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67Réduction «rôle-occupant», réduction «micro-macro» et explication réductrice a prioriDialogue 44 (2): 225-248. 2005.It has been argued that most truths about macroscopic states of affairs are entailed by a (hypothetical) complete descriptionPof the world in microscopic terms. In principle, micro-reductive explanations of non-microphysical truths could be constructeda priori.Against this claim, I show that reductive explanation requires knowledge about the phenomena to be reduced which cannot bea prioriextracted from microphysical information alone. Such reductions proceed in two steps: a “reductionR0” (“role-…Read more
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18Erklärung und KausalitätPhilosophia Naturalis 39 (1): 89-109. 2002.Causation is analysed in terms of transference of amounts of conserved quantities between events. Such amounts are tropes. However, causal explanations are directly made true, not by transmission relations but by relations of causal responsibility, of a fact Fc about the cause event c for a fact Ge about the effect event e. Causal responsibility is analysed in terms of causation between events c and e and a law of nature holding between the properties F and G. This account overcomes many objecti…Read more
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72Powerful properties and the causal basis of dispositionsIn Alexander Bird, B. D. Ellis & Howard Sankey (eds.), Properties, Powers, and Structures: Issues in the Metaphysics of Realism, Routledge. pp. 119--137. 2011.Many predicates are dispositional. Some show this by a suffix like "-ible", -uble", or "-able": sugar is soluble in water, gasoline is flammable. Others have no such suffix and don't wear their dispositionality on their sleeves. Yet part of what it is to be solid is to be disposed to resist deformation, and part of what it is to be red is to appear red to normal human observers in normal lighting conditions. However, there is no agreement as to whether dispositional predicates may be given a rea…Read more
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20Review of : Alexander Bird, Nature's Metaphysics -- Laws and Properties (review)Mind 119 188-193. 2010.No one has yet elaborated and defended with so much subtlety, rigour, and depth the exciting new metaphysics of nature that replaces both versions of the traditional categoricalist picture of nature...Reading Bird is highly rewarding: he sheds new light on many problems by analysing them in a new way...Bird's book holds promise to become the authoritative statement of the new dispositionalist metaphysics
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48Nature's Metaphysics -- Laws and Properties , by Alexander Bird (review)Mind 119 (473): 188-193. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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25Lois, exceptions et dispositionsIn Kistler Max & Gnassounou Bruno (eds.), Les Dispositions En Philosophie Et En Sciences, Presses Universitaires De France. pp. 175--94. 2006.
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21Some problems for Lowe's four-category ontologyAnalysis 64 (2): 146-151. 2004.In E.J. Lowe's ontology, objects are property-bearers which 1) have identity and 2) are countable. This makes it possible to become or cease to be an object, by beginning or ceasing to fulfil one of these conditions. But the possibility of switching fundamental ontological categories should be excluded. Furthermore, Lowe does not show that “quasi-individuals” can exist. I argue against Lowe that kinds cannot be property-bearers in a more genuine sense than properties, that they are not absolutel…Read more
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43Review of Alexander Hieke, Hannes Leitgeb (eds.), Reduction: Between the Mind and the Brain (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (2). 2010.This volume is a collection of essays presented at the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg, in August 2008. It has the character of a high-quality journal issue. There is no introduction, and the papers do not all directly bear on the topic of the original conference, which was "Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences". In what follows, I offer a short description of each paper, and add critical remarks in some cases
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50Causation Across Levels, Constitution, and ConstraintIn Mauricio Suárez, Mauro Dorato & Miklós Rédei (eds.), EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences · Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association, Springer. pp. 141--151. 2009.To explain phenomenon R by showing how mechanism M yields output R each time it is triggered by circumstances C, is to give a causal explanation of R. This paper analyses what mechanistic analysis can contribute to our understanding of causation in general and of downward causation in particular. It is first shown, against Glennan, that the concept of causation cannot be reduced to that of mechanism. Second it is shown, against Craver and Bechtel, that mechanistic explanation allows us to make s…Read more
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6International audience.
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177The Interventionist Account of Causation and Non-causal Association LawsErkenntnis 78 (1): 1-20. 2013.The key idea of the interventionist account of causation is that a variable A causes a variable B if and only if B would change if A were manipulated in the appropriate way. This paper raises two problems for Woodward's (2003) version of interventionism. The first is that the conditions it imposes are not sufficient for causation, because these conditions are also satisfied by non-causal relations of nomological dependence expressed in association laws. Such laws ground a relation of mutual mani…Read more
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119Source and Channel in the informational theory of mental contentFacta Philosophica 2 (2): 213-36. 2000.With the aim of giving a naturalistic foundation to the notion of mental representation, Fred Dretske (1981;1988) has put forward and developed the idea that the relation between a representation and its intentional content is grounded on an informational relation. In this explanatory model, mental representations are conceived of as states of organisms which a learning process has selected to play a functional role: a necessary condition for fulfilling this role is that the organism or some pro…Read more
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112Reduction and emergence in the physical sciences: Reply to RuegerSynthese 151 (3). 2006.I analyse Rueger’s application of Kim’s model of functional reduction to the relation between the thermal conductivities of metal bars at macroscopic and atomic scales. 1) I show that it is a misunderstanding to accuse the functional reduction model of not accounting for the fact that there are causal powers at the micro-level which have no equivalent at the macro-level. The model not only allows but requires that the causal powers by virtue of which a functional predicate is defined, are only a…Read more
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5Esfeld's new book is a powerful and well-argued statement for an original position in the metaphysics of science. In Esfeld's view, rational reflection on relativity theory and quantum theory leads to a metaphysical conception of reality as built on powerful structures: first, the fundamental building blocks of reality are structures rather than properties of space-time points or of matter localized at such points; second, these structures are not categorical or inert but inherently powerful and…Read more
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9Zur Transfer-Theorie der KausalitätIn Julian Nida-Rümelin & Georg Meggle (eds.), Analyomen 2, Volume I: Logic, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, De Gruyter. pp. 405-413. 1997.Causation can be reduced to transmission in the following way: Two events c and e are linked as cause and effect iff there is a conserved quantity P which is exemplified in both events and of which an amount Q is transferred from c to e. This conception permits to overcome difficulties faced by earlier versions of the transference theory and by "process theories" of causation, such as Salmon's and Dowe's. In particular, it can explain the asymmetry of causality without relying on the asymmetry o…Read more
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125Laws of nature, exceptions and tropesPhilosophia Scientiae 7 (2): 189-219. 2003.I propose a realist theory of laws formulated in terms of tropes that avoids both the problems of the "best-systems-analysis" and the "inference problem" of realism of universals. I analyze the concept of an exceptional situation, characterized as a situation in which a particular object satisfies the antecedent but not the consequent of the regularity associated with a law, without thereby falsifying that law. To take this possibility into account, the properties linked by a law must be conceiv…Read more
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125The causal criterion of reality and the necessity of laws of natureMetaphysica 3 (1): 57-86. 2002.I propose an argument for the thesis that laws of nature are necessary in the sense of holding in all worlds sharing the properties of the actual world, on the basis of a principle I propose to call the Causal Criterion of Reality . The CCR says: for an entity to be real it is necessary and sufficient that it is capable to make a difference to causal interactions. The crucial idea here is that the capacity to interact causally - or to contribute to determining causal interactions - is not only t…Read more
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51Review of Markus Schrenk, The Metaphysics of Ceteris Paribus Laws (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (10). 2007.
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93Causation in contemporary analytical philosophyQuaestio 2 (1): 635-668. 2002.Contemporary analytic philosophy is in the midst of a vigorous debate on the nature of causation. Each of the main proposals discussed in this chapter faces important problems: the deductive-nomological model, the counterfactual theory, the manipulability theory, the probabilistic theory and the transference theory. After having explored possible solutions to these problems, I conclude that one version of the transference approach is most promising. However, as I show in the last section, it is …Read more
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9International audience.
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University of Paris 1 Panthéon-SorbonneDepartment for Teaching and Research in Philosophy (UFR10)Regular Faculty
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Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueInstitute for the History and Philosophy of Science and TechnologyRegular Faculty