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35Mechanisms: Are activities up to the job?In M. Rédei M. Dorato M. Suàrez (ed.), Epsa Epistemology and Methodology of Science, Springer. pp. 201--209. 2010.In this article I examine whether an influential theory of mechanisms proposed by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden and Carl Craver can accommodate polygenic effects. This theory is both interesting and problematic, I will argue, because it ascribes a central role to activities. In it, activities are needed not only to constitute mechanisms but also to perform their causal role. These putative functions of activities become problematic in certain situations where several causes or elements of a mec…Read more
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53The thesis addresses the nature of causation. It is argued that causation exists and is as local as its causes and effects. As a consequence, the position advocated is contrary to the as yet prevailing view that no 'causal tie' between cause and effect exists. Moreover, it is suggested that this tie can be perceived. The essay attempts to elucidate the nature of causes, effects, and causal mechanisms. It is argued that they are facts rather than particulars or universals. Furthermore it is sugge…Read more
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39Knowledge of factors that trigger human response to climate change is crucial for effective climate change policy communication. Climate change has been claimed to have low salience as a risk issue because it cannot be directly experienced. Still, personal factors such as strength of belief in local effects of climate change have been shown to correlate strongly with responses to climate change and there is a growing literature on the hypothesis that personal experience of climate change explain…Read more
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91Three conceptions of explaining how possibly—and one reductive accountIn Henk W. de Regt (ed.), Epsa Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009, Springer. pp. 275--286. 2009.Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this bel…Read more
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21Examining the factsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 76 87-108. 2000.Facts are once again put to work in philosophical enterprises. The discussion in this paper is conducted under the presumption that we for this reason need to examine the nature of facts anew. To some extent it has been taken for granted that the question of properties and particulars is the primary problem to solve, and that the question of facts is secondary. This approach naturally leads to many of the old problems of facts and complexes. By taking facts as truly basic, we should see how we c…Read more
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32BACKGROUND: Representing is about theories and theory formation. Philosophy of science has a long-standing interest in representing. At least since Ian Hacking's modern classic Representing and Intervening analytical philosophers have struggled to combine that interest with a study of the roles of intervention studies. With few exceptions this focus of philosophy of science has been on physics and other natural sciences. In particular, there have been few attempts to analyse the use of the notio…Read more
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185Decision science: from Ramsey to dual process theoriesSynthese 172 (1): 129-143. 2010.The hypothesis that human reasoning and decision-making can be roughly modeled by Expected Utility Theory has been at the core of decision science. Accumulating evidence has led researchers to modify the hypothesis. One of the latest additions to the field is Dual Process theory, which attempts to explain variance between participants and tasks when it comes to deviations from Expected Utility Theory. It is argued that Dual Process theories at this point cannot replace previous theories, since t…Read more
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29Semmelweis’s methodology from the modern stand-point: intervention studies and causal ontologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (3): 204-209. 2009.
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64Polygenic effects have more than one cause. They testify to the fact that several causal contributors are sometimes simultaneously involved in causation. The importance of polygenic causation was noticed early on by Mill (1893). It has since been shown to be a problem for causal-law approaches to causation and accounts of causation cast in terms of capacities. However, polygenic causation needs to be examined more thoroughly in the emerging literature on causal mechanisms. In this paper I examin…Read more
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100The paper discusses the concept of explanation in metaphysics. Different types of explanation are identified and explored. Scientific explanation is compared with metaphysical explanation. The comparison illustrates the difficulties with applying the concept of explanation in metaphysics
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87Researchers often aim to make correct inferences both about that which is actually studied and about what the results generalize to. The language of internal and external validity is not used by everyone, but many of us would agree that intuitively the distinction makes a lot of sense. Two claims are commonly made with respect to internal and external validity. The first is that internal validity is prior to external validity since there is nothing to generalize if the findings obtained in, for …Read more
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15Ibe and ebiIn Johannes Persson & Petri Ylikoski (eds.), Rethinking Explanation, Springer. pp. 137--147. 2007.
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
General Philosophy of Science |