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189Some 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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189The 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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173Explanatory 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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171Data, phenomena, and reliabilityPhilosophy of Science 67 (3): 179. 2000.This paper explores how data serve as evidence for phenomena. In contrast to standard philosophical models which invite us to think of evidential relationships as logical relationships, I argue that evidential relationships in the context of data-to-phenomena reasoning are empirical relationships that depend on holding the right sort of pattern of counterfactual dependence between the data and the conclusions investigators reach on the phenomena themselves
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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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146Modularity 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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143Causation in ScienceIn Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 163-184. 2016.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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134Evading the IRSIn Martin R. Jones & Nancy Cartwright (eds.), Idealization XII: Correcting the Model: Idealization and Abstraction in the Sciences, . 2005.'IRS' is our term for the logical empiricist idea that the best way to understand the epistemic bearing of observational evidence on scientific theories is to model it in terms of Inferential Relations among Sentences representing the evidence, and sentences representing hypotheses the evidence is used to evaluate. Developing ideas from our earlier work, including 'Saving the Phenomena'(Phil Review 97, 1988, p.303-52 )we argue that the bearing of observational evidence on theory depends upon cau…Read more
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131Interventionist theories of causation in psychological perspectiveIn Alison Gopnik & Laura Schulz (eds.), Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation, Oxford University Press. pp. 19--36. 2007.Interventionist Theories of Causation in Psychological Perspective
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124Psychological studies of causal and counterfactual reasoningIn Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack & Sarah R. Beck (eds.), Understanding Counterfactuals, Understanding Causation, Oxford University Press. pp. 16. 2008.Counterfactual theories of causation of the sort presented in Mackie, 1974, and Lewis, 1973 are a familiar part of the philosophical landscape. Such theories are typically advanced primarily as accounts of the metaphysics of causation. But they also raise empirical psychological issues concerning the processes and representations that underlie human causal reasoning. For example, do human subjects internally represent causal claims in terms of counterfactual judgments and when they engage in cau…Read more
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115Social preferences in experimental economicsPhilosophy of Science 75 (5): 646-657. 2008.This article explores some issues having to do with the use of experimental results from one‐shot games to reach conclusions about the existence of social preferences that are taken to figure in the explanation of cooperation in repeated interactions in real life. †To contact the author, please write to: Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125; e‐mail: [email protected].
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115Manipulation 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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112Laws: 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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109What is the Cause of Inertia?Foundations of Physics 29 (6): 899-930. 1999.The question of the cause of inertial reaction forces and the validity of “Mach's principle” are investigated. A recent claim that the cause of inertial reaction forces can be attributed to an interaction of the electrical charge of elementary particles with the hypothetical quantum mechanical “zero-point” fluctuation electromagnetic field is shown to be untenable. It fails to correspond to reality because the coupling of electric charge to the electromagnetic field cannot be made to mimic plaus…Read more
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109The incompatibility of Mach's principle and the principle of equivalence in current gravitation theoryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 23 (2): 111-116. 1972.
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108What Is a Mechanism? A Counterfactual AccountPhilosophy of Science 69 (S3). 2002.This paper presents a counterfactual account of what a mechanism is. Mechanisms consist of parts, the behavior of which conforms to generalizations that are invariant under interventions, and which are modular in the sense that it is possible in principle to change the behavior of one part independently of the others. Each of these features can be captured by the truth of certain counterfactuals.
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107Mach's principle: Micro- or macrophysical?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 26 (2): 137-141. 1975.
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103Causation: Interactions between Philosophical Theories and Psychological ResearchPhilosophy of Science 79 (5): 961-972. 2012.This article explores some ways in which philosophical theories of causation and empirical investigations into causal learning and judgment can mutually inform one another.
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101Koch’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
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97Causal 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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97Physical 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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93Flux Capacitors and the Origin of InertiaFoundations of Physics 34 (10): 1475-1514. 2004.The explanation of inertia based on “Mach's principle” is briefly revisited and an experiment whereby the gravitational origin of inertia can be tested is described. The test consists of detecting a small stationary force with a sensitive force sensor. The force is presumably induced when a periodic transient Mach effect mass fluctuation is driven in high voltage, high energy density capacitors that are subjected to 50 kHz, 1.3 kV amplitude voltage signal, and threaded by an alternating magnetic…Read more
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93On an information-theoretic model of explanationPhilosophy of Science 54 (1): 21-44. 1987.This paper is an assessment of an attempt, by James Greeno, to measure the explanatory power of statistical theories by means of the notion of transmitted information (It). It is argued that It has certain features that are inappropriate in a measure of explanatory power. In particular, given a statistical theory T with explanans variables St and explanandum variables Mj, it is argued that no plausible measure of explanatory power should depend on the probability P(Si) of occurrence of initial c…Read more
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91Supervenience and Singular Causal StatementsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27 211-246. 1990.In his recent book, Causation: A Realistic Approach , Michael Tooley discusses the following thesis, which he calls the ‘thesis of the Humean Supervenience of Causal Relations’: The truth values of all singular causal statements are logically determined by the truth values of statements of causal laws, together with the truth values of non-causal statements about particulars . represents one version of the ‘Humean’ idea that there is no more factual content to the claim that two particular event…Read more
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90Book Review: The Future of Spacetime. By Stephen W. Hawking, Kip S. Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris, Alan Lightman, and Richard Price. W. W. Norton, New York and London, 2002, 220 pp., $25.95 (hardcover). ISBN 0-393-02022-3 (review)Foundations of Physics 32 (9): 1485-1491. 2002.
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |