-apparatus correlations and the required control of the relevant interactions between environment and experimental or observational system. The conclusion is that, without the notion of real causation, acquiring epistemically sound empirical knowledge is impossible. Several empiricist objections (...)
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  • Explicação Científica.Eduardo Castro - 2020 - Compêndio Em Linha de Problemas de Filosofia Analítica.
    Opinionated state of the art paper on scientific explanation. Analysis and discussion of the most relevant models and theories in the contemporary literature, namely, the deductive-nomological model, the models of inductive-statistical and statistical relevance, the pragmatic theory of why questions, the unifying theory of standard arguments, and the causal/non-causal counterfactual theory.
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  • A Teoria Aristotélica da Demonstração Científica.Charles Andrade Santana - 2020 - Dissertation, University of Campinas, Brazil
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  • The problem of creation and abstract artifacts.Nurbay Irmak - 2020 - Synthese 198 (10):9695-9708.
    Abstract artifacts such as musical works and fictional entities are human creations; they are intentional products of our actions and activities. One line of argument against abstract artifacts is that abstract objects are not the kind of objects that can be created. This is so, it is argued, because abstract objects are causally inert. Since creation requires being caused to exist, abstract objects cannot be created. One common way to refute this argument is to reject the causal inefficacy of abstracta. (...)
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  • A dynamical systems approach to causation.Peter Fazekas, Balazs Gyenis, Gábor Hofer-Szabó & Gergely Kertesz - 2019 - Synthese 198 (7):6065-6087.
    Our approach aims at accounting for causal claims in terms of how the physical states of the underlying dynamical system evolve with time. Causal claims assert connections between two sets of physicals states—their truth depends on whether the two sets in question are genuinely connected by time evolution such that physical states from one set evolve with time into the states of the other set. We demonstrate the virtues of our approach by showing how it is able to account for (...)
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  • (1 other version)Kim on Causation and Mental Causation.Panu Raatikainen - 2018 - E-Logos Electronic Journal for Philosophy 25 (2):22–47.
    Jaegwon Kim’s views on mental causation and the exclusion argument are evaluated systematically. Particular attention is paid to different theories of causation. It is argued that the exclusion argument and its premises do not cohere well with any systematic view of causation.
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  • Regularities, Natural Patterns and Laws of Nature.Stathis Psillos - 2014 - Theoria 29 (1):9-27.
    The goal of this paper is to sketch an empiricist metaphysics of laws of nature. The key idea is that there are regularities without regularity-enforcers. Differently put, there are natural laws without law-makers _of a distinct metaphysical kind_. This sketch will rely on the concept of a natural pattern and more significantly on the existence of a network of natural patterns in nature. The relation between a regularity and a pattern will be analysed in terms of mereology. Here is the (...)
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  • Mechanisms, counterfactuals and laws.Stavros Ioannidis & Stathis Psillos - 2017 - In Stuart Glennan & Phyllis McKay Illari (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 144-156.
    In this chapter we examine the relation between mechanisms and laws/counterfactuals by revisiting the main notions of mechanism found in the literature. We distinguish between two different conceptions of ‘mechanism’: mechanisms-of underlie or constitute a causal process; mechanisms-for are complex systems that function so as to produce a certain behavior. According to some mechanists, a mechanism fulfills both of these roles simultaneously. The main argument of the chapter is that there is an asymmetrical dependence between both kinds of mechanisms and (...)
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  • Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature.Stathis Psillos - unknown
    The aim of this paper is to revisit the major arguments of the seventeenth century debate concerning laws and powers. Its primary points are two. First, though the dominant conception of nature was such that there was no room for power in bodies, the very idea that laws govern the behaviour of matter in motion brought with it the following issue, which came under sharp focus in the work of Leibniz: how possibly can passive matter, devoid of power, obey laws? (...)
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  • A logic for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities.Mathieu Beirlaen, Bert Leuridan & Frederik Van De Putte - 2018 - Synthese 195 (1):367-399.
    We present a logic, \, for the discovery of deterministic causal regularities starting from empirical data. Our approach is inspired by Mackie’s theory of causes as INUS-conditions, and implements a more recent adjustment to Mackie’s theory according to which the left-hand side of causal regularities is required to be a minimal disjunction of minimal conjunctions. To derive such regularities from a given set of data, we make use of the adaptive logics framework. Our knowledge of deterministic causal regularities is, as (...)
