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  1. Review of M aking Things Happen. [REVIEW]Eric Hiddleston - 2005 - Philosophical Review 114 (4):545-547.
    Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defences, objections, and replies into a convincing defence of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyse causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.
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  • Making things happen: a theory of causal explanation.James F. Woodward - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.
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  • Rendering Interventionism and Non‐Reductive Physicalism Compatible.Michael Baumgartner - 2013 - Dialectica 67 (1):1-27.
    In recent years, the debate on the problem of causal exclusion has seen an ‘interventionist turn’. Numerous non-reductive physicalists (e.g. Shapiro and Sober 2007) have argued that Woodward's (2003) interventionist theory of causation provides a means to empirically establish the existence of non-reducible mental-to-physical causation. By contrast, Baumgartner (2010) has presented an interventionist exclusion argument showing that interventionism is in fact incompatible with non-reductive physicalism. In response, a number of revised versions of interventionism have been suggested that are compatible with (...)
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  • Mental Manipulations and the Problem of Causal Exclusion.Lawrence A. Shapiro - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (3):507 - 524.
    Christian List and Peter Menzies 2009 have looked to interventionist theories of causation for an answer to Jaegwon Kim's causal exclusion problem. Important to their response is the idea of realization-insensitivity. However, this idea becomes mired in issues concerning multiple realization, leaving it unable to fulfil its promise to block exclusion. After explaining why realization-insensitivity fails as a solution to Kim's problem, I look to interventionism to describe a different kind of solution.
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  • Control variables and mental causation.John Campbell - 2010 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110 (1pt1):15-30.
    I introduce the notion of a ‘control variable’ which gives us a way of seeing how mental causation could be an unproblematic case of causation in general, rather than being some sui generis form of causation. Psychological variables may be the control variables for a system for which there are no physical control variables, even in a deterministic physical world. That explains how there can be psychological causation without physical causation, even in a deterministic physical world.
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  • Causation in biology: Stability, specificity, and the choice of levels of explanation.James Woodward - 2010 - Biology and Philosophy 25 (3):287-318.
    This paper attempts to elucidate three characteristics of causal relationships that are important in biological contexts. Stability has to do with whether a causal relationship continues to hold under changes in background conditions. Proportionality has to do with whether changes in the state of the cause “line up” in the right way with changes in the state of the effect and with whether the cause and effect are characterized in a way that contains irrelevant detail. Specificity is connected both to (...)
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  • The exclusion problem, the determination relation, and contrastive causation.Peter Menzies - 2008 - In Jakob Hohwy & Jesper Kallestrup (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  • Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Don Ross, David Spurrett & John G. Collier.
    Every Thing Must Go aruges that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it ...
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  • (1 other version)The devil in the details: asymptotic reasoning in explanation, reduction, and emergence.Robert W. Batterman - 2002 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as a whole. He maintains that asymptotic reasoning is essential for explaining what physicists call universal behavior. With clarity and rigor, he simplifies complex questions about universal behavior, demonstrating a profound understanding of the underlying structures that ground them. This book introduces a valuable new method that is certain to fill explanatory gaps across disciplines.
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  • (1 other version)Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference.Judea Pearl - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Causality offers the first comprehensive coverage of causal analysis in many sciences, including recent advances using graphical methods. Pearl presents a unified account of the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual and structural approaches to causation, and devises simple mathematical tools for analyzing the relationships between causal connections, statistical associations, actions and observations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curriculum of statistics, artificial intelligence, business, epidemiology, social science and economics.
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  • Mental causation and neural mechanisms.James Woodward - 2008 - In Jakob Hohwy & Jesper Kallestrup (eds.), Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 218-262.
    This paper discusses some issues concerning the relationship between the mental and the physical, including the so-called causal exclusion argument, within the framework of a broadly interventionist approach to causation.
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  • The intentional stance: Developmental and neurocognitive perspectives.Richard Griffin - 2002 - In Andrew Brook & Don Ross (eds.), Daniel Dennett. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Nowhere in the psychological sciences has the philosophy of mind had more influence than on the child development literature generally referred to as children’s ‘theory of mind.’ Developmental journals may seem to be an unlikely place to find Brentano, Frege, and Dennett alongside descriptions of referential opacity and the principle of substitutivity, but it is not at all uncommon in this literature. While the many problems and complexities of the propositional attitude literature are still hotly debated by philosophers, and often (...)
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  • (4 other versions)Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
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  • Program explanation: A general perspective.Frank Jackson & Philip Pettit - 1990 - Analysis 50 (2):107-17.
    Some properties are causally relevant for a certain effect, others are not. In this paper we describe a problem for our understanding of this notion and then offer a solution in terms of the notion of a program explanation.
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  • Physicalism, or Something Near Enough.Jaegwon Kim - 2005 - Princeton University Press.
    "This is a fine volume that clarifies, defends, and moves beyond the views that Kim presented in Mind in a Physical World.
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  • Epiphenomenalism - the do's and the don 'ts'.Lawrence A. Shapiro & Elliott Sober - 2006 - In G. Wolters & Peter K. Machamer (eds.), Thinking about Causes: From Greek Philosophy to Modern Physics. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 235-264.
    When philosophers defend epiphenomenalist doctrines, they often do so by way of a priori arguments. Here we suggest an empirical approach that is modeled on August Weismann’s experimental arguments against the inheritance of acquired characters. This conception of how epiphenomenalism ought to be developed helps clarify some mistakes in two recent epiphenomenalist positions – Jaegwon Kim’s (1993) arguments against mental causation, and the arguments developed by Walsh (2000), Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew (2002), and Matthen and Ariew (2002) that natural selection (...)
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  • The Intentional Stance.Daniel Clement Dennett - 1981 - MIT Press.
    Through the use of such "folk" concepts as belief, desire, intention, and expectation, Daniel Dennett asserts in this first full scale presentation of...
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  • (1 other version)Real patterns.Daniel C. Dennett - 1991 - Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):27-51.
    Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the (...)
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  • Robustness, Reliability, and Overdetermination (1981).William C. Wimsatt - 2012 - In Lena Soler (ed.), Characterizing the robustness of science: after the practice turn in philosophy of science. New York: Springer Verlag. pp. 61-78.
    The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...)
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  • Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.James Ladyman & Don Ross - 2007 - In James Ladyman & Don Ross (eds.), Every thing must go: metaphysics naturalized. New York: Oxford University Press.
    This book argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, this book demonstrates how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics, which, when combined (...)
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  • Physicalism, or Something near Enough.Jaegwon Kim - 2006 - Philosophical Quarterly 56 (223):306-310.
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  • (1 other version)Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference.Christopher Hitchcock & Judea Pearl - 2001 - Philosophical Review 110 (4):639.
    Judea Pearl has been at the forefront of research in the burgeoning field of causal modeling, and Causality is the culmination of his work over the last dozen or so years. For philosophers of science with a serious interest in causal modeling, Causality is simply mandatory reading. Chapter 2, in particular, addresses many of the issues familiar from works such as Causation, Prediction and Search by Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour, and Richard Scheines. But philosophers with a more general interest in (...)
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  • (1 other version)Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
    What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...)
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  • Kinds of Mind.Daniel C. Dennett - 2000 - Mind 109 (436):883-890.
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  • Methodology, ontology, and interventionism.James Woodward - 2015 - Synthese 192 (11):3577-3599.
    This paper defends an interventionist account of causation by construing this account as a contribution to methodology, rather than as a set of theses about the ontology or metaphysics of causation. It also uses the topic of causation to raise some more general issues about the relation between, on the one hand, methodology, and, on the other hand, ontology and metaphysics, as these are understood in contemporary philosophical discussion, particularly among so-called analytic metaphysicians. It concludes with the suggestion that issues (...)
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  • Pluralistic physicalism and the causal exclusion argument.Markus I. Eronen - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (2):219-232.
    There is a growing consensus among philosophers of science that scientific endeavors of understanding the human mind or the brain exhibit explanatory pluralism. Relatedly, several philosophers have in recent years defended an interventionist approach to causation that leads to a kind of causal pluralism. In this paper, I explore the consequences of these recent developments in philosophy of science for some of the central debates in philosophy of mind. First, I argue that if we adopt explanatory pluralism and the interventionist (...)
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  • Causation, exclusion, and the special sciences.Panu Raatikainen - 2010 - Erkenntnis 73 (3):349-363.
    The issue of downward causation (and mental causation in particular), and the exclusion problem is discussed by taking into account some recent advances in the philosophy of science. The problem is viewed from the perspective of the new interventionist theory of causation developed by Woodward. It is argued that from this viewpoint, a higher-level (e.g., mental) state can sometimes truly be causally relevant, and moreover, that the underlying physical state which realizes it may fail to be such.
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  • What to say to a skeptical metaphysician: A defense manual for cognitive and behavioral scientists.Don Ross & David Spurrett - 2004 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (5):603-627.
    A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Dennett’s Logical Behaviorism.Brian P. McLaughlin & John O’Leary-Hawthorne - 1994 - Philosophical Topics 22 (1-2):189-258.
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  • Intentional systems.Daniel C. Dennett - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (February):87-106.
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  • Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference.Judea Pearl - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):201-202.
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  • Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings. Piecewise Approximations to Reality.William C. Wimsatt - 2010 - Critica 42 (124):108-117.
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  • Intentional concepts in cognitive neuroscience.Samuli Pöyhönen - 2014 - Philosophical Explorations 17 (1):93-109.
    In this article, I develop an account of the use of intentional predicates in cognitive neuroscience explanations. As pointed out by Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, intentional language abounds in neuroscience theories. According to Bennett and Hacker, the subpersonal use of intentional predicates results in conceptual confusion. I argue against this overly strong conclusion by evaluating the contested language use in light of its explanatory function. By employing conceptual resources from the contemporary philosophy of science, I show that although the (...)
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  • Robustness and reality.Markus I. Eronen - 2015 - Synthese 192 (12):3961-3977.
    Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified (...)
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  • Kinds Of Minds: Toward An Understanding Of Consciousness.Danile C. Dennett - 1997 - Basic Books.
    Combining ideas from philosophy, artificial intelligence, and neurobiology, Daniel Dennett leads the reader on a fascinating journey of inquiry, exploring such intriguing possibilities as: Can any of us really know what is going on in someone else's mind? What distinguishes the human mind from the minds of animals, especially those capable of complex behavior? If such animals, for instance, were magically given the power of language, would their communities evolve an intelligence as subtly discriminating as ours? Will robots, once they (...)
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  • Interventionism and Causal Exclusion.James Woodward - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2):303-347.
    A number of writers, myself included, have recently argued that an “interventionist” treatment of causation of the sort defended in Woodward, 2003 can be used to cast light on so-called “causal exclusion” arguments. This interventionist treatment of causal exclusion has in turn been criticized by other philosophers. This paper responds to these criticisms. It describes an interventionist framework for thinking about causal relationships when supervenience relations are present. I contend that this framework helps us to see that standard arguments for (...)
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  • Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age.György Gergely, Zoltán Nádasdy, Gergely Csibra & Szilvia Bíró - 1995 - Cognition 56 (2):165-193.
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  • Rainforest realism: A Dennettian theory of existence.D. Ross - 2000 - In Don Ross, Andrew Brook & David Thompson (eds.), Dennett’s Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. MIT Press. pp. 147-168.
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  • (1 other version)Interdefining causation and intervention.Michael Baumgartner - 2009 - Dialectica 63 (2):175-194.
    Non-reductive interventionist theories of causation and methodologies of causal reasoning embedded in that theoretical framework have become increasingly popular in recent years. This paper argues that one variant of an interventionist account of causation, viz. the one presented, for example, in Woodward (2003 ), is unsuited as a theoretical fundament of interventionist methodologies of causal reasoning, because it renders corresponding methodologies incapable of uncovering a causal structure in a finite number of steps. This finding runs counter to Woodward's own assessment (...)
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  • Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings: piecewise approximations to reality.William C. Wimsatt - 2007 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    This book offers a philosophy for error-prone humans trying to understand messy systems in the real world.
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  • (4 other versions)Causation.D. Lewis - 1986 - In David K. Lewis (ed.), Philosophical Papers Vol. II. Oxford University Press. pp. 159-213.
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  • (1 other version)Interdefining Causation and Intervention.Michael Baumgartner - 2009 - Dialectica 63 (2):175-194.
    Non-reductive interventionist theories of causation and methodologies of causal reasoning embedded in that theoretical framework have become increasingly popular in recent years. This paper argues that one variant of an interventionist account of causation, viz. the one presented, for example, in Woodward (2003), is unsuited as a theoretical fundament of interventionist methodologies of causal reasoning, because it renders corresponding methodologies incapable of uncovering a causal structure in a finite number of steps. This finding runs counter to Woodward's own assessment and (...)
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  • (1 other version)Dennett's philosophy.Don Ross - 1999 - The Philosophers' Magazine 6:22-25.
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  • Review: The Grand Leap; Reviewed Work: Causation, Prediction, and Search. [REVIEW]Peter Spirtes, Clark Glymour & Richard Scheines - 1996 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1):113-123.
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  • Interventionism and Supervenience: A New Problem and Provisional Solution.Markus8 Eronen & Daniel Brooks - 2014 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 28 (2):185-202.
    The causal exclusion argument suggests that mental causes are excluded in favour of the underlying physical causes that do all the causal work. Recently, a debate has emerged concerning the possibility of avoiding this conclusion by adopting Woodward's interventionist theory of causation. Both proponents and opponents of the interventionist solution crucially rely on the notion of supervenience when formulating their positions. In this article, we consider the relation between interventionism and supervenience in detail and argue that importing supervenience relations into (...)
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  • Unlikely allies: embodied social cognition and the intentional stance.Tadeusz Wieslaw Zawidzki - 2012 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 11 (4):487-506.
    I argue that proponents of embodied social cognition (ESC) can usefully supplement their views if they enlist the help of an unlikely ally: Daniel Dennett. On Dennett’s view, human social cognition involves adopting the intentional stance (IS), i.e., assuming that an interpretive target’s behavior is an optimally rational attempt to fulfill some desire relative to her beliefs. Characterized this way, proponents of ESC would reject any alliance with Dennett. However, for Dennett, to attribute mental states from the intentional stance is (...)
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  • (1 other version)Dennett’s Logical Behaviorism.John O'Leary-Hawthorne - 1994 - Philosophical Topics 22 (1-2):189-258.
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  • Response to Strevens.Jim Woodward - 2008 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1):193-212.
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  • (1 other version)Dennett’s Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment.Don Ross, Andrew Brook & David Thompson (eds.) - 2000 - MIT Press.
    The essays in this collection step back to ask: Do the complex components of Dennett's work on intentionality, consciousness, evolution, and ethics themselves ...
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  • Intentional systems theory, mental causation and empathic resonance.Marc V. P. Slors - 2007 - Erkenntnis 67 (2):321-336.
    In the first section of this paper I argue that the main reason why Daniel Dennett’s Intentional Systems Theory (IST) has been perceived as behaviourist or antirealist is its inability to account for the causal efficacy of the mental. The rest of the paper is devoted to the claim that by emending the theory with a phenomenon called ‘empathic resonance’ (ER), it can account for the various explananda in the mental causation debate. Thus, IST + ER is a much more (...)
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