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33Review 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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179The 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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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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114Reduction 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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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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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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124The 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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94Causation 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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51Review of Markus Schrenk, The Metaphysics of Ceteris Paribus Laws (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (10). 2007.
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45Cognition and Neurophysiology: Mechanism, Reduction, and PluralismPhilosophical Psychology 22 (5): 539-541. 2009.The papers collected in this volume explore some of the powers and limitations of the concept of mechanism for the scientific understanding of cognitive systems, and aim at bringing together some of the most recent developments in the philosophical understanding of the relation of cognition to neuroscience. Earlier versions of most papers have been presented at a workshop held in Paris on June 19th, 2006, which was organized by Institut Jean Nicod and supported by RESCIF (R seau des sciences cog…Read more
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9International audience.
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100Multiple realization, reduction and mental propertiesInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13 (2). 1999.This paper tries to remove some obstacles standing in the way of considering mental properties as both genuine natural kinds and causally efficacious rather than epiphenomena. As the case of temperature shows, it is not justified to conclude from a property being multiply realizable to it being irreducible. Yet Kim's argument to the effect that if a property is multiply realizable with a heterogeneous reduction base then it cannot be a natural kind and possesses only derivative “epiphenomenal” c…Read more
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24The landscape of causation: L. A. Paul and Ned Hall: Causation: A user’s guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 277pp, £18.99 PBMetascience 23 (3): 497-504. 2014.L. A. Paul and Ned Hall’s book makes an original and important contribution to the philosophical debate on causation. Their aim is not to construct a theory of causation but “to sketch a map” of the “landscape” (1) constituted by a rich set of problem cases and various theories of causation devised to account for them.Chapter 1 presents the scope and aim of the book, justifies the method of evaluating theories of causation by exploring whether they are refuted by counterexamples, and provides an…Read more
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5IntroductionVivarium 45 (2): 131-135. 2007.The aim of this introduction is to improve on the traditional way of summing up the history of the notions of power and disposition, by uncovering some of the complexities that remain hidden behind such an oversimplification.
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37Strong Emergence and Freedom: Comment on A. StephanIn Graham Macdonald & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in mind, Oxford University Press. pp. 240--251. 2010.
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25Causalité et lois de la natureJ. Vrin. 1999.La philosophie des sciences de l'empirisme logique avait discredite la causalite comme etant un concept du sens commun irremediablement vague et confus, pour lui substituer le concept d'explication scientifique. Cependant, dans nombre de theories contemporaines, notamment en philosophie de l'esprit et du langage, le concept de causalite continue a jouer un role de premier plan. Ce livre montre qu'il est possible de concevoir la causalite d'une maniere compatible avec des connaissances scientifiq…Read more
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107Reducing causality to transmissionErkenntnis 48 (1): 1-25. 1998.The idea that causation can be reduced to transmission of an amount of some conserved quantity between events is spelled out and defended against important objections. Transmission is understood as a symmetrical relation of copresence in two distinct events. The actual asymmetry of causality has its origin in the asymmetrical character of certain irreversible physical processes and then spreads through the causal net. This conception is compatible with the possibility of backwards causation and …Read more
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78Humans have only finite discriminatory capacities. This simple fact seems to be incompatible with the existence of appearances. As many authors have noted, the hypothesis that appearances exist seems to be refuted by reductio: Let A, B, C be three uniformly coloured surfaces presented to a subject in optimal viewing conditions, such that A, B, and C resemble one another perfectly except with respect to their colours. Their colours differ slightly in the following way: the difference between A an…Read more
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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