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33The structure and dynamics of scientific theories: a hierarchical Bayesian perspectivePhilosophy of Science 77 (2): 172-200. 2010.Hierarchical Bayesian models (HBMs) provide an account of Bayesian inference in a hierarchically structured hypothesis space. Scientific theories are plausibly regarded as organized into hierarchies in many cases, with higher levels sometimes called ‘para- digms’ and lower levels encoding more specific or concrete hypotheses. Therefore, HBMs provide a useful model for scientific theory change, showing how higher-level theory change may be driven by the impact of evidence on lower levels. HBMs ca…Read more
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79Downward Causation DefendedIn Jan Voosholz & Markus Gabriel (eds.), Top-Down Causation and Emergence, Springer Verlag. pp. 217-251. 2021.This paper defends the notion of downward causation. I will seek to elucidate this notion, explain why it is a useful way of thinking, and respond to criticisms attacking its intelligibility. My account of downward causation will be in many respects similar to the account recently advanced by Ellis. The overall framework I will adopt is the interventionist treatment of causation I have defended elsewhere: X causes Y when Y changes under a suitable manipulation of X. When X is at a higher “level”…Read more
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34Explaining Explanation (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 477-482. 1996.Reviewed Work: Explaining Explanation by David-Hillel Ruben
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103Physical modality, laws, and counterfactualsSynthese 197 (5). 2017.Standard philosophical accounts attempt to understand physical modality either in terms of special metaphysical entities and relationships or in terms of the organization of non-modal information, as in Best Systems Analysis. This paper defends an alternative to both these approaches in which invariance and various independence conditions play a central role. The methodological importance of separating law-claims from claims about initial and boundary conditions is highlighted.
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233Sensitive and insensitive causationPhilosophical Review 115 (1): 1-50. 2006.Sensitive and Insensitive Causation
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352Independence, invariance and the causal Markov conditionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 50 (4): 521-583. 1999.This essay explains what the Causal Markov Condition says and defends the condition from the many criticisms that have been launched against it. Although we are skeptical about some of the applications of the Causal Markov Condition, we argue that it is implicit in the view that causes can be used to manipulate their effects and that it cannot be surrendered without surrendering this view of causation.
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103Causal Complexity, Conditional Independence, and Downward CausationPhilosophy of Science 87 (5): 857-867. 2020.This article defends the notion of downward causation, relating it to a notion of conditional independence.
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162Explanation, invariance, and interventionPhilosophy of Science 64 (4): 41. 1997.This paper defends a counterfactual account of explanation, according to which successful explanation requires tracing patterns of counterfactual dependence of a special sort, involving what I call active counterfactuals. Explanations having this feature must appeal to generalizations that are invariant--stable under certain sorts of changes. These ideas are illustrated by examples drawn from physics and econometrics.
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26Review of Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (review)Noûs 22 (2): 322-324. 1988.
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16On Wolfgang Spohn’s Laws of BeliefPhilosophy of Science 86 (4): 759-772. 2019.This is one of a pair of discussion notes comparing some features of the account of causation in Wolfgang Spohn’s Laws of Belief with the “interventionist” account in James Woodward’s Making Things Happen. Despite striking similarities there are also important differences. These include the “epistemic” orientation of Spohn’s account as opposed to the worldly or “ontic” orientation of the interventionist account, Spohn’s focus on token-level causal claims in contrast to the primary interventionis…Read more
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192Some Varieties of Non-Causal ExplanationIn Alexander Reutlinger & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations, Oxford University Press. 2018.This chapter explores the possibility of weakening the criteria for causal explanation in Making Things Happen to yield various forms of non-causal explanation. These include the following: retaining the idea that explanations must answer what if things had been different questions but dropping the requirement the answers to such questions must take the form of claims about what would happen under interventions. Retaining the w- question requirement but allowing generalizations that hold for mat…Read more
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116Laws: An Invariance-Based AccountIn Ott & Patton (eds.), Laws of Nature, Oxford University Press. 2018.This paper defends an invariance-based account of laws of nature: Laws are generalizations that remain invariant under various sorts of changes. Alternatively, laws are generalizations that exhibit a certain kind of independence from background conditions.