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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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  • The Applicability of Mathematics to Physical Modality.Nora Berenstain - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3361-3377.
    This paper argues that scientific realism commits us to a metaphysical determination relation between the mathematical entities that are indispensible to scientific explanation and the modal structure of the empirical phenomena those entities explain. The argument presupposes that scientific realism commits us to the indispensability argument. The viewpresented here is that the indispensability of mathematics commits us not only to the existence of mathematical structures and entities but to a metaphysical determination relation between those entities and the modal structure of (...)
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  • On the supposed explanatory heteronomy of functional biology.Gustavo Caponi - 2015 - Scientiae Studia 13 (3):547-575.
    RESUMENSegún un punto de vista muy difundido, y alineado con la concepción nómica de la explicación causal, la biología funcional está sometida a un régimen de heteronomía explicativa en cuyo marco los fenómenos orgánicos deben explicarse causalmente recurriendo a leyes oriundas de la física y la química. En contra de esa perspectiva, la concepción experimental de la causación permite entender la naturaleza de muchas explicaciones biológicas que, sin hacer referencia a leyes causales - físicas, químicas o de cualquier otra naturaleza (...)
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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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  • An Informational Perspective on Agency Causation.Christoph Schulz - 2016 - Topoi 35 (1):241-252.
    According to Fred Dretske’s semantic information theory, the process of becoming informed consists of two parts: the transfer of information via a channel, and the subsequent formation of a semantic structure, called ‘digitalisation’. Leaving out any one of the two parts renders the concept of becoming informed incomplete. Similarly, Peter Menzies and Huw Price’s agency-account of causation has a bipartite structure. The account posits that an event A is a cause of a distinct event B in cases where bringing about (...)
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  • Ontic Structural Realism and Modality.Nora Berenstain & James Ladyman - 2012 - In Elaine Landry & Dean Rickles (eds.), Structural Realism: Structure, Object, and Causality. Springer.
    There is good reason to believe that scientific realism requires a commitment to the objective modal structure of the physical world. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability all feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation, and each one is a modal notion. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept the modal nature of the physical world. But what does the scientific realist’s commitment to physical modality require? We consider whether scientific realism (...)
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  • Causality in medicine with particular reference to the viral causation of cancers.Brendan Clarke - 2011 - Dissertation, University College London
    In this thesis, I give a metascientific account of causality in medicine. I begin with two historical cases of causal discovery. These are the discovery of the causation of Burkitt’s lymphoma by the Epstein-Barr virus, and of the various viral causes suggested for cervical cancer. These historical cases then support a philosophical discussion of causality in medicine. This begins with an introduction to the Russo- Williamson thesis (RWT), and discussion of a range of counter-arguments against it. Despite these, I argue (...)
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  • Process and Change: From a Thermodynamic Perspective.Paul Needham - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (2):395-422.
    The creators of equilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics developed a conception of processes which bears on metaphysical discussions of change, occurrents, and continuants and merits the attention of contemporary analytic metaphysicians. It concerns the macroscopic domain, from which metaphysicians normally take their examples, and is unjustly ignored on the grounds that it is not ‘fundamental science’. Why this often-voiced view should disqualify just thermodynamics, and not the broad range of considerations normally raised, is a moot point. But even if there were (...)
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  • A verisimilitudinarian analysis of the Linda paradox.Gustavo Cevolani, Vincenzo Crupi & Roberto Festa - 2012 - VII Conference of the Spanish Society for Logic, Methodology and Philosphy of Science.
    The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.
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  • Zombies, Epiphenomenalism and Personal Explanations: A Tension in Moreland's Argument from Consciousness.Daniel Lim - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3 (2):439 - 450.
    In his so-called argument from consciousness (AC), J. P. Moreland argues that the phenomenon of consciousness furnishes us with evidence for the existence of God. In defending AC, however, Moreland makes claims that generate an undesirable tension. This tension can be posed as a dilemma based on the contingency of the correlation between mental and physical states. The correlation of mental and physical states is either contingent or necessary. If the correlation is contingent then epiphenomenalism is true. If the correlation (...)
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  • Causal foundationalism, physical causation, and difference-making.Luke Glynn - 2013 - Synthese 190 (6):1017-1037.
