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80Physics' 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
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Causation and laws of natureIn Jennifer McMahon (ed.), Aesthetics and Material Beauty: Aesthetics Naturalized, Routledge. 2007.
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Causation and laws of natureIn Heather Dyke (ed.), Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy, Routledge. 2007.
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6What makes a capacity a disposition?In Max Kistler & Bruno Gnassounou (eds.), Dispositions and Causal Powers, . 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
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6Espèces 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
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11Analysing Causation in Light of Intuitions, Causal Statements, and ScienceIn B. Copley & F. Martin (eds.), Causation in Grammatical Structures, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.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
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22Laws, 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
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8L'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
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173Physics’ 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
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40Models 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
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Les Dispositions en philosophie et en sciences (edited book)Presses Universitaires de France. 2006.
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255Causation 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
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9Causation 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
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62Natural 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
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39Naturphilosophie AlS metaphysik der natur – by Michael EsfeldDialectica 63 (1): 99-103. 2009.No Abstract
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255Mechanisms 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
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Higher-Level, Downward and Specific CausationIn Michele Paolini Paoletti & Francesco Orilia (eds.), Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Downward Causation, Routledge. 2016.
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423Powers, dispositions and laws of natureIn Meincke (ed.), Dispositionalism: Perspectives from Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (Synthese Library), 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
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133Is functional reduction logical reduction?Croatian Journal of Philosophy 5 (14): 219-234. 2005.The functionalist conception of mental properties, together with their multiple realizability, is often taken to entail their irreducibility. It might seem that the only way to revise that judgement is to weaken the requirements traditionally imposed on reduction. However, Jaegwon Kim has recently argued that we should, on the contrary, strengthen those requirements, and construe reduction as what I propose to call “logical reduction”, a model of reduction inspired by emergentism. Moreover, Kim …Read more
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67Réduction «rôle-occupant», réduction «micro-macro» et explication réductrice a prioriDialogue 44 (2): 225-248. 2005.It has been argued that most truths about macroscopic states of affairs are entailed by a (hypothetical) complete descriptionPof the world in microscopic terms. In principle, micro-reductive explanations of non-microphysical truths could be constructeda priori.Against this claim, I show that reductive explanation requires knowledge about the phenomena to be reduced which cannot bea prioriextracted from microphysical information alone. Such reductions proceed in two steps: a “reductionR0” (“role-…Read more
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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
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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
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72Powerful properties and the causal basis of dispositionsIn Alexander Bird, B. D. Ellis & Howard Sankey (eds.), Properties, Powers, and Structures: Issues in the Metaphysics of Realism, Routledge. pp. 119--137. 2011.Many predicates are dispositional. Some show this by a suffix like "-ible", -uble", or "-able": sugar is soluble in water, gasoline is flammable. Others have no such suffix and don't wear their dispositionality on their sleeves. Yet part of what it is to be solid is to be disposed to resist deformation, and part of what it is to be red is to appear red to normal human observers in normal lighting conditions. However, there is no agreement as to whether dispositional predicates may be given a rea…Read more
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48Nature's Metaphysics -- Laws and Properties , by Alexander Bird (review)Mind 119 (473): 188-193. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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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