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9Key Terms in Logic (edited book)Continuum Press. 2010.An accessible guide for those facing the study of Logic For The first time, this book covers key thinkers, terms and texts.
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21Experimental practices and objectivity in the social sciences: re-embedding construct validity in the internal–external validity distinctionSynthese 199 (3-4): 9549-9579. 2021.The experimental revolution in the social sciences is one of the most significant methodological shifts undergone by the field since the ‘quantitative revolution’ in the nineteenth century. One of the often valued features of social science experimentation is precisely the fact that there are clear methodological rules regarding hypothesis testing that come from the methods of the natural sciences and from the methodology of RCTs in the biomedical sciences, and that allow for the adjudication am…Read more
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47COVID-19 heralds a new epistemology of science for the public goodHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (2): 1-6. 2021.COVID-19 has revealed that science needs to learn how to better deal with the irreducible uncertainty that comes with global systemic risks as well as with the social responsibility of science towards the public good. Further developing the epistemological principles of new theories and experimental practices, alternative investigative pathways and communication, and diverse voices can be an important contribution of history and philosophy of science and of science studies to ongoing transformat…Read more
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71Critical data studies: An introductionBig Data and Society 3 (2). 2016.Critical Data Studies explore the unique cultural, ethical, and critical challenges posed by Big Data. Rather than treat Big Data as only scientifically empirical and therefore largely neutral phenomena, CDS advocates the view that Big Data should be seen as always-already constituted within wider data assemblages. Assemblages is a concept that helps capture the multitude of ways that already-composed data structures inflect and interact with society, its organization and functioning, and the re…Read more
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105Causality in the sciences (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.The book tackles these questions as well as others concerning the use of causality in the sciences.
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13Causality and Modelling in the Sciences: IntroductionDisputatio 9 (47): 423-427. 2017.The advantage of examining causality from the perspective of modelling is thus that it puts us naturally closer to the practice of the sciences. This means being able to set up an interdisciplinary dialogue that contrasts and compares modelling practices in different fields, say economics and biology, medicine and statistics, climate change and physics. It also means that it helps philosophers looking for questions that go beyond the narrow ‘what-is-causality’ or ‘what-are-relata’ and thus puts …Read more
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117EnviroGenomarkers: The Interplay Between Mechanisms and Difference Making in Establishing Causal ClaimsMedicine Studies 3 (4): 249-262. 2012.According to Russo and Williamson (Int Stud Philos Sci 21(2):157–170, 2007, Hist Philos Life Sci 33:389–396, 2011a, Philos Sci 1(1):47–69, 2011b ), in order to establish a causal claim of the form, ‘_C_ is a cause of _E_’, one typically needs evidence that there is an underlying mechanism between _C_ and _E_ as well as evidence that _C_ makes a difference to _E_. This thesis has been used to argue that hierarchies of evidence, as championed by evidence-based movements, tend to give primacy to ev…Read more
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181Causality and causal modelling in the social sciencesSpringer, Dordrecht. 2009.The anti-causal prophecies of last century have been disproved. Causality is neither a ‘relic of a bygone’ nor ‘another fetish of modern science’; it still occupies a large part of the current debate in philosophy and the sciences. This investigation into causal modelling presents the rationale of causality, i.e. the notion that guides causal reasoning in causal modelling. It is argued that causal models are regimented by a rationale of variation, nor of regularity neither invariance, thus break…Read more
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64Functions and Mechanisms in Structural-Modelling ExplanationsJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (1): 187-208. 2014.One way social scientists explain phenomena is by building structural models. These models are explanatory insofar as they manage to perform a recursive decomposition on an initial multivariate probability distribution, which can be interpreted as a mechanism. Explanations in social sciences share important aspects that have been highlighted in the mechanisms literature. Notably, spelling out the functioning the mechanism gives it explanatory power. Thus social scientists should choose the varia…Read more
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55Epistemic Diversity and the Question of Lingua Franca in Science and PhilosophyFoundations of Science 25 (1): 185-207. 2020.Epistemic diversity is the ability or possibility of producing diverse and rich epistemic apparati to make sense of the world around us. In this paper we discuss whether, and to what extent, different conceptions of knowledge—notably as ‘justified true belief’ and as ‘distributed and embodied cognition’—hinder or foster epistemic diversity. We then link this discussion to the widespread move in science and philosophy towards monolingual disciplinary environments. We argue that English, despite a…Read more
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130Epistemic causality and evidence-based medicineHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33 (4). 2011.Causal claims in biomedical contexts are ubiquitous albeit they are not always made explicit. This paper addresses the question of what causal claims mean in the context of disease. It is argued that in medical contexts causality ought to be interpreted according to the epistemic theory. The epistemic theory offers an alternative to traditional accounts that cash out causation either in terms of “difference-making” relations or in terms of mechanisms. According to the epistemic approach, causal …Read more
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21Kevin C. Elliott and Ted Richards, eds. Exploring Inductive Risk: Case Studies of Values in Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xiv+277. $99.00 ; $40.00 (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (1): 179-182. 2019.
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IntroductionIn Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Michael Wilde, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P. Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo, Beth Shaw & Jon Williamson (eds.), Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine, Springer. 2018.
