In this chapter we examine the relationship between biological information, the key biological concept of specificity, and recent philosophical work on causation. We begin by showing how talk of information in the molecular biosciences grew out of efforts to understand the sources of biological specificity. We then introduce the idea of ‘causal specificity’ from recent work on causation in philosophy, and our own, information theoretic measure of causal specificity. Biological specificity, we argue, is simple the causal (...) specificity of certain biological processes. This, we suggest, means that causal relationships in biology are ‘informational’ relationships simply when they are highly specific relationships. Biological information can be identified with the storage, transmission and exercise of biological specificity. It has been argued that causal relationships should not be regarded as informational relationship unless they are ‘arbitrary’. We argue that, whilst arbitrariness is an important feature of many causal relationships in living systems, it should not be used in this way to delimit biological information. Finally, we argue that biological specificity, and hence biological information, is not confined to nucleic acids but distributed among a wide range of entities and processes. (shrink)

Causal accounts of scientific explanation are currently broadly accepted (though not universally so). My first task in this paper is to show that, even for a causal approach to explanation, significant features of explanatory practice are not determined by settling how causal facts bear on the phenomenon to be explained. I then develop a broadly causal approach to explanation that accounts for the additional features that I argue an explanation should have. This approach to explanation makes (...) sense of several aspects of actual explanatory practice, including the widespread use of equilibrium explanations, the formulation of distinct explanations for a single event, and the tight relationship between explanations of events and explanations of causal regularities. (shrink)

I highlight a metaphysical concern that stands in the way of more widespread adoption of causal modeling techniques such as causal Bayes nets. Researchers in some fields may resist adoption due to concerns that they don't 'really' understand what they are saying about a system when they apply such techniques. Students in these fields are repeated exhorted to be cautious about application of statistical techniques to their data without a clear understanding of the conditions required for those techniques (...) to yield genuine insight into the data. They are acutely aware that anyone can chuck some data into a software package and get what looks like an answer, even though these tests may not be well-defined for the data on which they can apparently be run. This is thus a healthy skepticism for uptake of causal modeling methods, which points directly to the need for a metaphysical understanding of causation in order to successfully use the modeling methods. Without a clear understanding of what the methods are committing to, including what it means to say that there exists a causal relationship, researchers have limited ability to identify potentially bad output, or to independently verify results. (shrink)

It is difficult to extract reliable criteria for causal locality from the limited ingredients found in textbook quantum theory. In the end, Bell humbly warned that his eponymous theorem was based on criteria that “should be viewed with the utmost suspicion.” Remarkably, by stepping outside the wave-function paradigm, one can reformulate quantum theory in terms of old-fashioned configuration spaces together with ‘unistochastic’ laws. These unistochastic laws take the form of directed conditional probabilities, which turn out to provide a hospitable (...) foundation for encoding microphysical causal relationships. This unistochastic reformulation provides quantum theory with a simpler and more transparent axiomatic foundation, plausibly resolves the measurement problem, and deflates various exotic claims about superposition, interference, and entanglement. Making use of this reformulation, this paper introduces a new principle of causal locality that is intended to improve on Bell's criteria, and shows directly that systems that remain at spacelike separation cannot exert causal influences on each other, according to that new principle. These results therefore lead to a general hidden-variables interpretation of quantum theory that is arguably compatible with causal locality. (shrink)

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 that the RWT is historically workable, given a small number of modifications. I then expand Russo and Williamson’s account. I first develop their suggestion that causal relationships in medicine require some kind of evidence of mechanism. I begin with a number of accounts of mechanisms and produce a range of consensus features of them. I then develop this consensus position by reference to the two historical case studies with an eye to their operational competence. In particular, I suggest that it is mechanistic models and their representations which we are concerned with in medicine, rather than the mechanism as it exists in the world. -/- I then employ these mechanistic models to give an account of the sorts of evidence used in formulating and evaluating causal claims. Again, I use the two human viral oncogenesis cases to give this account. I characterise and distinguish evidence of mechanism from evidence of difference-making, and relate this to mechanistic models. I then suggest the relationship between types of evidence presents us with a means of tackling the reference-class problem. This sets the scene for the final chapter. Here, I suggest the manner in which these two different classes of evidence become integrated is also reflected in the way that developing research programmes change as their associated causal claims develop. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what constitutes an apt interpreted model for the purpose of analyzing causation. I first collect universally adopted aptness principles into a basic account, flagging open questions and choice points along the way. I then explore various additional aptness principles that have been proposed in the literature but have not been widely adopted, the motivations behind their proposals, and the concerns with each that stand in the way of universal adoption. I conclude that the remaining (...) work of articulating aptness for a SEM analysis of causation is tied up with issue to do with modality, ontology, and mereology. Continuing this work is therefore likely to shed light on the relationship between these areas and causation more generally. (shrink)

manuscript delves into the philosophical debate surrounding the Special Composition Question (SCQ), focusing on the causal relationships between objects and their constituent parts. By distinguishing between Weak and Strong Causal Composition, the article explores how causal mechanisms underpin the composition of objects. Theories from notable philosophers, including van Inwagen and Leibniz, are evaluated. This study seeks to bridge the gap between common sense perspectives and principled ontological theories by introducing the concepts of Weak and Strong Causal (...) Composition. The analysis reveals how a causal approach can offer insightful resolutions to longstanding debates in mereology and ontology, emphasizing the role of causality in understanding the essence of material composition. The proposed causal perspective encourages further philosophical inquiry into the foundational principles governing the composition of objects. (shrink)

This paper poses an original puzzle about the relationship between causation and moral responsibility called The Moral Difference Puzzle. Using the puzzle, the paper argues for three related ideas: (1) the existence of a new sort of moral luck; (2) an intractable conflict between the causal concepts used in moral assessment; and (3) inability of leading theories of causation to capture the sorts of causal differences that matter for moral evaluation of agents’ causal contributions to outcomes.

I discuss two categories of causal relationships: primitive causal interactions of the sort characterized by Phil Dowe and the more general manipulable causal relationships as defined by James Woodward. All primitive causal interactions are manipulable causal relationships, but there are manipulable causal relationships that are not primitive causal interactions. I’ll call the latter constructed causal relationships, and I’ll argue that constructed causal relationships serve as a foundation for both computing and complex (...) systems. -/- Perhaps even more interesting are autonomous causal relationships. These are constructed causal relationships in which the causal mechanism resides primarily in the effect. A typical example is a software execution engine. Software execution engines are on the effect side of a cause-effect relationship in which software is the cause and the behavior of the execution engine is the effect. The mechanism responsible for that causal relationship resides in the execution engine. (shrink)

This paper argues that several sorts of metaphysical and semantic indeterminacy afflict the causal relation. If, as it is plausible to hold, there is a relationship between causation and moral responsibility, then indeterminacy in the causal relation results in indeterminacy of moral responsibility more generally.

Safety purports to explain why cases of accidentally true belief are not knowledge, addressing Gettier cases and cases of belief based on statistical evidence. However, problems arise for using safety as a condition on knowledge: safety is not necessary for knowledge and cannot always explain the Gettier cases and cases of statistical evidence it is meant to address. In this paper, I argue for a new modal condition designed to capture the non-accidental relationship between facts and evidence required for (...) knowledge: causal safety. I argue that possible errors in belief can be captured by accounting for deviations in causal relationships and that there is a natural way to characterize which causal errors are relevant in an epistemic situation. Using this, I develop a causal analogue to safety, where one’s belief in p is causally safe if it is true in all causally relevant worlds where one believes p. Causal safety, I argue, can better explain the cases safety is meant to address and can avoid the arguments raised against the necessity of safety. (shrink)

In psychiatry, pharmacological drugs play an important experimental role in attempts to identify the neurobiological causes of mental disorders. Besides being developed in applied contexts as potential treatments for patients with mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play a crucial role in research contexts as experimental instruments that facilitate the formulation and revision of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. This paper examines the various epistemic functions that pharmacological drugs serve in the discovery, refinement, testing, and elaboration of neurobiological theories of mental disorders. I (...) articulate this thesis with reference to the history of antipsychotic drugs and the evolution of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia in the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that interventions with psychiatric patients through the medium of antipsychotic drugs provide researchers with information and evidence about the neurobiological causes of schizophrenia. This analysis highlights the importance of pharmacological drugs as research tools in the generation of psychiatric knowledge and the dynamic relationship between practical and theoretical contexts in psychiatry. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical debates about causation are dominated by two approaches, which are often referred to as difference-making and causal process approaches to causation, respectively. I provide a characterization of the dialectic between these two approaches, on which that dialectic turns crucially on the question as to whether our common sense concept of causation involves a commitment to locality – i.e., to the claim that causal relations are always subject to spatial constraints. I then argue that we can extract (...) from existing work on perceptual judgement (specifically work that invokes the notion of a simple theory of perception) materials for an argument in favour of a positive answer to that question, and that this work can also help to bring out a distinctive kind of role that a commitment to locality plays in our reasoning about causal relationships. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply inductive logic to the field that, presumably, Carnap never expected: legal causation. Legal causation is expressible in the form of singular causal statements; but it is distinguished from the customary concept of scientific causation, because it is subjective. We try to express this subjectivity within the system of inductive logic. Further, by semantic complement, we compensate a defect found in our application, to be concrete, the impossibility of two-place predicates (for (...) class='Hi'>causal relationship) in inductive logic. (shrink)

Non-reductive physicalists hold that mental properties are realized by physical properties. The realization relation is typically taken to be a metaphysical necessitation relation. Here, I explore how the metaphysical necessitation feature of realization can be explained by what is known as ‘the subset view’ of realization. The subset view holds that the causal powers that are associated with a realized property are a proper subset of the causal powers that are associated with the realizer property. I argue that (...) the said explanation of the metaphysical necessitation feature requires a careful treatment of the relationship between properties and causal powers. (shrink)

It has been stated that the notion of cause and effect is one object of study that sciences and engineering revolve around. Lately, in software engineering, diagrammatic causal inference methods (e.g., Pearl’s model) have gained popularity (e.g., analyzing causes and effects of change in software requirement development). This paper concerns diagrammatical (graphic) models of causal relationships. Specifically, we experiment with using the conceptual language of thinging machines (TMs) as a tool in this context. This would benefit works on (...) causal relationships in requirements engineering, enhance our understanding of the TM modeling, and contribute to the study of the philosophical notion of causality. To specify the causality in a system’s description is to constrain the system’s behavior and thus exclude some possible chronologies of events. The notion of causality has been studied based on tools to express causal questions in diagrammatic and algebraic forms. Causal models deploy diagrammatic models, structural equations, and counterfactual and interventional logic. Diagrammatic models serve as a language for representing what we know about the world. The research methodology in the paper focuses on converting causal graphs into TM models and contrasts the two types of representation. The results show that the TM depiction of causality is more complete and therefore can provide a foundation for causal graphs. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the theory of exemplary causality of Peter Auriol (1280-1322). Until at least the late 13th century, medieval authors claim that the world is orderly and intelligible because God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind (i.e. divine ideas). Auriol challenges the view of his predecessors and contemporaries. He argues that assuming divine ideas amounts to assuming multiplicity in God and therefore questioning the principle of his absolute simplicity. To (...) avoid this problem, he develops a system that enables him to account for God’s knowledge of creatures (both as individuals and as species) and hence to preserve the theological principle of providence, but at the same time allows him to reject divine ideas as intermediaries for creation. In Auriol’s theory of exemplary causality, divine essence is the only object of God’s knowledge and thus the only exemplar for creation. God’s cognitive act is directed exclusively towards his own essence. However, he knows creatures through multiple connotations, i.e. the multiple ways divine essence is connotated when God knows himself. But these connotations play no role in creation, because imitability is only proper to divine essence. To explain how an object can be the only exemplar for the creation of many different creatures, Auriol has to rethink the concept of imitability and develop a new model of exemplary causality enabling him to account for the relationship between God and his creatures. The traditional model was that of analogy: a cause produces an effect which is partly similar and partly different from it. Auriol relies on the concept of equivocity. He argues that it is unnecessary to assume a particular similarity between a cause and its effect. Quite the contrary: for an object to be the exemplar of multiple different things, it is necessary that it should not be similar to any of them. The concept of aequivocatio allows Auriol to reject the traditional model of creation. Aequivocatio does not entail a resemblance between idea and ideatum. There is no contradiction, then, in claiming that a single object (divine essence) is in an equivocal way (aequivoce) the exemplary cause of multiple different objects. This is Auriol’s new theory of divine exemplarism: the theory of similitudo aequivoca. (shrink)

Spinoza's causal axiom is at the foundation of the Ethics. I motivate, develop and defend a new interpretation that I call the ‘causally restricted interpretation’. This interpretation solves several longstanding puzzles and helps us better understand Spinoza's arguments for some of his most famous doctrines, including his parallelism doctrine and his theory of sense perception. It also undermines a widespread view about the relationship between the three fundamental, undefined notions in Spinoza's metaphysics: causation, conception and inherence.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the significance of studies of aspects of tool use in understanding causal cognition. It argues that tool use studies reveal the most basic type or causal understanding being put to use, in a way that studies that focus on learning statistical relationships between cause and effect or studies of perceptual causation do not. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

Eric Watkins has argued on philosophical, textual, and historical grounds that Kant’s account of causation in the first Critique should not be read as an attempt to refute Hume’s account of causation. In this paper, I challenge the arguments for Watkins’ claim. Specifically, I argue (1) that Kant’s philosophical commitments, even on Watkins’ reading, are not obvious obstacles to refuting Hume, (2) that textual evidence from the “Disciple of Pure Reason” suggests Kant conceived of his account of causation as such (...) a refutation, and (3) that none of Hume’s early German critics provided responses to this account that would have satisfied Kant. Watkins’ reading of Kant’s account of causation is thus more compatible with traditional views about Kant’s relationship to Hume than Watkins believes. (shrink)

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is used to make inferences about relationships between brain areas and their functions because, in contrast to neuroimaging tools, it modulates neuronal activity. The central aim of this article is to critically evaluate to what extent it is possible to draw causal inferences from repetitive TMS data. To that end, we describe the logical limitations of inferences based on rTMS experiments. The presented analysis suggests that rTMS alone does not provide the sort of premises that are (...) sufficient to warrant strong inferences about the direct causal properties of targeted brain structures. Overcoming these limitations demands a close look at the designs of rTMS studies, especially the methodological and theoretical conditions which are necessary for the functional decomposition of the relations between brain areas and cognitive functions. The main points of this article are that TMS-based inferences are limited in that stimulation-related causal effects are not equivalent to structure-related causal effects due to TMS side effects, the electric field distribution, and the sensitivity of neuroimaging and behavioral methods in detecting structure-related effects and disentangling them from confounds. Moreover, the postulated causal effects can be based on indirect effects. A few suggestions on how to manage some of these limitations are presented. We discuss the benefits of combining rTMS with neuroimaging in experimental reasoning and we address the restrictions and requirements of rTMS control conditions. The use of neuroimaging and control conditions allows stronger inferences to be gained, but the strength of the inferences that can be drawn depends on the individual experiment’s designs. Moreover, in some cases, TMS might not be an appropriate method of answering causality-related questions or the hypotheses have to account for the limitations of this technique. We hope this summary and formalization of the reasoning behind rTMS research can be of use not only for scientists and clinicians who intend to interpret rTMS results causally but also for philosophers interested in causal inferences based on brain stimulation research. (shrink)

Although Newton carefully eschews questions about gravity’s causal basis in the published Principia, the original version of his masterwork’s third book contains some intriguing causal language. “These forces,” he writes, “arise from the universal nature of matter.” Such remarks seem to assert knowledge of gravity’s cause, even that matter is capable of robust and distant action. Some commentators defend that interpretation of the text—a text whose proper interpretation is important since Newton’s reasons for suppressing it strongly suggest that (...) he continued to endorse its ideas. This article argues that the surface appearance of Newton’s causal language is deceptive. What does New- ton intend with his causal language if not a full causal hypothesis? His remarks actually indicate a way of considering the force mathematically, something he contrasts to the structure of the force as it really is in nature. In explaining that, he identifies a significant disjunction between the physical force itself and mathematical ways of considering it, and the text’s significance lies in its view of the force’s structure and in the questions raised about the relationship between mathematical representations and the physical world. (shrink)

I present three reasons why philosophers of science should be more concerned about violations of causal faithfulness (CF). In complex evolved systems, mechanisms for maintaining various equilibrium states are highly likely to violate CF. Even when such systems do not precisely violate CF, they may nevertheless generate precisely the same problems for inferring causal structure from probabilistic relationships in data as do genuine CF-violations. Thus, potential CF-violations are particularly germane to experimental science when we rely on probabilistic information (...) to uncover the DAG, rather than already knowing the DAG from which we could predict the right experiments to ‘catch out’ the hidden causal relationships. (shrink)

We examined the association of parents’ genetic causal beliefs and parenting behaviors, hypothesizing a positive association between parents’ genetic causal beliefs and their use of psychological control. Study 1 (N = 394) was a cross-sectional survey and revealed that parents’ genetic essentialism beliefs were positively associated with their self-reported use of harsh psychological control, but only for parents who reported relatively high levels of problem behaviors in their children. Study 2 (N = 293) employed a 4-day longitudinal design (...) and revealed that parents’ genetic causal beliefs positively predicted the use of psychological control, especially on days when they perceived relatively high problem behaviors in children. Overall, the studies demonstrated that parents’ genetic causal beliefs about character positively predicted psychologically controlling and harsh responses to child problem behaviors, which may ultimately be detrimental to child development. (shrink)

In this Master's dissertation, I try to show that the causal theory of memory, which is the only theory developed so far that at first view seems more plausible and that could be integrated with psychological explanations and investigations of memory, shows some conceptual and ontological problems that go beyond the internal inconsistencies that each version can present. On one hand, the memory phenomenon analyzed is very limited: in general it is reduced to the conscious act of remembering expressed (...) in a propositional format: the idea of an agent who can control his memory reports, in contrast to a passive subject who merely retrieve his encoded memories, is not even considered. Furthermore, the representational function of memory is the only function taken into account; and all the diachronic changes that could entail a dynamic conception of memory are ignored, as is the consideration of context in a broad sense of the term. On the other hand, causal theories make some implicit assumptions that are obviously questionable (e.g., the difference between facts and events) and leave some of their key concepts unexplained, like the nature of the causality, the isomorphism between the memory trace and the memory event, etc. Nonetheless, the principal point that we criticized is the idea of a correspondence between a past event or representation of it, the correspondent memory trace and the memory representation of it. Psychological models of memory, with the exception of the spatial analogy, question some of these assumptions and suggest that memory information is organized in a way other than that implied by the causal theory. But it is distributed connectionism that actually challenges the causal theory of memory, not only through some of its basic postulates, like the superpositional conception of memory traces, their mutual influence and constant state of change, but also because it is compatible with a more situated approach to memory phenomena as well as with the idea that memory in reality accomplishes a variety of functions that go beyond the representational one. The explicit and implicit ideas provided by distributed connectionism, together with the previous criticisms that we made to of causal theory, clearly suggest the possibility of developing another kind of philosophical theory of memory, different from existing theories. This task, nonetheless, implies: (a) A much deeper study of connectionism principles and memory models, as well as of the rival candidate, symbolism, plus the evaluation of these models in the light of psychological and neurophysiological empirical research, which unfortunately I have not dealt with in this work. (b) An analysis of the metaphysical nature of events and facts, in order to see if we should decide in favor of a realist or a non-realist account. It is also clear that this decision can’t be taken without an examination of perception studies (and not exclusively philosophical ones) which would be crucial for determining what is encoded in memory, and studies devoted to language, which, I suspect, plays an important role in the segmentation of reality. (c) A clarification of the notion of causality, because we wouldn’t like to deny any kind entail the complete disappearance of boundaries between memory and imagination. And even if I suspect that my future work will question the existence of absolute boundaries between these two capacities, the notion of causality can’t be completely erase from the theory of memory without erasing the memory phenomenon itself. But this causality, as we’ve already showed, can’t consist in the naïve conception adopted by the causal accounts of memory, nor can it be explained in counterfactual terms. If we think of the reconsolidation concept, of the interdependence between all the memory system, and of the deciding influence of context, it’s almost sure that more than one notion of causality will need to be invoked in order to explain memory. (d) Because I do not want to reduce the study of memory exclusively to cases of remembering, it’s essential to analyze how memory intervenes not only in imagination, but also in perception, reasoning and future projection, for example. In this respect, we could quote the interesting articles of Atance & O’Neill (2001) and Bucker & Carroll (2006), the first concerning the relationship between episodic memory and episodic future thinking, the second concerning the relationship between episodic memory and all kinds of self-projection, such as navigation and theory of mind, relations that would also have to be explored from a philosophical perspective, in particular to overcome the tendency to suppose that representation is the only function of memory. I will also mention the necessity of combining the notion of metamemory with that of memory to some extent; as I have already remarked, it is implausible to suppose that a subject who consciously remembers something is unable to exert any kind of control over his memory reports. (e) Finally, in order to integrate a situated conception of memory into a philosophical account, it will also be indispensable to take into consideration what is known as “everyday memory research” as well as studies in social and collective memory. (shrink)

