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 (...) explanation of the role of causality in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Clark Glymour, Richard Scheines, Peter Spirtes and Kevin Kelly. Discovering Causal Structure: Artifical Intelligence, Philosophy of Science and Statistical Modeling.

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust (...) argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

Discontented people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the Commons and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been the highest, the Commons had been the busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon his heart, and say this to the whole world, – ‘Touch the Commons, and down comes the country!’.

If the decades of the forties through the sixties were dominated by discussion of Hempel's “covering law“ explication of explanation, that of the seventies was preoccupied with Salmon's “statistical relevance” conception, which emerged as the principal alternative to Hempel's enormously influential account. Readers of Wesley C. Salmon's Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, therefore, ought to find it refreshing to discover that its author has not remained content with a facile defense of his previous investigations; on the (...) contrary, Salmon offers an original account of different kinds of explications, advances additional criticisms of various alternative theories, and elaborates a novel “two-tiered“ analysis of explanation that tacitly depends upon a “two-tiered” account of homogeneity. Indeed, if the considerations that follow are correct, Salmon has not merely refined his statistical relevance account but has actually abandoned it in favor of a “causal/mechanistic“ construction. This striking development suggests that the theory of explanation is likely to remain as lively an arena of debate in the eighties as it has been in the past. (shrink)

My focus in this essay is on those singular causal explanations which purport to explain the occurrence of some particular event by means of a claim of the following general sort The occurrence of event caused the occurrence of event.Examples include sentences like The short circuit caused the fire’ and The impact of the hammer caused the shattering of the glass,’ Many philosophers hold that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between singular causal explanations and those sentences which (...) simply report causal connections. While singular causal sentences are said to typically relate events, and to be extensional, singular causal explanations are held to relate items which are sentential or fact-like in structure and to be non-extensional.1 Singular causal explanations are held on this view to always be explanations of why events or other objects belong to certain kinds or possess certain properties. (shrink)

The common cause principle states that common causes produce correlations amongst their effects, but that common effects do not produce correlations amongst their causes. I claim that this principle, as explicated in terms of probabilistic relations, is false in classical statistical mechanics. Indeterminism in the form of stationary Markov processes rather than quantum mechanics is found to be a possible saviour of the principle. In addition I argue that if causation is to be explicated in terms of probabilities, then it (...) should be done in terms of probabilistic relations which are invariant under changes of initial distributions. Such relations can also give rise to an asymmetric cause-effect relationship which always runs forwards in time. (shrink)