    An influential tradition in the philosophy of causation has it that all token causal facts are, or are reducible to, facts about difference-making. Challenges to this tradition have typically focused on pre-emption cases, in which a cause apparently fails to make a difference to its effect. However, a novel challenge to the difference-making approach has recently been issued by Alyssa Ney. Ney defends causal foundationalism, which she characterizes as the thesis that facts about difference-making depend upon facts about physical causation. (...)
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  • Competition Theory and Channeling Explanation.Christopher H. Eliot - 2011 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 3 (20130604):1-16.
    The complexity and heterogeneity of causes influencing ecology’s domain challenge its capacity to generate a general theory without exceptions, raising the question of whether ecology is capable, even in principle, of achieving the sort of theoretical success enjoyed by physics. Weber has argued that competition theory built around the Competitive Exclusion Principle (especially Tilman’s resource-competition model) offers an example of ecology identifying a law-like causal regularity. However, I suggest that as Weber presents it, the CEP is not yet a causal (...)
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  • Initial Conditions as Exogenous Factors in Spatial Explanation.Clint Ballinger - 2008 - Dissertation, University of Cambridge
    This dissertation shows how initial conditions play a special role in the explanation of contingent and irregular outcomes, including, in the form of geographic context, the special case of uneven development in the social sciences. The dissertation develops a general theory of this role, recognizes its empirical limitations in the social sciences, and considers how it might be applied to the question of uneven development. The primary purpose of the dissertation is to identify and correct theoretical problems in the study (...)
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  • Physics and Metaphysics: Interaction or Autonomy?Mauro Dorato - 2010 - Humana Mente 4 (13).
    In this paper it is argued that if physics is to become a coherent metaphysics of nature, it needs an interpretation, namely (i) a clear formulation of its ontological/metaphysical claims and (ii) and a precise understanding of how such claims are related to the world of our experience, which is the most important reservoir of traditional, merely aprioristic metaphysical speculations. Such speculations − especially if conducted in full autonomy from physics, or imposed upon it “from the outside” − risk to (...)
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  • ‘Exploding the Limits of Law’: Judgment and Freedom in Arendt and Adorno.Craig Reeves - 2009 - Res Publica 15 (2):137-164.
    In Eichmann in Jerusalem , Hannah Arendt struggled to defend the possibility of judgment against the obvious problems encountered in attempts to offer legally valid and morally meaningful judgments of those who had committed crimes in morally bankrupt communities. Following Norrie, this article argues that Arendt’s conclusions in Eichmann are equivocal and incoherent. Exploring her perspectival theory of judgment, the article suggests that Arendt remains trapped within certain Kantian assumptions in her philosophy of history, and as such sees the question (...)
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  • Books received. [REVIEW]Ralf Busse - 2007 - Erkenntnis 67 (3):455-466.
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  • (1 other version)A glimpse of the.Stathis Psillos - 2004 - Perspectives on Science 12 (3):288-319.
    : Among the current philosophical accounts of causation two are the most prominent. The first is James Woodward's interventionist counterfactual approach; the second is the mechanistic approach advocated by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, Carl Craver, Jim Bogen and Stuart Glennan. Thecounterfactual approach takes it that causes make a difference to their effects, where this difference-making is cashed out in terms of actual and counterfactual interventions. The mechanistic approach takes it that two events are causally related if and only if there (...)
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  • Rumos da Epistemologia v. 11.Luiz Dutra & Alexandre Meyer Luz (eds.) - 2011 - Núcleo de Epistemologia e Lógica.
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  • Hume on Laws and Miracles.Nathan Rockwood - 2018 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (4).
    Hume famously argues that the laws of nature provide us with decisive reason to believe that any testimony of a miracle is false. In this paper, I argue that the laws of nature, as such, give us no reason at all to believe that the testimony of a miracle is false. I first argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful if we assume the Humean view of laws, and then I argue that Hume’s proof is unsuccessful even if we assume the (...)
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  • A Formal Analysis of the Best System Account of Lawhood.Giovanni Cinà - 2014 - Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Analitica Junior 5 (1):59-73.
    In this work I attempt a reformulation of Lewis’ Best System Account, explicitating the underlying formal conception of scientific theories and trying to define the concepts of simplicity, strength and balance. This essay is divided in three sections. In the first one I introduce the Best System Account of natural laws and formulate the need for its improvement. In the second section I outline a formal framework where the notions of deductive system and scientific theory can be defined precisely. In (...)
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  • The Institutional-Evolutionary Antitrust Model.C. Mantzavinos - 2006 - European Journal of Law and Economics 22:273-291.
    The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative antitrust model to the mainstream model that is used in competition policy. I call it the InstitutionalEvolutionary Antitrust Model. In order to construct an antitrust model one needs both empirical knowledge and considerations of how to adequately deal with norms. The analysis of competition as an evolutionary process that unfolds within legal rules provides the empirical foundation for the model. The development of the normative dimension involves the elaboration of a (...)
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  • A conditional logic for abduction.Mathieu Beirlaen & Atocha Aliseda - 2014 - Synthese 191 (15):3733-3758.
    We propose a logic of abduction that (i) provides an appropriate formalization of the explanatory conditional, and that (ii) captures the defeasible nature of abductive inference. For (i), we argue that explanatory conditionals are non-classical, and rely on Brian Chellas’s work on conditional logics for providing an alternative formalization of the explanatory conditional. For (ii), we make use of the adaptive logics framework for modeling defeasible reasoning. We show how our proposal allows for a more natural reading of explanatory relations, (...)
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  • The demarcation problem of laws of nature.Lukáš Bielik - 2010 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 17 (4):522-549.
    The paper focuses on the problem of identification of laws of nature and their demarcation from other kinds of regularities. The problem is approached from the viewpoint of several metaphysical, epistemological, logical and methodological criteria. Firstly, several dominant approaches to the problem are introduced. Secondly, the logical and semantic explicatory framework – Transparent Intensional Logic – is presented for the sake of clarification of logical forms of sentences that are supposed to express the laws of nature. Finally, a complementary strategy (...)
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  • (1 other version)Causal processes and propensities in quantum mechanics.Mauricio Suárez - 2004 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 19 (3):271-300.
    In an influential article published in 1982, Bas Van Fraassen developed an argument against causal realism on the basis of an analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of quantum mechanics. Several philosophers of science and experts in causal inference -including some causal realists like Wesley Salmon- have accepted Van Fraassen’s argument, interpreting it as a proof that the quantum correlations cannot be given any causal model. In this paper I argue that Van Fraassen’s article can also be interpreted as a good (...)
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  • Explanations of Meaningful Actions.C. Mantzavinos - 2012 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42 (2):224-238.
    There is a long tradition in philosophy and the social sciences that emphasizes the meaningfulness of human action. This tradition doubts or even negates the possibility of causal explanations of human action precisely on the basis that human actions have meaning. This article provides an argument in favor of methodological naturalism in the social sciences. It grants the main argument of the Interpretivists, that is, that human actions are meaningful, but it shows how a transformation of a "nexus of meaning" (...)
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  • Causality and causal modelling in the social sciences.Federica Russo - 2009 - Springer, Dordrecht.
    The anti-causal prophecies of last century have been disproved. Causality is neither a ‘relic of a bygone’ nor ‘another fetish of modern science’; it still occupies a large part of the current debate in philosophy and the sciences. This investigation into causal modelling presents the rationale of causality, i.e. the notion that guides causal reasoning in causal modelling. It is argued that causal models are regimented by a rationale of variation, nor of regularity neither invariance, thus breaking down the dominant (...)
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  • Humeanism and laws of nature: scope and limits.Cristián Soto - 2021 - Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso 17:145-167.
    Nomological Humeanism has developed into a research program encompassing several variations on a single theme, namely, the view that laws are statements about regularities that we find in nature. After briefly revisiting an early form of nomological Humeanism in Hume’s critique of the idea of necessary connection, this article critically examines Lewis’ two-fold approach based on Humean supervenience and the best system account. We shall point out three limits of nomological Humeanism, which are widely recognized in the literature: its inadequacy (...)
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  • Armstrong’s Theory of Laws and Causation: Putting Things into their Proper Places.S. M. Hassan A. Shirazi - 2018 - Problemos 94:61.
    [full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] Armstrong’s theory of laws and causation may be articulated as something like the following, which we may refer to as the received view: “Laws are intrinsic higher-order relations of ensuring between properties. The instantiation of laws is identical with singular causation. This identity is a posteriori.” Opponents and advocates of this view, believe that it may fairly and correctly be attributed to Armstrong. I do not deny it; instead I seek to reconsider (...)
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  • Analysing causation.Morgan Jennifer Margaret - unknown
    This thesis will survey several prominent approaches to analysing causation, discuss their differences and similarities, and look at a number of problems which are common to all of them. I will be arguing for the following claims about how we should approach the process of analysing causation. Firstly, I will be arguing that a reductive analysis is desirable, since if we can reductively analyse causation in terms of something empirically accessible, we can explain how it is possible to know anything (...)
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  • Narratives and Action Explanation.Thomas Uebel - 2012 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42 (1):31-67.
    This article discusses an epistemological problem faced by causal explanations of action and a proposed solution. The problem is to justify why one particular reason rather than another is specified as causally efficacious. It is argued that the problem arises independently of one’s preferred conception of singular causal claims, psychological and psychophysical generalizations, and our folk-psychological competence. The proposed fallibilist solution involves the supplementation of the reason given by narratives that contextualize it and provide additional criteria for justifying the causal (...)
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  • Husserl on Personal Level Explanation.Heath Williams - 2020 - Human Studies 43 (1):1-22.
    This paper makes a phenomenological contribution to the distinction between personal and subpersonal types of explanation. I expound the little-known fact that Husserl gives an account of personal level explanation via his exposition of our capacity to express the understanding of another’s motivational nexus when we are in the personalistic attitude. I show that Husserl’s unique exposition of the motivational nexus conveys its concrete, internally coherent, and intentional nature, involving relationships amongst the sense contents of acts of consciousness. Moreover, the (...)
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  • Why Causal Evidencing of Risk Fails. An Example from Oil Contamination.Elena Rocca & Rani Lill Anjum - 2019 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 22 (2):197-213.
    ABSTRACTMeasurements of environmental toxicity from long-term exposure to oil contamination have delivered inaccurate and contradictory results regarding the potential harms for humans and ecosyste...
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  • How the Modalities Come into the World.Wolfgang Spohn - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (1):89-112.
    The modalities come into the world by being projections or objectivizations of our epistemic constitution. Thus this paper is a statement of Humean projectivism. In fact, it goes beyond Simon Blackburn’s version. It is also designed as a comprehensive counter-program to David Lewis’ program of Humean supervenience. In detail, the paper explains: Already the basic fact that the world is a world of states of affairs is due to the nature of our epistemic states. Objects, which figure in states of (...)
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  • Actions, Reasons and Narratives.Thomas Uebel - 2012 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (1):82 - 101.
    Abstract This paper outlines the proposal that narratives can back up the claim that explanations by reasons are causal explanations. While drawing for inspiration on discussions in the philosophy of history, the proposal is here discussed in the context of the classical debate about reasons and causes. The far-reaching agreement of Davidson's causalist theory with an anti-causalist argument is shown to give rise to an epistemological difficulty that is not fixed simply by attending to his understanding of singular causal claims. (...)
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  • Humeanism, Best System Laws, and Emergence.Olivier Sartenaer - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (4):719-738.
    In the current article and contrary to a widespread assumption, I argue that Humeanism and ontological emergence can peacefully coexist. Such a coexistence can be established by reviving elements of John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science, in which an idiosyncratic account of diachronic emergence is associated with extensions of the Humean mosaic and the correlative coming into being of new best system laws, which have the peculiarity of being temporally indexed. Incidentally, this reconciliation of Humeanism and emergence allows for conceiving (...)
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  • Biological modalities.Maximilian Huber - unknown
    Biological modalities (e.g., biological possibility, necessity and counterfactuality) play an important explanatory role in biological practice. However, biological modalities lack truth conditions and the inferential relationship between biological and other modalities is unclear. This thesis addresses these problems, first, by improving upon Daniel Dennett's Library of Mendel. Second, a family of modal logics is introduced. In the simplest model, states are interpreted as codons, the binary relation is interpreted as single substitution mutation and the valuation induces a partition of blocks (...)
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  • The Metaphysical Requirement for Models of Prediction and Explanationist Approaches to the Problem of Induction.Jaeho Lee - 2017 - Axiomathes 27 (3):225-242.
    David Armstrong once argued that to solve the problem of induction with inference to the best explanation we need an anti-Humean conception of law. Some Humeans have argued that this argument begs the question against Humeanism. In this paper, I propose a new argument for the same conclusion which is not vulnerable to this criticism. In particular, I argue that explanationist approaches to the problem of induction that are combined with Humeanism is internally incoherent.
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