Jacques Monod (1971) argued that certain molecular processes rely critically on the property of chemical arbitrariness, which he claimed allows those processes to “transcend the laws of chemistry”. It seems natural, as some philosophers have done, to interpret this in modal terms: a biological relationship is chemically arbitrary if it is possible, within the constraints of chemical “law”, for that relationship to have been otherwise than it is. But while modality is certainly important for understanding chemical arbitrariness, understanding (...) its biological role also requires an account of the concrete causal-functional features that distinguish arbitrary from non-arbitrary phenomena. In this paper I elaborate on this under-emphasised aspect by offering a general account of these features: arbitrary relations are instantiated by mechanisms that involve molecular adapters, which causally couple two properties or processes which would otherwise be uncorrelated. Additionally, adapters work by acting as intermediate rather than cooperating causes. (shrink)

A common strategy for simplifying complex systems involves partitioning them into subsystems whose behaviors are roughly independent of one another at shorter timescales. Dynamic causal models clarify how doing so reveals a system’s nonequilibrium causal relationships. Here I use these models to elucidate the idealizations and abstractions involved in representing a system at a timescale. The models reveal that key features of causal representations—such as which variables are exogenous—may vary with the timescale at which a system is (...) considered. This has implications for debates regarding which systems can be represented causally. (shrink)

I claim that ‘cause and effect’ only appears to involve distinct existences insofar as we can’t adequately understand the relationship, or insofar as we are determined to look at the matters of fact involved from a logically deductive point of view. Since ‘cause and effect’ often represents the first stab at understanding what happens in a situation, this means it will often appear to involve distinct existences, and since logical deduction is the acme of what it is to perform (...) adequate reasoning, for philosophers, this re-enforces this appearance, to philosophers. In contrast I claim we can try to avoid drawing conclusions beyond objects or factors in a situation, by comparing them as we attempt to trace them about. In so far as we succeed, since we have not had to go beyond the continued existence of those factors, they themselves must appear sufficient to produce that part of the situations they continue into and so construct. I also claim if somethings appear themselves sufficient to bring something about this is inconsistent with the claim it depends on something else e.g. human understanding, or language. Two cases; 1) If we assume this object has, or continues to have some properties e.g. weight, then on this basis we can validly deduce such & such consequences. 2) The continued existence of this object with weight would (or is) itself be sufficient to bring about…. The first makes what we are up to depend on our mode of reasoning, or what we recognize as ‘our way and principles of reasoning’. The second discovers the situation to be autonomous. (shrink)

While philosophers and scientists sometimes suggest (or take for granted) that consciousness is an essential condition for free will and moral responsibility, there is surprisingly little discussion of why consciousness (and what sorts of conscious experience) is important. We discuss some of the proposals that have been offered. We then discuss our studies using descriptions of humanoid robots to explore people’s attributions of free will and responsibility, of various kinds of conscious sensations and emotions, and of reasoning capacities, and examine (...) the relationships between these attributions. Our initial results suggest that people’s attributions of free will are strongly influenced by their attributions of conscious emotions, such as happiness and disappointment, including Strawsonian emotions, such as pride and regret. These results provide some support for an intriguing proposal: Free will requires the capacity to make decisions that really matter to the agent, and for anything to really matter to the agent, she must be able to consciously experience the good and bad effects of the decisions she makes—to suffer and regret, or to enjoy and feel proud of, their outcomes. (shrink)

Can heritability estimates provide causal information? This paper argues for an affirmative answer: since a non-nil heritability estimate satisfies certain characteristic properties of causation (i.e., association, manipulability, and counterfactual dependence), it increases the probability that the relation between genotypic variance and phenotypic variance is (at least partly) causal. Contrary to earlier proposals in the literature, the argument does not assume the correctness of any particular conception of the nature of causation, rather focusing on properties that are characteristic of (...) causal relationships. The argument is defended against Lewontin's (1974) locality objection and Kaplan and Turkheimer's (2021) recent critique of Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS). (shrink)

I present considerations surrounding pre-reflective self-consciousness, arising in work I am conducting on a new physicalist, process-based account of [phenomenal] consciousness. The account is called the meta-causal account because it identifies consciousness with a certain type of arrangement of meta-causation. Meta-causation is causation where a cause or effect is itself an instance of causation. The proposed type of arrangement involves a sort of time-spanning, internal reflexivity of the overall meta-causation. I argue that, as a result of the account, any (...) conscious process has PRSC. Hence, PRSC does not need to be taken as a stipulation or argued for on purely phenomenological grounds or as a necessary support for reflective consciousness. I also show how it is natural to the account that PRSC is not an additional, peripheral, sort of consciousness, but is intrinsic to all consciousness, thereby fitting claims about self-intimation and co-constitution by various authors, and also being amenable to an adverbial account. As part of this, consciousness of an external object is just the form that current self-consciousness takes, the meta-causal constitution of it being inextricably modulated by the causal relationship with the object. The article also discusses how MCA helps explore issues of for-me-ness, transparency of perceptual consciousness, and possible immediacy and non-relationality of self-consciousness. (shrink)

This article tries to examine Husserl's theory of signification and reference, while presenting a content-oriented view of theory of intentionality and proposing the theory of the ideality of meaning, and thus explores the relation between Being and consciousness under the category of "objectivity" in logical investigation; Because the relationship between Being and consciousness must be sought at the intersection of theory of intentionality and objectivity. This intersection can be proposed in the truth condition of the objectivity of meaning, which (...) acts as the decisive result of Husserl's theory of signification and reference; to this reason, after presenting Husserl's critique of Brentano's causal theory of intentionality, this paper introduces a adverbial reading of theory of intentionality which is Husserl's specific theory of intentionality in logical investigation. According to this theory, the subject always pays attention to the object from his perspective, and this is called the perspectival subjectivity, which is the intrinsic characteristic of the subject. We will then show that the theory of the ideality of meaning is the result of the threefold structure of Husserl's intentionality and the content-oriented view of intentionality. Contrary to the claim of this theory that its true and inherent characteristic is intentionally its phenomenological aspect, the theory of reference and its corresponding meaning cannot satisfy the condition of the objectivity of meaning; Thus, theory of intentionality is based on an inadequate content-oriented attitude. (shrink)

I welcome with great enthusiasm Meling and Scheidegger’s (2023; henceforth “M&S”) timely contribution to advance an enactive approach to psychedelic therapy, especially to the complex causality involved. Their two main research questions concerned:(i) the causal interaction between the psychedelic molecule and brain activity; and (ii) the causal interaction between brain activity and the psychedelic experience. While I largely agree with and celebrate much of what is proposed by M&S, especially their employment of key enactive concepts to advance our (...) understanding of the first research question, in the following, I will present some worries regarding their answers to the second. Although I agree that there is probably a two-way reciprocal relationship between neural activity and experience, I have several points of contention regarding M&S’s proposal. My hope is to stimulate discussion on M&S’s important contribution, and to help advance a much-needed enactive science of psychedelics. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between Hume’s causal philosophy and Newton ’s philosophy of nature. I claim that Newton ’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research is an important background for understanding Hume’s conception of causality: Hume sees the relation of cause and effect as not being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way that Newton criticized non - empirical hypotheses about the properties of gravity. However, according to Hume’s criteria of causal inference, the law of (...) universal gravitation is not a complete causal law, since it does not include a reference either to contiguity or to temporal priority. It is still argued that because of the empirical success of Newton ’s theory—the law is a statement of an exceptionless repetition—Hume gives his support to it in interpreting gravity force instrumentally as if it bore a causal relation to motion. (shrink)

In this article, I set forth my understanding of reciprocal causality between God and finite entities in three stages, beginning with Aristotle’s analysis of change in this world. Afterwards, I examine the way in which Aquinas used the causal scheme of Aristotle in his Christian understanding of the God-world relationship. Finally, I indicate how both Aristotle’s philosophy and Aquinas’s approach to the God-world relationship should be rethought so as to be more in line with contemporary scientific understanding (...) of the evolution of life from non-life and the emergence of progressively higher-order life-systems out of lower-order life-systems within creation. (shrink)

This study analyzes the relationship between foreign trade and economic growth in Myanmar over the period 1990-2014. It covers the annual data of GDP, Export and Import of Myanmar from 1980 to 2014. This study adopts two major methodological approaches – exploratory data analysis and descriptive analysis. For the first approach, Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test and Granger causality test are used under the framework of Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model, which have almost never been studied for the Myanmar (...) case. The second approach includes the analysis of Myanmar’s foreign trade trend with descriptive statistics. The results show that foreign trade did not generate a significant effect on the economic growth of Myanmar. Rather, import growth was negatively influenced by the economic growth of Myanmar. It is found out that exports had been determined by the GDP growth. Thus, growth-driven export strategy had been applied for the period of 1990-2014. Also, there was only one causal run from export growth to import growth. The results conclude that foreign trade did not have significant impact on the economic growth of Myanmar over the period of 1990–2014. (shrink)

This paper outlines the methodological and empirical limitations of analysing the potential relationship between complex social phenomena such as democracy and inequality. It shows that the means to assess how they may be related is much more limited than recognised in the existing literature that is laden with contradictory hypotheses and findings. Better understanding our scientific limitations in studying this potential relationship is important for research and policy because many leading economists and other social scientists such as Acemoglu (...) and Robinson mistakenly claim to identify causal linkages between inequality and democracy but at times still inform policy. In contrast to the existing literature, the paper argues that ‘structural’ or ‘causal’ mechanisms that may potentially link the distribution of economic wealth and different political regimes will remain unknown given reasons such as their highly complex and idiosyncratic characteristics, fundamental econometric constraints and analysis at the macro-level. Neither new data sources, different analysed time periods nor new data analysis techniques can resolve this question and provide robust, general conclusions about this potential relationship across countries. Researchers are thus restricted to exploring rough correlations over specific time periods and geographic contexts with imperfect data that are very limited for cross-country comparisons. (shrink)

