Mathias Frisch

One of the central characteristics of the causal relation is that it is asymmetric. This chapter looks at possible relations between the direction of time and the causal asymmetry. It first presents a discussion on a causal theory of the temporal asymmetry that takes the causal asymmetry to be basic. It then examines two kinds of accounts that take asymmetric causal relations to be further reducible. The first kind is a subjectivist account of causation that argues that the fact that we describe the world in asymmetric causal terms has its origins in a more fundamental asymmetry of deliberation. The author here focuses on the more recent defense of such an account in Price and Weslake. The second kind is an entropy account of the causal asymmetry. A more recent version of such an account, the account developed by David Albert and Barry Loewer, is discussed in the chapter.

Models not only represent but may also influence their targets in important ways. While models’ abilities to influence outcomes has been studied in the context of economic models, often under the label ‘performativity’, we argue that this phenomenon also pertains to epidemiological models, such as those used for forecasting the trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic. After identifying three ways in which a model by the Covid-19 Response Team at Imperial College London may have influenced scientific advice, policy, and individual responses, we consider the implications of epidemiological models’ performative capacities. We argue, first, that performativity may impair models’ ability to successfully predict the course of an epidemic; but second, that it may provide an additional sense in which these models can be successful, namely by changing the course of an epidemic.

How could the initial, drastic decisions to implement “lockdowns” to control the spread of COVID-19 infections be justifiable, when they were made on the basis of such uncertain evidence? We defend the imposition of lockdowns in some countries by first, and focusing on the UK, looking at the evidence that undergirded the decision, second, arguing that this provided us with sufficient grounds to restrict liberty given the circumstances, and third, defending the use of poorly-empirically-constrained epidemiological models as tools that can legitimately guide public policy.

When do probability distribution functions (PDFs) about future climate misrepresent uncertainty? How can we recognise when such misrepresentation occurs and thus avoid it in reasoning about or communicating our uncertainty? And when we should not use a PDF, what should we do instead? In this paper we address these three questions. We start by providing a classification of types of uncertainty and using this classification to illustrate when PDFs misrepresent our uncertainty in a way that may adversely affect decisions. We then discuss when it is reasonable and appropriate to use a PDF to reason about or communicate uncertainty about climate. We consider two perspectives on this issue. On one, which we argue is preferable, available theory and evidence in climate science basically excludes using PDFs to represent our uncertainty. On the other, PDFs can legitimately be provided when resting on appropriate expert judgement and recognition of associated risks. Once we have specified the border between appropriate and inappropriate uses of PDFs, we explore alternatives to their use. We briefly describe two formal alternatives, namely imprecise probabilities and possibilistic distribution functions, as well as informal possibilistic alternatives. We suggest that the possibilistic alternatives are preferable.

This chapter examines two approaches to climate policy: expected utility calculations and a precautionary approach. The former provides the framework for attempts to calculate the social cost of carbon. The latter approach has provided the guiding principle for the United Nations Conference of Parties from the 1992 Rio Declaration to the Paris Agreement. The chapter argues that the deep uncertainties concerning the climate system and climate damages make the exercise of trying to calculate a well-supported value for the SCC impossible. Moreover, cost-benefit analyses are blind to important moral dimensions of the climate problem. Yet it is an open question to what extent an alternative, precautionary approach can result in specific policy recommendations such as the temperature targets of the Paris agreement.

This chapter examines the role of parameterParametercalibrationCalibration in the confirmation and validation of complex computer simulation models. I examine the question to what extent calibration data can confirm or validate the calibrated model, focusing in particular on Bayesian approaches to confirmation. I distinguish several different Bayesian approaches to confirmation and argue that complex simulation models exhibit a predictivist effect: Complex computer simulation models constitute a case in which predictive success, as opposed to the mere accommodation of evidence, provides a more stringent test of the model. DataData used in tuning do not validate or confirm a model to the same extent as data successfully predicted by the model do.

According to a view widely held among philosophers of science, the notion of cause has no legitimate role to play in mature theories of physics. In this paper I investigate the role of what physicists themselves identify as causal principles in the derivation of dispersion relations. I argue that this case study constitutes a counterexample to the popular view and that causal principles can function as genuine factual constraints. 1. Introduction2. Causality and Dispersion Relations3. Norton's Skepticism4. Conclusion.

As the record-breaking heat of 2016 continues into 2017, making it likely that 2017 will be the second hottest year on record just behind the El Niño year 2016, and as Arctic heat waves pushing the sea ice extent to record lows are mirrored by large scale sheets of meltwater and even rain in Antarctica—the Trump administration is taking dramatic steps to undo the Obama administration’s climate legacy.In its final years, the Obama administration pursued two principal strategies toward climate policy. First, by signing the Paris Accord it committed the U.S. to contribute to global efforts to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to...

I discuss two case studies from classical electrodynamics challenging the distinction between laws that delineate physically possible words and initial conditions. First, for many reasonable initial conditions there exist no global solutions to the Maxwell‐Lorentz equations for continuous charge distributions. Second, in deriving an equation of motion for a charged point particle one needs to invoke an asymptotic condition that seems to express a physically contingent fact even though it is mathematically necessary for the derivation.

Much has been written on the role of causal notions and causal reasoning in the so-called 'special sciences' and in common sense. But does causal reasoning also play a role in physics? Mathias Frisch argues that, contrary to what influential philosophical arguments purport to show, the answer is yes. Time-asymmetric causal structures are as integral a part of the representational toolkit of physics as a theory's dynamical equations. Frisch develops his argument partly through a critique of anti-causal arguments and partly through a detailed examination of actual examples of causal notions in physics, including causal principles invoked in linear response theory and in representations of radiation phenomena. Offering a new perspective on the nature of scientific theories and causal reasoning, this book will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students, and anyone interested in the role of causal thinking in science.

Classical dispersion relations are derived from a time-asymmetric constraint. I argue that the standard causal interpretation of this constraint plays a scientifically legitimate role in dispersion theory, and hence provides a counterexample to the causal skepticism advanced by John Norton and others. Norton ([2009]) argues that the causal interpretation of the time-asymmetric constraint is an empty honorific and that the constraint can be motivated by purely non-causal considerations. In this paper I respond to Norton's criticisms and argue that Norton's skepticism derives its force partly by holding causal principles to a standard too high to be met by other scientifically legitimate constraints

This paper provides a survey of several philosophical issues arising in classical electrodynamics arguing that there is a philosophically rich set of problems in theories of classical physics that have not yet received the attention by philosophers that they deserve. One issue, which is connected to the philosophy of causation, concerns the temporal asymmetry exhibited by radiation fields in the presence of wave sources. Physicists and philosophers disagree on whether this asymmetry reflects a fundamental causal asymmetry or is due to statistical or thermodynamic considerations. I suggest that an explanation appealing to the asymmetry of causation is more promising. Another issue concerns the conceptual structure of the theory. Despite its empirical success, classical electrodynamics faces serious foundational problems. Models of charged particles involve what by the theory's own lights are idealizations, I maintain, and this is a feature that is not readily captured by traditional philosophical accounts of scientific theories. Other issues I discuss concern (i) the relation between Lorentz's theory of the electron and Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity; (ii) the notion of the domain of a theory, the question of theory reduction, and the relation between classical and more fundamental quantum theories; and (iii) the role of locality constraints, their relation to the concept of causation; and the status of locality conditions in the semi-classical theory of the Aharanov-Bohm effect.

In recent work on the foundations of statistical mechanics and the arrow of time, Barry Loewer and David Albert have developed a view that defends both a best system account of laws and a physicalist fundamentalism. I argue that there is a tension between their account of laws, which emphasizes the pragmatic element in assessing the relative strength of different deductive systems, and their reductivism or funda- mentalism. If we take the pragmatic dimension in their account seriously, then the laws of the special sciences should be part of our best explanatory system of the world, as well.

This article defends a pragmatic and structuralist account of scientific representation of the kind recently proposed by Bas van Fraassen against criticisms of both the structuralist and the pragmatist plank of the account. I argue that the account appears to have the unacceptable consequence that the domain of a theory is restricted to phenomena for which we actually have constructed a model—a worry arising from the account’s pragmatism, which is exacerbated by its structuralism. Yet, the account has the resources, at least partially, to address the worry. What remains as implication is a strong anti-foundationalism. 1 Introduction2 ‘No Representation without Representer’3 Representational Structuralism3.1 Do structural models need to be concretely fitted out?3.2 The triviality objection4 Anti-foundationalism5 Conclusion

According to a widespread view, which can be traced back to Russell’s famous attack on the notion of cause, causal notions have no legitimate role to play in how mature physical theories represent the world. In this paper I first critically examine a number of arguments for this view that center on the asymmetry of the causal relation and argue that none of them succeed. I then argue that embedding the dynamical models of a theory into richer causal structures can allow us to decide between models in cases where our observational data severely underdetermine our choice of dynamical models