Results for 'downward causation'

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  1. Emergence, Downwards Causation and the Completeness of Physics.David Yates - 2009 - Philosophical Quarterly 59 (234):110-131.
    The 'completeness of physics' is the key premise in the causal argument for physicalism. Standard formulations of it fail to rule out emergent downwards causation. I argue that it must do this if it is tare in a valid causal argument for physicalism. Drawing on the notion of conferring causal power, I formulate a suitable principle, 'strong completeness'. I investigate the metaphysical implications of distinguishing this principle from emergent downwards causation, and I argue that categoricalist accounts of properties (...)
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  2. The Compatibility of Downward Causation and Emergence.Simone Gozzano - 2017 - In Michele Paolini Paoletti & Francesco Orilia (eds.), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation. New York: Routledge. pp. 296-312.
    In this paper, I shall argue that both emergence and downward causation, which are strongly interconnected, presuppose the presence of levels of reality. However, emergence and downward causation pull in opposite directions with respect to my best reconstruction of what levels are. The upshot is that emergence stresses the autonomy among levels while downward causation puts the distinction between levels at risk of a reductio ad absurdum, with the further consequence of blurring the very (...)
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  3. (1 other version)Making Sense of Downward Causation in Manipulationism (with illustrations from cancer research).Christophe Malaterre - 2011 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (33):537-562.
    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 (...)
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  4. Demystifying Downward Causation in Biology.Yasmin Haddad - 2024 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 55:1-18.
    The concept of downward causation is frequently used in an explanatory capacity in biology to account for certain regularities and processes. Some philosophers, however, argue that downward causation is metaphysically incoherent, providing three main objections. Underlying these objections is the assumption that entities are connected by compositional hierarchies of levels of organization. In this paper, I introduce the notions of weak and strong compositional relations using examples from evolutionary developmental biology. I argue that downward (...) becomes unproblematic if we use features of interventionist theories of causation to explain the causal relations between levels. I show that an interventionist account of downward causation successfully responds to the three central objections to downward causation in the philosophical literature and I clarify the explanatory usefulness of the concept in biology. As such, this paper provides an epistemic solution to demystify downward causation in the context of scientific practice. The solution proposed is compatible with how biologists seem to use a concept of downward causation fruitfully in their work. (shrink)
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  5. No Levels, No Problems: Downward Causation in Neuroscience.Markus I. Eronen - 2013 - Philosophy of Science 80 (5):1042-1052.
    I show that the recent account of levels in neuroscience proposed by Craver and Bechtel is unsatisfactory since it fails to provide a plausible criterion for being at the same level and is incompatible with Craver and Bechtel’s account of downward causation. Furthermore, I argue that no distinct notion of levels is needed for analyzing explanations and causal issues in neuroscience: it is better to rely on more well-defined notions such as composition and scale. One outcome of this (...)
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  6. Mental causation without downward causation.John Gibbons - 2006 - Philosophical Review 115 (1):79-103.
    The problem of downward causation is that an intuitive response to an intuitive picture leads to counterintuitive results. Suppose a mental event, m1, causes another mental event, m2. Unless the mental and the physical are completely independent, there will be a physical event in your brain or your body or the physical world as a whole that underlies this event. The mental event occurs at least partly in virtue of the physical event’s occurring. And the same goes for (...)
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  7. The metaphysics of downward causation: Rediscovering the formal cause.Mariusz Tabaczek - 2013 - Zygon 48 (2):380-404.
    The methodological nonreductionism of contemporary biology opens an interesting discussion on the level of ontology and the philosophy of nature. The theory of emergence (EM), and downward causation (DC) in particular, bring a new set of arguments challenging not only methodological, but also ontological and causal reductionism. This argumentation provides a crucial philosophical foundation for the science/theology dialogue. However, a closer examination shows that proponents of EM do not present a unified and consistent definition of DC. Moreover, they (...)
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  8. From Multilevel Explanation to Downward Causation.David Yates - 2024 - In Alastair Wilson & Katie Robertson (eds.), Levels of Explanation. Oxford University Press.
    The causal closure of the physical poses a familiar causal exclusion problem for the special sciences that stems from the idea that if closure is true, then fundamental physical properties do all the causal work involved in bringing about physical effects. In this paper I aim to show that the strongest causal closure principle that is not ruled out by some simple physics in fact allows for a certain kind of downward causation, which in turn makes room for (...)
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  9. Counterfactual does not Entail Downward Causation.Xin Dong - 2020 - Journal of Human Cognition 4 (1):35-50.
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  10. Emergence and Downward Causation.Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald - 2010 - In Graham Macdonald & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  11. Emergent Causation.Simon Prosser - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 159 (1):21-39.
    Downward causation is commonly held to create problems for ontologically emergent properties. In this paper I describe two novel examples of ontologically emergent properties and show how they avoid two main problems of downward causation, the causal exclusion problem and the causal closure problem. One example involves an object whose colour does not logically supervene on the colours of its atomic parts. The other example is inspired by quantum entanglement cases but avoids controversies regarding quantum mechanics. (...)
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  12. 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 (...)
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  13. Downward Determination in Semiotic Multi-level Systems.Joao Queiroz & Charbel El-Hani - 2012 - Cybernetics and Human Knowing -- A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics, Autopoiesis & Semiotics 1 (2):123-136.
    Peirce's pragmatic notion of semiosis can be described in terms of a multi-level system of constraints involving chance, efficient, formal and final causation. According to the model proposed here, law-like regularities, which work as boundary conditions or organizational principles, have a downward effect on the spatiotemporal distribution of lower-level semiotic items. We treat this downward determinative influence as a propensity relation: if some lower-level entities a,b,c,-n are under the influence of a general organizational principle, W, they will (...)
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  14. Teleonomy as a problem of self-causation.Nathalie Gontier - forthcoming - Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 139:388–414.
    A theoretical framework is provided to explore teleonomy as a problem of self-causation, distinct from upward, downward and reticulate causation. Causality theories in biology are often formulated within hierarchy theories, where causation is conceptualized as running up or down the rungs of a ladder-like hierarchy or, more recently, as moving between multiple hierarchies. Research on the genealogy of cosmologies demonstrates that in addition to hierarchy theories, causality theories also depend upon ideas of time. This paper explores (...)
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  15.  68
    Top-Down Causation Without Levels.Jan Voosholz - 2021 - In Jan Voosholz & Markus Gabriel (eds.), Top-Down Causation and Emergence. Cham: Springer Verlag. pp. 269-296.
    The paper addresses a question concerning George Ellis’s theory of top-down causation by considering a challenge to the “level-picture of nature” which he employs as a foundational element in his theory. According to the level-picture, nature is ordered by distinct and finitely many levels, each characterised by its own types of entities, relations, laws and principles of behavior, and causal relations to their respective neighbouring top- and bottom-level. The branching hierarchy that results from this picture enables Ellis to build (...)
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  16. Non-reductive physicalism, mental causation and the nature of actions.Markus E. Schlosser - 2009 - In Alexander Hieke & Hannes Leitgeb (eds.), Reduction: Between the Mind and the Brain. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. pp. 73-90.
    Given some reasonable assumptions concerning the nature of mental causation, non-reductive physicalism faces the following dilemma. If mental events cause physical events, they merely overdetermine their effects (given the causal closure of the physical). If mental events cause only other mental events, they do not make the kind of difference we want them to. This dilemma can be avoided if we drop the dichotomy between physical and mental events. Mental events make a real difference if they cause actions. But (...)
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  17. Emergent Agent Causation.Juan Morales - 2023 - Synthese 201:138.
    In this paper I argue that many scholars involved in the contemporary free will debates have underappreciated the philosophical appeal of agent causation because the resources of contemporary emergentism have not been adequately introduced into the discussion. Whereas I agree that agent causation’s main problem has to do with its intelligibility, particularly with respect to the issue of how substances can be causally relevant, I argue that the notion of substance causation can be clearly articulated from an (...)
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  18. Ethical Emergentism and Moral Causation.Ryan Stringer - 2021 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (4):331-362.
    This paper focuses on a recently articulated, emergentist conception of ethical naturalism and its commitment to causal efficacy, or the idea that moral properties have causal powers, along with its supporting commitment to moral causation. After I reconstruct the theory, I explain how it offers some interesting theoretical benefits to moral realists in virtue of its commitment to causal efficacy. Then, after locating some examples of moral causation in support of this commitment, I present and respond to five (...)
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  19. Rule-based and rule-generating systems.Niels Ole Finnemann - 2000 - In P. B. Andersen, Claus Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann & P. V. Christiansen (eds.), Downward Causation. Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus Press. pp. 278-301.
    The article discusses the limitations of psycho-physical parallellism and the implications of a pscycho-physical interaction paradigm considering the notion Downward Causation. The focus is on the notion of levels in nature and their interrelations, and it argues that the notion of rule-based systems should be considered a subcategory of rule-generating systems partly based on redundancy functions rather than rules.
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  20. El yo como causa.Juan José Sanguineti - 2010 - Sapientia 66:23-39.
    This paper aims to explain how the human Self can be said a cause of his/her free actions, especially when they are voluntary and physical. First it is analyzed the natural causation in the physical world, particularly in self-organized living beings and afterwards in animal intentional behaviour, which is guided by cognition and emotions. An important distinction between downward causation and bottom-up causation is useful to explain the complex causality in self-organized intentional beings. Downward (...), coming from a higher level, has in influence over lower ontological levels. Bottom-up causation operates inversely. It is also drawn a distinction between the “natural Self” (nature enhanced by habits) and the “intentional Self” (a subject endowed with consciousness and the power of controlling operations). This framework is applied to man, whose higher downward causality comes from the person (intellect and free will) and, guiding the sensitive lower layer of his/her nature, reaches in a quite natural way the voluntary control of the body. (shrink)
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  21. Constraints on the origin of coherence in far-from-equilibrium systems.Joseph E. Earley - 2003 - In Timothy E. Eastman & Henry Keeton (eds.), Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience. Albany, USA: State University of New York Press. pp. 63-73.
    Origin of a dissipative structure in a chemical dynamic system: occurs under the following constraints: 1) Affinity must be high. (The system must be far from equilibrium.); 2) There must be an auto-catalytic process; 3) A process that reduces the concentration of the auto-catalyst must operate; 4) The relevant parameters (rate constants, etc.) must lie in a range corresponding to a limit cycle trajectory. That is, there must be closure of the network of reaction such that a state sufficiently close (...)
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  22. Abstractions and Implementations.Russ Abbott - manuscript
    Fundamental to Computer Science is the distinction between abstractions and implementations. When that distinction is applied to various philosophical questions it yields the following conclusions. -/- • EMERGENCE. It isn’t as mysterious as it’s made out to be; the possibility of strong emergence is not a threat to science. -/- • INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIGHER-LEVEL ENTITIES. Physical interaction among higher-level entities is illusory. Abstract interactions are the source of emergence, new domains of knowledge, and complex systems. -/- • PHYSICS and the (...)
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  23. Hierarchies, Networks, and Causality: The Applied Evolutionary Epistemological Approach.Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 (2):313-334.
    Applied Evolutionary Epistemology is a scientific-philosophical theory that defines evolution as the set of phenomena whereby units evolve at levels of ontological hierarchies by mechanisms and processes. This theory also provides a methodology to study evolution, namely, studying evolution involves identifying the units that evolve, the levels at which they evolve, and the mechanisms and processes whereby they evolve. Identifying units and levels of evolution in turn requires the development of ontological hierarchy theories, and examining mechanisms and processes necessitates theorizing (...)
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  24. “Microbiota, symbiosis and individuality summer school” meeting report.Isobel Ronai, Gregor P. Greslehner, Federico Boem, Judith Carlisle, Adrian Stencel, Javier Suárez, Saliha Bayir, Wiebke Bretting, Joana Formosinho, Anna C. Guerrero, William H. Morgan, Cybèle Prigot-Maurice, Salome Rodeck, Marie Vasse, Jacqueline M. Wallis & Oryan Zacks - 2020 - Microbiome 8:117.
    How does microbiota research impact our understanding of biological individuality? We summarize the interdisciplinary summer school on "Microbiota, Symbiosis and Individuality: Conceptual and Philosophical Issues" (July 2019), which was supported by a European Research Council starting grant project "Immunity, DEvelopment, and the Microbiota" (IDEM). The summer school centered around interdisciplinary group work on four facets of microbiota research: holobionts, individuality, causation, and human health. The conceptual discussion of cutting-edge empirical research provided new insights into microbiota and highlights the value (...)
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  25. Jacob Schegk on Plants, Medicaments, and the Question of Emergence.Andreas Blank - 2022 - In Antonio Clericuzio, Paolo Pecere & Charles Wolfe (eds.), Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Philosophy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. pp. 27-47.
    The view that living beings as well as plant-based medicaments possess causal properties that are caused by the causal properties of their constituents, without being reducible to the combination of the causal properties of these constituents goes back to ancient thinkers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Johannes Philoponus. In the early modern period, this view was not only criticized by natural philosophers taking a reductionist stance; it was also criticized by Neo-Platonic thinkers such as Jean Fernel. One of the (...)
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  26. Emergence within social systems.Kenneth Silver - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7865-7887.
    Emergence is typically discussed in the context of mental properties or the properties of the natural sciences, and accounts of emergence within these contexts tend to look a certain way. The emergent property is taken to emerge instantaneously out of, or to be proximately caused by, complex interaction of colocated entities. Here, however, I focus on the properties instantiated by the elements of certain systems discussed in social ontology, such as being a five-dollar bill or a pawn-movement, and I suggest (...)
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  27. The strong emergence of molecular structure.Vanessa A. Seifert - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3):1-25.
    One of the most plausible and widely discussed examples of strong emergence is molecular structure. The only detailed account of it, which has been very influential, is due to Robin Hendry and is formulated in terms of downward causation. This paper explains Hendry’s account of the strong emergence of molecular structure and argues that it is coherent only if one assumes a diachronic reflexive notion of downward causation. However, in the context of this notion of (...) causation, the strong emergence of molecular structure faces three challenges that have not been met and which have so far remained unnoticed. First, the putative empirical evidence presented for the strong emergence of molecular structure equally undermines supervenience, which is one of the main tenets of strong emergence. Secondly, it is ambiguous how the assumption of determinate nuclear positions is invoked for the support of strong emergence, as the role of this assumption in Hendry’s argument can be interpreted in more than one way. Lastly, there are understandings of causation which render the postulation of a downward causal relation between a molecule’s structure and its quantum mechanical entities, untenable. (shrink)
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  28. Normativity and naturalism as if nature mattered.Andrew Sayer - 2019 - Journal of Critical Realism 18 (3):258-273.
    The usual way of discussing normativity and naturalism is by running through a standard range of issues: the relations of fact and value, objectivity, reason and emotion, is and ought, and the so-called ‘naturalistic fallacy’. This is a naturalism that is virtually silent on nature. I outline an alternative approach that relates normativity to our nature as living beings, for whom specific things are good or bad for us. Our nature as evaluative beings is shown to be rooted in and (...)
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  29. Emergentisms, Ancient and Modern.J. Ganeri - 2011 - Mind 120 (479):671-703.
    Jaegwon Kim has argued (Kim 2006a) that the two key issues for emergentism are to give a positive characterization of the emergence relation and to explain the possibility of downward causation. This paper proposes an account of emergence which provides new answers to these two key issues. It is argued that an appropriate emergence relation is characterized by a notion of ‘transformation’, and that the real key issue for emergentism is located elsewhere than the places Kim identifies. The (...)
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  30. Stuart Kauffman’s metaphysics of the adjacent possible: A critique.Ragnar Van Der Merwe - 2023 - Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 48 (1):49-61.
    Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (...)
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  31. Recentering neuroscience on behavior: The interface between brain and environment is a privileged level of control of neural activity.Igor Branchi - 2022 - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 138.
    Despite the huge and constant progress in the molecular and cellular neuroscience fields, our capability to understand brain alterations and treat mental illness is still limited. Therefore, a paradigm shift able to overcome such limitation is warranted. Behavior and the associated mental states are the interface between the central nervous system and the living environment. Since, in any system, the interface is a key regulator of system organization, behavior is proposed here as a unique and privileged level of control and (...)
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  32. Criticism of individualist and collectivist methodological approaches to social emergence.S. M. Reza Amiri Tehrani - 2023 - Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 15 (3):111-139.
    ABSTRACT The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. (...)
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  33. Biological explanations, realism, ontology, and categories.Matthew J. Barker - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4):617-622.
    This is an extended review of John Dupré's _Processes of Life_, a collection of essays. It clarifies Dupré's concepts of reductionism and anti-reductionism, and critically examines his associated discussions of downward causation, and both the context sensitivity and multiple realization of categories. It reviews his naturalistic monism, and critically distinguishes between his realism about categories and constructivism about classification. Challenges to his process ontology are presented, as are arguments for his pluralism about scientific categories. None of his main (...)
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  34. Human Agency and Neural Causes.Jason D. Runyan - 2013 - New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.
    Libet-style experiments and volitions -- The need for an analysis of human agency -- An Aristotelian account of human agency -- Compatibilist concerns -- Choices and voluntary conduct -- Neuronal mechanisms and voluntary conduct -- A metaphysical framework : voluntary agency, emergence and downward causation.
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  35. (1 other version)Quantum mechanics and consciousness: Thoughts on a causal correspondence theory.Ian J. Thompson - 2017 - In S. Gosh, B. D. Mundhra, K. Vasudeva Rao & Varun Agarwal (eds.), Quantum Physics & Consciousness - Thoughts of Founding Fathers of Quantum Physics and other Renowned Scholars. Bhaktivedanta Institute. pp. 173-185.
    Which way does causation proceed? The pattern in the material world seems to be upward: particles to molecules to organisms to brains to mental processes. In contrast, the principles of quantum mechanics allow us to see a pattern of downward causation. These new ideas describe sets of multiple levels in which each level influences the levels below it through generation and selection. Top-down causation makes exciting sense of the world: we can find analogies in psychology, in (...)
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  36. Emergent Will.Jan Scheffel - manuscript
    The enduring problem of free will has defied resolution across centuries. There is reason to believe that novel factors must be integrated into the analysis to make progress. Within the current physicalist framework, these factors encompass emergence and information theory, in the context of constraints imposed by physical limits on the representation of information. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as 'being able to act differently' is rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for formal analysis. It is (...)
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  37.  15
    Introduction.Jan Voosholz & Markus Gabriel - 2021 - In Jan Voosholz & Markus Gabriel (eds.), Top-Down Causation and Emergence. Cham: Springer Verlag.
    This is the introduction and table of contents to the collected volume "Top-Down Causation and Emergence". It honours George F.R. Ellis and explains the parts and chapters of the volume.
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  38. Free Will of an Ontologically Open Mind.Jan Scheffel - manuscript
    The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for (...)
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  39. A Hole Without the Whole: Hylomorphism Against the Causal Closure of the Physical.João Pinheiro da Silva - 2023 - Dissertation, Central European University
    Howard Robinson has criticized the contemporary revival of hylomorphism in analytic philosophy for being inconsistent with the causal closure of the physical (CCP) and, by consequence, modern science. This thesis critically evaluates Robinson's criticism. We firstly analyze Robinson’s argument and reinforce it with Jaegwon Kim's causal overdetermination argument. We then turn to CCP itself, settling its exact meaning and highlighting its problems. We argue that CCP’s deferral of the meaning of “physical” to physics renders it false - if applied to (...)
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  40. Neural Synchrony and the Causal Efficacy of Consciousness.David Yates - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1057-1072.
    The purpose of this paper is to address a well-known dilemma for physicalism. If mental properties are type identical to physical properties, then their causal efficacy is secure, but at the cost of ruling out mentality in creatures very different to ourselves. On the other hand, if mental properties are multiply realizable, then all kinds of creatures can instantiate them, but then they seem to be causally redundant. The causal exclusion problem depends on the widely held principle that realized properties (...)
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  41. Demystifying Emergence.David Yates - 2016 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 3:809-841.
    Are the special sciences autonomous from physics? Those who say they are need to explain how dependent special science properties could feature in irreducible causal explanations, but that’s no easy task. The demands of a broadly physicalist worldview require that such properties are not only dependent on the physical, but also physically realized. Realized properties are derivative, so it’s natural to suppose that they have derivative causal powers. Correspondingly, philosophical orthodoxy has it that if we want special science properties to (...)
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  42. From physics to biology by extending criticality and symmetry breakings.Giuseppe Longo & Maël Montévil - 2011 - Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 106:340 - 347.
    Symmetries play a major role in physics, in particular since the work by E. Noether and H. Weyl in the first half of last century. Herein, we briefly review their role by recalling how symmetry changes allow to conceptually move from classical to relativistic and quantum physics. We then introduce our ongoing theoretical analysis in biology and show that symmetries play a radically different role in this discipline, when compared to those in current physics. By this comparison, we stress that (...)
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  43. Life in the Interstices: Systems Biology and Process Thought.Joseph E. Earley - 2014 - In Spyridon A. Koutroufinis (ed.), Life and Process: Towards a New Biophilosophy. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 157-170.
    When a group of processes achieves such closure that a set of states of affairs recurs continually, then the effect of that coherence on the world differs from what would occur in the absence of that closure. Such altered effectiveness is an attribute of the system as a whole, and would have consequences. This indicates that the network of processes, as a unit, has ontological significance. Whenever a network of processes generates continual return to a limited set of states of (...)
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  44. The "Triplex" of Information – The Dynamics of Transduction, Modulation, and Organization in Living Beings.Juho Rantala - manuscript
    [DRAFT] Paper presented at Congress for Doctoral Researchers in Philosophy, Tampere University, 25.–27.10. 2021. The Paper strives to flesh out Gilbert Simondon's notion of information as a multifaced process (transduction-modulation-organization) from the viewpoint of living (/biological) beings.
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  45. Nonreductive physicalism and the limits of the exclusion principle.Christian List & Peter Menzies - 2009 - Journal of Philosophy 106 (9):475-502.
    It is often argued that higher-level special-science properties cannot be causally efficacious since the lower-level physical properties on which they supervene are doing all the causal work. This claim is usually derived from an exclusion principle stating that if a higher-level property F supervenes on a physical property F* that is causally sufficient for a property G, then F cannot cause G. We employ an account of causation as difference-making to show that the truth or falsity of this principle (...)
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  46. Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level.Anton Sukhoverkhov & Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Biosystems 1 (200):104325.
    The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...)
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  47. Downward Counterfactuals and Motivation: The Wake-Up Call and the Pangloss Effect.Keith Markman & Matthew McMullen - 2000 - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (5):575-584.
    Three studies examined the motivational implications of thinking about how things could have been worse. It was hypothesized that when these downward counterfactuals yield negative affect, through consideration of the possibility of a negative outcome, motivation to change and improve would be increased (the wake-up call). When downward counterfactuals yield positive affect, through diminishing the impact of a potentially negative outcome, motivation to change and improve should be reduced (the Pangloss effect). Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. (...)
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  48. Downwards Propriety in Epistemic Utility Theory.Alejandro Pérez Carballo - 2023 - Mind 132 (525):30-62.
    Epistemic Utility Theory is often identified with the project of *axiology-first epistemology*—the project of vindicating norms of epistemic rationality purely in terms of epistemic value. One of the central goals of axiology-first epistemology is to provide a justification of the central norm of Bayesian epistemology, Probabilism. The first part of this paper presents a new challenge to axiology first epistemology: I argue that in order to justify Probabilism in purely axiological terms, proponents of axiology first epistemology need to justify a (...)
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  49. Causation and Time Reversal.Matt Farr - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1):177-204.
    What would it be for a process to happen backwards in time? Would such a process involve different causal relations? It is common to understand the time-reversal invariance of a physical theory in causal terms, such that whatever can happen forwards in time can also happen backwards in time. This has led many to hold that time-reversal symmetry is incompatible with the asymmetry of cause and effect. This article critiques the causal reading of time reversal. First, I argue that the (...)
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  50. Causation, norms, and omissions: A study of causal judgments.Randolph Clarke, Joshua Shepherd, John Stigall, Robyn Repko Waller & Chris Zarpentine - 2015 - Philosophical Psychology 28 (2):279-293.
    Many philosophical theories of causation are egalitarian, rejecting a distinction between causes and mere causal conditions. We sought to determine the extent to which people's causal judgments discriminate, selecting as causes counternormal events—those that violate norms of some kind—while rejecting non-violators. We found significant selectivity of this sort. Moreover, priming that encouraged more egalitarian judgments had little effect on subjects. We also found that omissions are as likely as actions to be judged as causes, and that counternormative selectivity appears (...)
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