It has long been claimed that moral judgements are dominated by reason. In recent years, however, the tide has turned. Many psychologists and philosophers now hold the view that there is a close empirical association between moral judgements and emotions. In particular, they claim that emotions (1) co-occur with moral judgements, (2) causally influence moral judgements, (3) are causally sufficient for moral judgements, and (4) are causally necessary for moral judgements. At first sight these hypotheses seem well-supported. In this paper (...) I show, however, that appearances are deceiving. If one considers the relevant scientific studies in detail, one finds that in many interpretations the above hypotheses are either not supported or even contradicted by the available evidence. This conclusion is significant both for our understanding of moral judgements qua empirical phenomena and for normative ethics and metaethics. (shrink)

John Wilkins and Malte Ebach respond to the dismissal of classification as something we need not concern ourselves with because it is, as Ernest Rutherford suggested, mere ‘‘stamp collecting.’’ They contend that classification is neither derivative of explanation or of hypothesis-making but is necessarily prior and prerequisite to it. Classification comes first and causal explanations are dependent upon it. As such it is an important (but neglected) area of philosophical study. Wilkins and Ebach reject Norwood Russell Hanson’s thesis that (...) classification relies on observation that is theory-laden and deny the need for aetiological assumptions and historical reconstruction to justify its arrangement. What they offer instead is a significant (albeit controversial) contribution to the philosophical literature on classification, a pre-theoretic natural classification based on the observation of patterns in data of ready-made phenomena. Their notion of ready-made phenomena rests on a conception of tacit knowledge or know-how. This is evident in their distinction between strong Theory-dependence and na ̈ıve theory-dependence. Their small t-theory-dependence permits patterns of observation that facilitate know-how but does not rely on a domain-specific explanatory theory of their aetiology. Wilkins and Ebach suggest classification differs from theory building in that it is passive (whereas theory building is active). Classification is possible just because it does not require the sieve of theory to capture classes that are ‘‘handed to you by your cognitive dispositions and the data that you observe’’ (p. 18). Finding regularities sans-theory is just something we do and can do without any prior theory about the underlying causes or origins of the resultant regularities. Luke Howard’s classification of clouds serves as an exemplar of a passive, theory-free classification system and the periodic table and the DSM help to illustrate this type of non-aetiological patterning. A recurrent theme is the nature of naturalness. For Wilkins and Ebach, the conception of naturalness is not one that is based on the generation or discovery of natural kind categories popular in both the traditional metaphysics of Mill and Wittgenstein as well as updated notions within philosophy of biology such as Boyd’s Homeostatic Property Cluster kinds. Instead, Wilkins and Ebach define the naturalness of classification as the falling into hierarchical patterns, aligning the search for natural arrangement with the aim of systematics, and as something that is grounded in a cognitive task or activity. However, they leave the question of realism v. antirealism open. ‘‘In natural classification...we must have real relations no matter how we might interpret ‘real’’’ (p. 70). There is tension with regard to their ontological commitments as they vacillate between constructive, operationalist, and realist approaches. Wilkins and Ebach initially define real as that which is causal and important (pp. 70–71), and later as that which ‘‘depends in no way upon a mind or observer’’ (p. 122). This makes their claim that there was ‘‘no real theory involved [in the pre-Darwinian classifications of Jussieu and Adanson]’’ (p. 64) difficult to interpret. Cont’d……. (shrink)

Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the (...) central concepts associated with experimental design, including controlled variation and randomization, this chapter will provide a summary of key ethical issues that tend to arise in experimental contexts. In addition, by exploring assumptions about the nature of causation and by analyzing features of causal relationships, systems, and inferences in social contexts, this chapter will summarize the ways in which experimental design can undermine the integrity of not only social and behavioral research but policies implemented on the basis of such research. (shrink)

Functional robustness refers to a system’s ability to maintain a function in the face of perturbations to the causal structures that support performance of that function. Modularity, a crucial element of standard methods of causal inference and difference-making accounts of causation, refers to the independent manipulability of causal relationships within a system. Functional robustness appears to be at odds with modularity. If a function is maintained despite manipulation of some causal structure that supports that function, then (...) the relationship between that structure and function fails to be manipulable independent of other causal relationships within the system. Contrary to this line of reasoning, I argue that functional robustness often attends feedback control, rather than failures of modularity. Feedback control poses its own challenges to causal explanation and inference, but those challenges do not undermine modularity—and indeed, modularity is crucial to grappling with them. (shrink)

Engineering failure investigations seek to reconstruct the actual causes of major engineering failures. The investigators need to establish the existence of certain past events and the actual causal relationships that these events bear to the failures in question. In this paper, I examine one method for reconstructing the actual causes of failure events, which I call "feature dependence". The basic idea of feature dependence is that some features of an event are informative about the features of its causes; therefore, (...) the investigators can use the features of a known failure event to reconstruct details of its causes. I make explicit the structure of feature dependence and the evidential basis of its key premises, and show how feature dependence works in the investigation of the American Airlines Flight 191 accident. (shrink)

One of biology's fundamental aims is to generate understanding of the living world around—and within—us. In this chapter, I aim to provide a relatively nonpartisan discussion of the nature of explanation in biology, grounded in widely shared philosophical views about scientific explanation. But this discussion also reflects what I think is important for philosophers and biologists alike to appreciate about successful scientific explanations, so some points will be controversial, at least among philosophers. I make three main points: (1) causal (...) relationships and broad patterns have often been granted importance to scientific explanations, and they are in fact both important; (2) some explanations in biology cite the components of or processes in systems that account for the systems’ features, whereas other explanations feature large-scale or structural causes that influence a system; and (3) there can be multiple different explanations of a given biological phenomenon, explanations that respond to different research aims and can thus be compatible with one another even when they may seem to disagree. (shrink)

The first purpose of this series of articles is to introduce case studies on how current AI models can be used in the development of a possible theory of quantum gravity, their limitations, and the role the researcher has in steering the development in the right direction, even highlighting the errors, weaknesses and strengths of the whole process. -/- The second is to introduce the new Presentist Fragmentalist ontology as a framework and use it for developing theories of quantum gravity (...) and speculate on achieving a TOE. We emphasize it is necessary for the researcher to check everything in these articles for themselves. While there are many good ideas in this series of papers, the AI is known to make even arithmetic and algebraic mistakes. -/- To select just five apparently good ideas, there is a causal interaction tensor Cαβγδ(F1, F2) that encodes the causal relationship and the strength of the (possibly non-local) interaction between two fragments of reality (formed by each quantum system). There is a quantitative prediction for a testable table-top experiment. There is an explanation of how spacetime emerges from the fragments and their interactions. There is an explicit account of the double-slit experiment. And there is an explanation how this theory accommodates dark matter and dark energy simultaneously. -/- We explore ideas, equations they lead to, concrete calculations, and give corrections along the way. While these are generally morally right within this framework they must be checked by the researcher. Given this caveat, we believe we have made significant progress with the PF interpretation in developing a theory of quantum gravity and pointing out a possible path to a TOE. (shrink)

In the human sciences, experimental research is used to establish causal relationships. However, the extrapolation of these results to the target population can be problematic. To facilitate extrapolation, we propose to use the statistical technique Latent Class Regression Analysis in combination with the analogical reasoning theory for extrapolation. This statistical technique can identify latent classes that differ in the effect of X on Y. In order to extrapolate by means of analogical reasoning, one can characterize the latent classes by (...) a combination of features, and then compare these features to features of the target. (shrink)

Many researchers consider cancer to have molecular causes, namely mutated genes that result in abnormal cell proliferation (e.g. Weinberg 1998). For others, the causes of cancer are to be found not at the molecular level but at the tissue level where carcinogenesis consists of disrupted tissue organization with downward causation effects on cells and cellular components (e.g. Sonnenschein and Soto 2008). In this contribution, I ponder how to make sense of such downward causation claims. Adopting a manipulationist account of causation (...) (Woodward 2003), I propose a formal definition of downward causation and discuss further requirements (in light of Baumgartner 2009). I then show that such an account cannot be mobilized in support of non-reductive physicalism (contrary to Raatikainen 2010). However, I also argue that such downward causation claims might point at particularly interesting dynamic properties of causal relationships that might prove salient in characterizing causal relationships (following Woodward 2010). (shrink)

Coherentism maintains that coherent beliefs are more likely to be true than incoherent beliefs, and that coherent evidence provides more confirmation of a hypothesis when the evidence is made coherent by the explanation provided by that hypothesis. Although probabilistic models of credence ought to be well-suited to justifying such claims, negative results from Bayesian epistemology have suggested otherwise. In this essay we argue that the connection between coherence and confirmation should be understood as a relation mediated by the causal (...) relationships among the evidence and a hypothesis, and we offer a framework for doing so by fitting together probabilistic models of coherence, confirmation, and causation. We show that the causal structure among the evidence and hypothesis is sometimes enough to determine whether the coherence of the evidence boosts confirmation of the hypothesis, makes no difference to it, or even reduces it. We also show that, ceteris paribus, it is not the coherence of the evidence that boosts confirmation, but rather the ratio of the coherence of the evidence to the coherence of the evidence conditional on a hypothesis. (shrink)

A cause may influence its effect via multiple paths. Paradigmatically (Hesslow [1974]), taking birth control pills both decreases one’s risk of thrombosis by preventing pregnancy and increases it by producing a blood chemical. Building on Pearl ([2001]), I explicate the notion of a path-specific effect. Roughly, a path-specific effect of C on E via path P is the degree to which a change in C would change E were they to be transmitted only via P. Facts about such effects may (...) be gleaned from the structural equations commonly used to represent the causal relationships among variables. I contrast my analysis of the Hesslow case with those given by theorists of probabilistic causality, who mistakenly link it to issues of causal heterogeneity, token-causation and indeterminism. The reason probabilistic theories misdiagnose this case is that they pay inadequate attention to the structural relationships among variables. (shrink)

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique case study for understanding conceptual and linguistic propagation. In early 2020, scientists, politicians, journalists, and other public figures had to, with great urgency, propagate several public health-related concepts and terms to every person they could. This paper examines the propagation of coronavirus and social distancing and develops a framework for understanding how the language used to express a notion can help or hinder propagation. I argue that anyone designing a representational device (...) for propagation needs to appreciate the three-way causal relationship between language, people’s mental representations, and the extramental world. Using this framework, I explore what makes “social distancing” a bad name for social distancing and why it is unproblematic that “coronavirus” is a scientifically loose way of speaking about the virus. Through this and further study of the many historical examples of linguistic and conceptual propagation, conceptual engineers can better understand the complex challenges facing people who want to propagate representational devices. (shrink)