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184Explanatory autonomy: the role of proportionality, stability, and conditional irrelevanceSynthese 198 (1): 1-29. 2018.This paper responds to recent criticisms of the idea that true causal claims, satisfying a minimal “interventionist” criterion for causation, can differ in the extent to which they satisfy other conditions—called stability and proportionality—that are relevant to their use in explanatory theorizing. It reformulates the notion of proportionality so as to avoid problems with previous formulations. It also introduces the notion of conditional independence or irrelevance, which I claim is central to…Read more
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15This article explores some issues associated with Philip Kitcher's unificationist theory of explanation, including the contrast between epistemic and ontic approaches to explanation, and the implications of Kitcher’s theory for the autonomy of the special sciences.
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60The Chances of Explanation: Causal Explanation in the Social, Medical and Physical Sciences. Paul Humphreys (review)Philosophy of Science 60 (4): 671-673. 1993.
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1Philosophical Perspectives on Causal Reasoning in Biology. Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science. Vol. XXI. (edited book)University of Minnesota Press. forthcoming.
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281II—James Woodward: Mechanistic Explanation: Its Scope and LimitsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1): 39-65. 2013.This paper explores the question of whether all or most explanations in biology are, or ideally should be, ‘mechanistic’. I begin by providing an account of mechanistic explanation, making use of the interventionist ideas about causation I have developed elsewhere. This account emphasizes the way in which mechanistic explanations, at least in the biological sciences, integrate difference‐making and spatio‐temporal information, and exhibit what I call fine‐tunedness of organization. I also emphas…Read more
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144Causation in ScienceIn Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press. pp. 163-184. 2014.This article discusses some philosophical theories of causation and their application to several areas of science. Topics addressed include regularity, counterfactual, and causal process theories of causation; the causal interpretation of structural equation models and directed graphs; independence assumptions in causal reasoning; and the role of causal concepts in physics. In connection with this last topic, this article focuses on the relationship between causal asymmetries, the time-reversal …Read more
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63This paper, like its companion explores some ways in which, on the one hand, normative theorizing about causation and causal reasoning and, on the other, empirical psychological investigations into causal cognition can be mutually illuminating. The paper carries out this exploration in connection with a variety of topics—the role of information about the presence of a “physical connection” between cause and effect in causal judgment, the role of “proportionality” in choosing the appropriate “lev…Read more
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45This paper, like its companion explores some ways in which, on the one hand, normative theorizing about causation and causal reasoning and, on the other, empirical psychological investigations into causal cognition can be mutually illuminating. The topics considered include the connection between causal claims and claims about the outcomes of interventions and the various ways that invariance claims figure in causal judgment.
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73Interventionism and the Missing Metaphysics: A DialogIn Matthew Slater & Zanja Yudell (eds.), Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: New Essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 193-228. 2014.A number of philosophers with a metaphysical orientation have criticized Making Things Happen for its failure to provide an account of the metaphysical foundations or grounds or truth-makers for causal and explanatory claims. This dialog attempts to respond to these objections and to raise some general concerns about some of the rhetoric and argumentative strategies employed in contemporary analytic metaphysics. It also explores some issues having to do with the relationship between methodology,…Read more
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50This paper discusses Peter Menzies' work on the exclusion argument. I defend an interventionist treatment of the argument that differs in some respects from the approach advocated by Menzies and Christian List.
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45This paper explores some interactions between normative/ philosophical/theoretical theorizing about causation and empirical research into causal reasoning and judgment of the sort conducted by psychologists and others. I attempt to extract some general morals regarding the kinds of interactions between the empirical and the more traditionally philosophical that in my experience have been most fruitful. I also compare the experimental work on which I focus with some of the research strategies emp…Read more
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445Methodology, ontology, and interventionismSynthese 192 (11): 3577-3599. 2015.This paper defends an interventionist account of causation by construing this account as a contribution to methodology, rather than as a set of theses about the ontology or metaphysics of causation. It also uses the topic of causation to raise some more general issues about the relation between, on the one hand, methodology, and, on the other hand, ontology and metaphysics, as these are understood in contemporary philosophical discussion, particularly among so-called analytic metaphysicians. It …Read more
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(b. 1939) are professors at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. Woodward teaches philosophy; Goodstein teaches physics. Woodward has served Caltech as executive officer (review)Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence. forthcoming.
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37Causes, Conditions, and the Pragmatics of Causal ExplanationIn Gregory J. Morgan (ed.), Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein, Oxford University Press. pp. 247. 2011.
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18Book ReviewsRonald Giere, Science Without Laws. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press , x+ 285pp. $25.00 (review)Philosophy of Science 69 (2): 379-384. 2002.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |