-
41Review 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
-
37Strong Emergence and Freedom: Comment on A. StephanIn Graham Macdonald & Cynthia Macdonald (eds.), Emergence in Mind, Oxford University Press. pp. 240--251. 2010.
-
37Naturphilosophie AlS metaphysik der natur – by Michael EsfeldDialectica 63 (1): 99-103. 2009.No Abstract
-
29The Causal Efficacy of Macroscopic Dispositional PropertiesIn Max Kistler & Bruno Gnassounou (eds.), Dispositions and Causal Powers, Ashgate. pp. 103--132. 2007.
-
29Models of Downward CausationIn Jan Voosholz & Markus Gabriel (eds.), Top-Down Causation and Emergence, Springer Verlag. pp. 305-326. 2021.Two conceptual frameworks – in terms of phase space and in terms of structural equations – are sketched, in which downward causal influence of higher-level features on lower-level features is possible. The “Exclusion” principle, which is a crucial premise of the argument against the possibility of downward causation, is false in models constructed within both frameworks. Both frameworks can be supplemented with conceptual tools that make it possible to explain why downward causal influence is no…Read more
-
25Lois, exceptions et dispositionsIn Kistler Max & Gnassounou Bruno (eds.), Les Dispositions En Philosophie Et En Sciences, Presses Universitaires De France. pp. 175--94. 2006.
-
24Causalité 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
-
23The 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
-
22Causation as Transference and ResponsibilityIn Wolfgang Spohn, Marion Ledwig & Michael Esfeld (eds.), Current Issues in Causation, Mentis. pp. 115-133. 2001.During the last decades there has been a remarkable renewal of interest in theories of causation which is linked to the decline of the orthodoxy of the Logical empiricist school. A number of alternatives to the traditional covering-law account have been proposed. I shall defend a version of an approach that has been undeservedly neglected: the Transference Theory of causation. Accounts of this type elaborate the intuition that there is a material link between the cause and the effect, consisting…Read more
-
22Réduction fonctionnelle et réduction logiquePhilosophiques 27 (1): 27-38. 2000.Kim attribue aux émergentistes un modèle de « réduction logique » dans lequel la prédiction ou l’explication d’une occurrence de la propriété réduite ne requiert, outre des informations sur le niveau réducteur, que des principes logiques et mathématiques. Sur la base de cette interprétation, je conteste deux thèses de Kim. La première concerne la légitimité du modèle émergentiste de réduction. J’essaie de montrer, à l’aide de l’exemple de l’addition des masses, que l’adoption de la réduction log…Read more
-
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
-
19Some 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
-
18Perspectives on causes and dispositions: Toby Handfield : Dispositions and causes, Oxford University Press, 2009, 343 pp, £45.00, HBMetascience 19 (3): 403-407. 2010.
-
18Laws, Exceptions and DispositionsJOLMA 1 (1): 53-74. 2020.Can laws of nature be universal regularities and nevertheless have exceptions? Several answers to this question, in particular the thesis that there are no laws outside of fundamental physics, are examined and rejected. It is suggested that one can account for exceptions by conceiving of laws as strictly universal determination relations between (instances of) properties. When a natural property is instantiated, laws of nature give rise to other, typically dispositional properties. In exceptiona…Read more
-
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
-
University of Paris 1 Panthéon-SorbonneDepartment for Teaching and Research in Philosophy (UFR10)Regular Faculty
-
Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueInstitute for the History and Philosophy of Science and TechnologyRegular Faculty