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How to Consider Evidence of Mechanisms: An OverviewIn Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Michael Wilde, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P. Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo, Beth Shaw & Jon Williamson (eds.), Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine, Springer. 2018.
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Assessing ExposuresIn Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Michael Wilde, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P. Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo, Beth Shaw & Jon Williamson (eds.), Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine, Springer. 2018.
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Particularisation to an IndividualIn Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Michael Wilde, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P. Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo, Beth Shaw & Jon Williamson (eds.), Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine, Springer. 2018.
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ToolsIn Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Michael Wilde, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P. Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo, Beth Shaw & Jon Williamson (eds.), Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine, Springer. 2018.
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44It is widely agreed that social factors are related to health outcomes: much research served to establish correlations between classes of social factors on the one hand and classes of disease on the other hand. However, why and how social factors are an active part in the aetiology of disease development is something that is gaining attention only recently in the health sciences and in the medical humanities. In this paper, we advance the view that, just as bio-markers help trace the causal cont…Read more
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45Review of Kevin Christopher Elliott and Ted Richards: Exploring Inductive Risk: Case Studies of Values in Science (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (1): 179-182. 2019.
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50Causality in Cancer Research: a Journey Through Models in Molecular Epidemiology and their Philosophical InterpretationEmerging Themes in Epidemiology 14 (7): 1-8. 2017.In the last decades, Systems Biology (including cancer research) has been driven by technology, statistical modelling and bioinformatics. In this paper we try to bring biological and philosophical thinking back. We thus aim at making diferent traditions of thought compatible: (a) causality in epidemiology and in philosophical theorizing—notably, the “sufcient-component-cause framework” and the “mark transmission” approach; (b) new acquisitions about disease pathogenesis, e.g. the “branched model…Read more
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92Causality: Philosophical theory meets scientific practiceOxford University Press. 2014.Scientific and philosophical literature on causality has become highly specialised. It is hard to find suitable access points for students, young researchers, or professionals outside this domain. This book provides a guide to the complex literature, explains the scientific problems of causality and the philosophical tools needed to address them.
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35Digital Technologies, Ethical Questions, and the Need of an Informational FrameworkPhilosophy and Technology 31 (4): 655-667. 2018.Technologies have always been bearers of profound changes in science, society, and any other aspect of life. The latest technological revolution—the digital revolution—is no exception in this respect. This paper presents the revolution brought about by digital technologies through the lenses of a specific approach: the philosophy of information. It is argued that the adoption of an informational approach helps avoiding utopian or dystopian approaches to technology, both expressions of technologi…Read more
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49Scientific Disagreement and Evidential Pluralism: Lessons from the Studies on HypercholesterolemiaHumana Mente 10 (32): 75-116. 2017.Inconsistencies between scientific theories have been studied, by and large, from the perspective of paraconsistent logic. This approach considered the formal properties of theories and the structure of inferences one can legitimately draw from theories. However, inconsistencies can be also analysed from the perspective of modelling practices, in particular how modelling practices may lead scientists to form opinions and attitudes that are different, but not necessarily inconsistent. In such cas…Read more
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35On the Poietic Character of TechnologyHumana Mente 9 (30). 2016.Large part of contemporary science is in fact technoscience, in the sense that it crucially depends on several technologies for the generation, collection, and analysis of data. This prompts a re-examination of the relations between science and technologies. In this essay, I advance the view that we’d better move beyond the ‘subordination view’ and the ‘instrumental’ view. The first aims to establish the primacy of science over technology, and the second uses technology instrumentally to support…Read more
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62What Invariance Is and How to Test for ItInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 28 (2): 157-183. 2014.Causal assessment is the problem of establishing whether a relation between (variable) X and (variable) Y is causal. This problem, to be sure, is widespread across the sciences. According to accredited positions in the philosophy of causality and in social science methodology, invariance under intervention provides the most reliable test to decide whether X causes Y. This account of invariance (under intervention) has been criticised, among other reasons, because it makes manipulations on the pu…Read more
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142Public health policy, evidence, and causation: lessons from the studies on obesityMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 15 (2): 141-151. 2012.The paper addresses the question of how different types of evidence ought to inform public health policy. By analysing case studies on obesity, the paper draws lessons about the different roles that different types of evidence play in setting up public health policies. More specifically, it is argued that evidence of difference-making supports considerations about ‘what works for whom in what circumstances’, and that evidence of mechanisms provides information about the ‘causal pathways’ to inte…Read more
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130Variational Causal Claims in EpidemiologyPerspectives in Biology and Medicine 52 (4): 540-554. 2009.The paper examines definitions of ‘cause’ in the epidemiological literature. Those definitions all describe causes as factors that make a difference to the distribution of disease or to individual health status. In the philosophical jargon, causes in epidemiology are difference-makers. Two claims are defended. First, it is argued that those definitions underpin an epistemology and a methodology that hinge upon the notion of variation, contra the dominant Humean paradigm according to which we inf…Read more
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8Can a Unified Approach Help in Teaching Philosophy of Science?Science & Education 25 (7-8): 929-931. 2016.