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262Cause and explanation in psychiatry: An interventionist perspectiveIn Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry: Explanation, Phenomenology, and Nosology, Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008.This paper explores some issues concerning the nature and structure of causal explanation in psychiatry and psychology from the point of view of the “interventionist” theory defended in my book, Making Things Happen. Among the issues is explored is the extent to which candidate causal explanations involving “upper level” or relatively coarse-grained or macroscopic variables such as mental/psychological states (e.g. highly self critical beliefs or low self esteem) or environmental factors (e.g. p…Read more
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334There is No Such Thing as a Ceteris Paribus LawErkenntnis 57 (3). 2002.In this paper I criticize the commonly accepted idea that the generalizations of the special sciences should be construed as ceteris paribus laws. This idea rests on mistaken assumptions about the role of laws in explanation and their relation to causal claims. Moreover, the major proposals in the literature for the analysis of ceteris paribus laws are, on their own terms, complete failures. I sketch a more adequate alternative account of the content of causal generalizations in the special scie…Read more
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117Manipulation and the causal Markov conditionPhilosophy of Science 71 (5): 846-856. 2004.This paper explores the relationship between a manipulability conception of causation and the causal Markov condition (CM). We argue that violations of CM also violate widely shared expectations—implicit in the manipulability conception—having to do with the absence of spontaneous correlations. They also violate expectations concerning the connection between independence or dependence relationships in the presence and absence of interventions.
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203Mechanisms revisitedSynthese 183 (3): 409-427. 2011.This paper defends an interventionist treatment of mechanisms and contrasts this with Waskan (forthcoming). Interventionism embodies a difference-making conception of causation. I contrast such conceptions with geometrical/mechanical or “actualist” conceptions, associating Waskan’s proposals with the latter. It is argued that geometrical/mechanical conceptions of causation cannot replace difference-making conceptions in characterizing the behavior of mechanisms, but that some of the intuitions b…Read more
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55Explaining Explanation (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (2): 477-482. 1996.David-Hillel Ruben’s interesting and engaging book, Explaining Explanation, is in part an historical study, in part a commentary on the contemporary literature on explanation, and in part a presentation of Ruben’s own theory. The early chapters trace ideas about explanation Ruben finds in Plato, Aristotle, and Mill and connect these up with themes in the contemporary literature—for example, Plato’s criticisms of explanation by and of opposites are brought to bear on present-day issues concerning…Read more
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57Critical review: Horwich on the ravens, projectability and induction (review)Philosophical Studies 47 (3). 1985.
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32Book Review: The Fabric of the Cosmos. By Brian Greene, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, U.S.A., 2004, xii + 569 pp., $28.95 (hardcover) (review)Foundations of Physics 34 (8): 1267-1273. 2004.
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297Scientific explanationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (1): 41-67. 1979.Issues concerning scientific explanation have been a focus of philosophical attention from Pre- Socratic times through the modern period. However, recent discussion really begins with the development of the Deductive-Nomological (DN) model. This model has had many advocates (including Popper 1935, 1959, Braithwaite 1953, Gardiner, 1959, Nagel 1961) but unquestionably the most detailed and influential statement is due to Carl Hempel (Hempel 1942, 1965, and Hempel & Oppenheim 1948). These papers a…Read more
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276A Functional Account of Causation; or, A Defense of the Legitimacy of Causal Thinking by Reference to the Only Standard That Matters—UsefulnessPhilosophy of Science 81 (5): 691-713. 2014.This essay advocates a “functional” approach to causation and causal reasoning: these are to be understood in terms of the goals and purposes of causal thinking. This approach is distinguished from accounts based on metaphysical considerations or on reconstruction of “intuitions.”
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455Interventionism and Causal ExclusionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (2): 303-347. 2015.A number of writers, myself included, have recently argued that an “interventionist” treatment of causation of the sort defended in Woodward, 2003 can be used to cast light on so-called “causal exclusion” arguments. This interventionist treatment of causal exclusion has in turn been criticized by other philosophers. This paper responds to these criticisms. It describes an interventionist framework for thinking about causal relationships when supervenience relations are present. I contend that th…Read more
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82Data, Phenomena, Signal, and NoisePhilosophy of Science 77 (5): 792-803. 2010.This essay attempts to provide additional motivation for the data/phenomena framework advocated in Bogen and Woodward, “Saving the Phenomena”.
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335Causation and manipulabilityStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Manipulablity theories of causation, according to which causes are to be regarded as handles or devices for manipulating effects, have considerable intuitive appeal and are popular among social scientists and statisticians. This article surveys several prominent versions of such theories advocated by philosophers, and the many difficulties they face. Philosophical statements of the manipulationist approach are generally reductionist in aspiration and assign a central role to human action. These …Read more
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190The mind is not (just) a system of modules shaped (just) by natural selectionIn Christopher Hitchcock (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. pp. 312-34. 2004.
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150Modularity and the causal Markov condition: A restatementBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (1): 147-161. 2004.expose some gaps and difficulties in the argument for the causal Markov condition in our essay ‘Independence, Invariance and the Causal Markov Condition’ ([1999]), and we are grateful for the opportunity to reformulate our position. In particular, Cartwright disagrees vigorously with many of the theses we advance about the connection between causation and manipulation. Although we are not persuaded by some of her criticisms, we shall confine ourselves to showing how our central argument can be r…Read more
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730Making things happen: a theory of causal explanationOxford University Press. 2003.Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the…Read more
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69This paper employs an interventionist framework to elucidate some issues having to do with explanation in neurobiology and with the differences between mechanistic and non-mechanistic explanations.
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258Causation with a human faceIn Huw Price & Richard Corry (eds.), Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality: Russell's Republic Revisited, Oxford University Press. 2006.What is the relationship between, on the one hand, the sorts of causal claims found in the special sciences (and in common sense) and, on the other hand, the world as described by physics? A standard picture goes like this: the fundamental laws of physics are causal laws in the sense that they can be interpreted as telling us that realizations of one set of physical factors or properties “causes” realizations of other properties. Causal claims in the special sciences are then true (to the extent…Read more
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69Book Review: World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein. By Palle Yourgrau, Basic Books, New York, New York, USA, 2005, viii + 210 pp., $24 (hard cover). ISBN 0-465-09293-4 (review)Foundations of Physics 36 (2): 321-325. 2006.
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311Simplicity in the Best Systems Account of Laws of NatureBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (1): 91-123. 2014.This article discusses the role of simplicity and the notion of a best balance of simplicity and strength within the best systems account (BSA) of laws of nature. The article explores whether there is anything in scientific practice that corresponds to the notion of simplicity or to the trade-off between simplicity and strength to which the BSA appeals. Various theoretical rationales for simplicity preferences and their bearing on the identification of laws are also explored. It is concluded tha…Read more
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13This paper explores some general questions about the sorts of abilities that are involved in tool use and “causal cognition”, both in humans and in non-human primates. An attempt is made to relate the empirical literature on these topics to various philosophical theories of causation.
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57Laws, Causes, and InvarianceIn Stephen Mumford & Matthew Tugby (eds.), Metaphysics and Science, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter explores some issues having to do with the structure of the evidential reasoning we use to infer causal and lawful claims. It is argued that such reasoning always makes use of prior, causally, or nomologically committed information, thus undercutting various views that attempt to reduce causal and lawful claims to claims about regularities. A non-reductive account of laws and causes built around the notion of invariance is advanced as an alternative.
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56Explanatory asymmetriesPhilosophy of Science 51 (3): 421-442. 1984.This paper examines a recent attempt by Evan Jobe to account for the asymmetric character of many scientific explanations. It is argued that a purported counterexample to Jobe's account, from Clark Glymour, is inconclusive, but that the account faces independent objections. It is also suggested, contrary to Jobe, that the explanatory relation is not always asymmetric. Sometimes a singular sentence C can figure in a DN derivation of another singular sentence E and E can also figure in a DN deriva…Read more
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897Causation in biology: Stability, specificity, and the choice of levels of explanationBiology and Philosophy 25 (3): 287-318. 2010.This paper attempts to elucidate three characteristics of causal relationships that are important in biological contexts. Stability has to do with whether a causal relationship continues to hold under changes in background conditions. Proportionality has to do with whether changes in the state of the cause “line up” in the right way with changes in the state of the effect and with whether the cause and effect are characterized in a way that contains irrelevant detail. Specificity is connected bo…Read more
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265The problem of variable choiceSynthese 193 (4): 1047-1072. 2016.This paper explores some issues about the choice of variables for causal representation and explanation. Depending on which variables a researcher employs, many causal inference procedures and many treatments of causation will reach different conclusions about which causal relationships are present in some system of interest. The assumption of this paper is that some choices of variables are superior to other choices for the purpose of causal analysis. A number of possible criteria for variable …Read more
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62Book Review: Concepts of Mass in Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, by Max Jammer (review)Foundations of Physics 30 (6): 959-964. 2000.
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104Koch’s postulates: An interventionist perspectiveStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 59 35-46. 2016.We argue that Koch’s postulates are best understood within an interventionist account of causation, in the sense described in Woodward. We show how this treatment helps to resolve interpretive puzzles associated with Koch’s work and how it clarifies the different roles the postulates play in providing useful, yet not universal criteria for disease causation. Our paper is an effort at rational reconstruction; we attempt to show how Koch’s postulates and reasoning make sense and are normatively ju…Read more
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |