Switch to: Citations

References in:

The Return of Causal Powers?

In Stathis Psillos, Benjamin Hill & Henrik Lagerlund (eds.), Causal Powers in Science: Blending Historical and Conceptual Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 168-185 (2021)

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Nature's capacities and their measurement.Nancy Cartwright - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Ever since David Hume, empiricists have barred powers and capacities from nature. In this book Cartwright argues that capacities are essential in our scientific world, and, contrary to empiricist orthodoxy, that they can meet sufficiently strict demands for testability. Econometrics is one discipline where probabilities are used to measure causal capacities, and the technology of modern physics provides several examples of testing capacities (such as lasers). Cartwright concludes by applying the lessons of the book about capacities and probabilities to the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   677 citations  
  • Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   538 citations  
  • Scientific Essentialism.Brian Ellis - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore not independent of them. These laws are not imposed upon the world by God, the forces of nature or anything else, but rather are immanent in the world. Ellis argues that ours is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects which are constantly interacting with each other, and whose (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   514 citations  
  • Powers: A Study in Metaphysics.George Molnar - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Stephen Mumford.
    George Molnar came to see that the solution to a number of the problems of contemporary philosophy lay in the development of an alternative to Hume's metaphysics. This alternative would have real causal powers at its centre. Molnar set about developing a thorough account of powers that might persuade those who remained, perhaps unknowingly, in the grip of Humean assumptions. He succeeded in producing something both highly focused and at the same time wide-ranging. He showed both that the notion of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   380 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Causality and properties.Sydney Shoemaker - 1980 - In Peter van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Richard Taylor. D. Reidel. pp. 109-35.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   527 citations  
  • Fundamental determinables.Jessica M. Wilson - 2012 - Philosophers' Imprint 12.
    Contemporary philosophers commonly suppose that any fundamental entities there may be are maximally determinate. More generally, they commonly suppose that, whether or not there are fundamental entities, any determinable entities there may be are grounded in, hence less fundamental than, more determinate entities. So, for example, Armstrong takes the physical objects constituting the presumed fundamental base to be “determinate in all respects” (1961, 59), and Lewis takes the properties characterizing things “completely and without redundancy” to be “highly specific” (1986, 60). (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   88 citations  
  • (1 other version)Dispositions.Stephen Mumford - 1998 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 32 (1):193-197.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   232 citations  
  • Overpowering: How the Powers Ontology Has Overreached Itself.Alexander Bird - 2016 - Mind 125 (498):341-383.
    Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers, and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example, causation, representation, intentionality, free will and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the aforementioned non-fundamental phenomena. I illustrate this argument by criticizing the powers theory (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   66 citations  
  • Platonic Dispositionalism.Matthew Tugby - 2013 - Mind 122 (486):fzt071.
    In this paper I argue that if one subscribes to dispositionalism — the view that natural properties are irreducibly dispositional in character — then one ought to favour a Platonic view of properties. That is, dispositionalists ought to view properties as transcendent universals. I argue for this on the grounds that only with transcendent universals in play can two central dispositionalist platitudes be accounted for in a satisfactory way. Given that dispositionalism is becoming an increasingly influential view in the metaphysics (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   82 citations  
  • (1 other version)Dispositions.Shungho Choi & Michael Fara - 2012 - The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    This is a perfect overview article that serves as a general introduction to the topic of dispositions. It is composed of six sections that review the main philosophical approaches to the most important questions: Analysis of disposition ascription, the dispositional/categorical distinction, dispositions and categorical bases, the intrinsicness of dispositions and the causal efficacy of dispositions.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   104 citations  
  • Physiologia: natural philosophy in late Aristotelian and Cartesian thought.Dennis Des Chene - 1996 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
    Physiologia provides an accessible and comprehensive guide to late Aristotelian natural philosophy; with that context in hand, it offers new interpretations of major themes in Descartes’s natural philosophy.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   71 citations  
  • Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics.D. M. Armstrong - 2010 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press UK.
    In his last book, David Armstrong sets out his metaphysical system in a set of concise and lively chapters each dealing with one aspect of the world. He begins with the assumption that all that exists is the physical world of space-time. On this foundation he constructs a coherent metaphysical scheme that gives plausible answers to many of the great problems of metaphysics. He gives accounts of properties, relations, and particulars; laws of nature; modality; abstract objects such as numbers; and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   51 citations  
  • (1 other version)Dispositions.Stephen Mumford - 1994 - Cogito 8 (2):141-146.
    Mumford puts forward a new theory of dispositions, showing how central their role in metaphysics and philosophy of science is. Much of our understanding of the physical and psychological world is expressed in terms of dispositional properties--from the spin of a sub-atomic particle to the solubility of sugar. Mumford discusses what it means to say that something has a property of this kind and how dispositions can possibly be real things in the world.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   168 citations  
  • "Ceteris Paribus", There Is No Problem of Provisos.John Earman & John T. Roberts - 1999 - Synthese 118 (3):439 - 478.
    Much of the literature on "ceteris paribus" laws is based on a misguided egalitarianism about the sciences. For example, it is commonly held that the special sciences are riddled with ceteris paribus laws; from this many commentators conclude that if the special sciences are not to be accorded a second class status, it must be ceteris paribus all the way down to fundamental physics. We argue that the (purported) laws of fundamental physics are not hedged by ceteris paribus clauses and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   114 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Evidence‐based policy : where is our theory of evidence?Nancy Cartwright - manuscript
    This paper critically analyses the concept of evidence in evidence-based-policy arguing that there is key problem: that there is no existing practicable theory of evidence, one which is philosophically grounded and yet applicable for evidencebased policy. The paper critically considers both philosophical accounts of evidence and practical treatments of evidence in evidence-based-policy. It argues that both fail in different ways to provide a theory of evidence that is adequate for evidence-basedpolicy. The paper is a valuable contribution to the part of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • Explanatory generalizations, part II: Plumbing explanatory depth.Christopher Hitchcock & James Woodward - 2003 - Noûs 37 (2):181–199.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   116 citations  
  • (2 other versions)The Search after Truth.Nicholas Malebranche, Thomas M. Lennon & Paul J. Olscamp - 1982 - Philosophy of Science 49 (1):146-147.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   123 citations  
  • What's Wrong with Microphysicalism?Andreas Hüttemann - 2003 - New York: Routledge.
    'Microphysicalism', the view that whole objects behave the way they do in virtue of the behaviour of their constituent parts, is an influential contemporary view with a long philosophical and scientific heritage. In _What's Wrong With Microphysicalism?_ Andreas Hüttemann offers a fresh challenge to this view. Hüttemann agrees with the microphysicalists that we can explain compound systems by explaining their parts, but claims that this does not entail a fundamentalism that gives hegemony to the micro-level. At most, it shows that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • (2 other versions)The search after truth.Nicolas Malebranche - 2007 - In Aloysius Martinich, Fritz Allhoff & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Early Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   82 citations  
  • Ceteris Paribus Laws in Physics.Andreas Hüttemann - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (S10):1715-1728.
    Earman and Roberts claim that there is neither a persuasive account of the truth-conditions of ceteris paribus laws, nor of how such laws can be confirmed or disconfirmed. I will give an account of the truth conditions of ceteris paribus laws in physics in terms of dispositions. It will meet the objections standardly raised against such an account. Furthermore I will elucidate how ceteris paribus laws can be tested in physics. The essential point is that physics provides methodologies for dealing (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Passing Powers Around.Stephen Mumford - 2009 - The Monist 92 (1):94-111.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • Metaphysics of Science.Julia Göhner & Markus Schrenk - 2019 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • (1 other version)A disposition-based process theory of causation.Andreas Hüttemann - 2013 - In Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.), Metaphysics and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 101.
    Given certain well-known observations by Mach and Russell, the question arises what place there is for causation in the physical world. My aim in this chapter is to understand under what conditions we can use causal terminology and how it fi ts in with what physics has to say. I will argue for a disposition-based process-theory of causation. After addressing Mach’s and Russell’s concerns I will start by outlining the kind of problem the disposition based process-theory of causation is meant (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Manifestations as effects.Jennifer McKitrick - 2010 - In Anna Marmodoro (ed.), The Metaphysics of Powers: Their Grounding and Their Manifestations. New York: Routledge.
    According to a standard characterization of dispositions, when a disposition is activated by a stimulus, a manifestation of that disposition typically occurs. For example, when flammable gasoline encounters a spark in an oxygen-rich environment, the manifestation of flammability—combustion—occurs. In the dispositions/powers literature, it is common to assume that a manifestation is an effect of a disposition being activated. (I use “disposition” and “power” interchangeably). I address two questions in this chapter: Could all manifestations be effects that involve things acquiring only (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • Predication and physical law.Erhard Scheibe - 1991 - Topoi 10 (1):3-12.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Physicalism and the Part-Whole Relation.Andreas Hüttemann - 2015 - In Tomasz Bigaj & Christian Wüthrich (eds.), Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics. Boston: Brill | Rodopi. pp. 323-344.
    In this paper I intend to analyse whether a certain kind of physicalism (part-wholephysicalism)is supported by what classical mechanics and quantum mechanics have to say about the part whole relation. I will argue that not even the most likely candidates – namely cases of microexplanation of the dynamics of compound systems – provide evidence for part whole-physicalism, i.e. the thesis that the behaviour of the compound obtains in virtue of the behaviour of the parts. Physics does not dictate part-whole-physicalism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations