-
26Physics' Contribution to CausationKriterion - Journal of Philosophy (AO): 21-46. 2020.Most philosophers of physics are eliminativists about causation. Following Bertrand Russell’s lead, they think that causation is a folk concept that cannot be rationally reconstructed within a worldview informed by contemporary physics. Against this thesis, I argue that physics contributes to shaping the concept of causation, in two ways. 1. Special Relativity is a physical theory that expresses causal constraints. 2. The physical concept of a conserved quantity can be used in the functional red…Read more
-
Causation and laws of natureIn Jennifer McMahon (ed.), Aesthetics and Material Beauty: Aesthetics Naturalized, Routledge. 2007.
-
Causation and laws of natureIn Heather Dyke (ed.), Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy, Routledge. 2007.
-
4What makes a capacity a disposition?In Max Kistler & Bruno Gnassounou (eds.), Dispositions and Causal Powers, Ashgate. pp. 195-206. 2007.One of the major attempts to avoid this problem is to claim that the subject matter of laws are ascriptions of dispositions, powers, capacities etc., and not the regular behaviour we find in nature. 'Causal capacities can be measured as surely or unsurely as anything else that science deals with. Sometimes we measure capacities in a physics laboratory'. Many philosophers of science think that many laws of nature are so called ceteris paribus laws. Take the following statements for examples: 'All…Read more
-
3Espèces naturelles, profil causal et constitution multipleLato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 3 (1): 17-30. 2016.The identity of a natural kind can be construed in terms of its causal profile. This conception is more appropriate to science than two alternatives. The identity of a natural kind is not determined by one causal role because one natural kind can have many causal roles and several functions and because some functions are shared by different kinds. Furthermore, the microstructuralist thesis is wrong: The identity of certain natural kinds is not determined by their microstructure. It is true that …Read more
-
4Analysing Causation in Light of Intuitions, Causal Statements, and ScienceIn Bridget Copley & Fabienne Martin (eds.), Causation in Grammatical Structures, Oxford University Press. 2014.The aim of this paper is to provide an account of causation that is compatible with both common sense intuition and science. In the next section, I briefly rehearse the most important philosophical strategies for analysing the concept of causation. Then I investigate, in the third section, criteria of correctness for a philosophical theory of causation. In the fourth section, I review some important counterexamples to the traditional accounts mentioned in the second section, and suggest, in the …Read more
-
15Laws, 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
-
5L'esprit matériel: réduction et émergenceIthaque. 2016.Nous sommes des êtres à la fois spirituels et corporels. Mon poids est un attribut corporel, tandis que ma capacité d'imaginer un paysage marin relève d'un attribut mental. Or, une fois admise cette dualité des attributs, comment concevoir l'interaction entre le corps et l'esprit? Face aux doctrines dualistes qui échouent à répondre à cette question, Max Kistler défend ici une variante du matérialisme réductionniste qui fait droit à la notion d'émergence : corps et esprit se logent…Read more
-
106Physics’ Contribution to CausationKriterion - Journal of Philosophy 35 (1): 21-46. 2021.Most philosophers of physics are eliminativists about causation. Following Bertrand Russell’s lead, they think that causation is a folk concept that cannot be rationally reconstructed within a worldview informed by contemporary physics. Against this thesis, I argue that physics contributes to shaping the concept of causation, in two ways. (1) Special Relativity is a physical theory that expresses causal constraints. (2) The physical concept of a conserved quantity can be used in the functional r…Read more
-
15Models 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
-
5Causation and Laws of NatureRoutledge. 2006.This is the first English translation of _Causalite´ et Lois de La Nature,_ and is an important contribution to the theory of causation_._ Max Kistler reconstructs a unified concept of causation that is general enough to adequately deal with both elementary physical processes, and the macroscopic level of phenomena we encounter in everyday life. This book will be of great interest to philosophers of science and metaphysics, and also to students and scholars of philosophy of mind where concepts o…Read more
-
10Natural Kinds, Causal Profile and Multiple ConstitutionMetaphysica 19 (1): 113-135. 2018.The identity of a natural kind can be construed in terms of its causal profile. This conception is more appropriate to science than two alternatives. The identity of a natural kind is not determined by one causal role because one natural kind can have many causal roles and several functions and because some functions are shared by different kinds. Furthermore, the microstructuralist thesis is wrong: The identity of certain natural kinds is not determined by their microstructure. It is true that …Read more
-
Les Dispositions en philosophie et en sciences (edited book)Presses Universitaires de France. 2006.
-
3Causation and laws of natureRoutledge. 2006.Causation is important. It is, as Hume said, the cement of the universe, and lies at the heart of our conceptual structure. Causation is one of the most fundamental tools we have for organizing our apprehension of the external world and ourselves. But philosophers' disagreement about the correct interpretation of causation is as limitless as their agreement about its importance. The history of attempts to elucidate the nature of this concept and to situate it with respect to other fundamental co…Read more
-
3Naturphilosophie AlS metaphysik der natur – by Michael EsfeldDialectica 63 (1): 99-103. 2009.No Abstract
-
Higher-Level, Downward and Specific CausationIn Michele Paolini Paoletti & Francesco Orilia (eds.), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation, Routledge. 2017.
-
15Mechanisms and downward causationPhilosophical Psychology 22 (5): 595-609. 2009.Experimental investigation of mechanisms seems to make use of causal relations that cut across levels of composition. In bottom-up experiments, one intervenes on parts of a mechanism to observe the whole; in top-down experiments, one intervenes on the whole mechanism to observe certain parts of it. It is controversial whether such experiments really make use of interlevel causation, and indeed whether the idea of causation across levels is even conceptually coherent. Craver and Bechtel have sugg…Read more
-
104Powers, dispositions and laws of natureIn Anne Sophie Meincke (ed.), Dispositionalism: Perspectives From Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 171-188. 2020.Metaphysics should follow science in postulating laws alongside properties. I defend this claim against the claim that natural properties conceived as powers make laws of nature redundant. Natural properties can be construed in a “thin” or a “thick” way. If one attributes a property in the thin sense to an object, this attribution does not conceptually determine which other properties the object possesses. The thin construal is underlying the scientific strategy for understanding nature piecemea…Read more
-
10The 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
-
20Causation 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
-
2Review of Markus Schrenk, The Metaphysics of Ceteris Paribus Laws (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (10). 2007.
-
9International audience.
-
6Cognition 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
-
4Multiple 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
-
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