Rani Lill Anjum

Since the advent of modern philosophy, causation has been treated as a relation between two separate events. Any worldly dynamism is then provided by the succession of essentially static events. Recent decades have seen a revival of interest in powers, but this has been hampered by an acceptance of many of the presuppositions of modern philosophy, most conspicuously those of Hume. Simply placing powers on top of the static Humean framework will not do. Causal dispositionalism offers a more dynamic notion, where an instance of causation involves a unified process rather than a relation between distinct events. This theory has a number of advantages. It can account for change as well as stability, long- and short-lived processes, genuine complexity and real emergence, non-linear interaction of causes, extreme context-sensitivity, and contrary powers. This is a more plausible framework for understanding causation in biology, ontologically and epistemically.

When and how do powers manifest themselves? There are two models. The orthodox view has powers standing in need of stimuli, which once received issue in responses. This model portrays powers as passive. The stimuli are powerful, but the powers are disempowered, turning the order of explanation on its head. The second model is more promising: C. B. Martin’s notion of mutual manifestation partnering. Powers exercise when they meet their reciprocal partners and produce something jointly that they could not have produced alone. In his chapter on causation, Martin offers an analogy to explain mutual manifestation: it is like two triangular cards coming together to form a square. The triangles do not cause the square; they become the square. We argue that although mutual manifestation is the right model, Martin’s analogy of the two triangles is misleading. If we look at natural processes in which powers exercise and manifest themselves, we see that three revisions are needed to the analogy. First, the triangles need not become the square immediately. It can take time for a process to unfold. Second, powers compose often in a non-linear fashion. This would mean that the area of the square need not be the sum of the areas of the two triangles. Third, component powers needn’t be found in their resultant powers. This would be like the two triangles sometimes forming a circle rather than a square. Martin’s analogy depicted mereological composition rather than the natural processes issuing from powers and, contrary to his claim, causation is indeed the notion we should be thinking of.

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced: 1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated 2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers 3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers Therefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false.

It’s an important part of the scientific endeavour to understand causes and effects. Today we are witnessing the increasingly evident effects of unsustainable human activity: environmental pollution, shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme weather, destruction of eco-systems, loss of nature and biodiversity, conflict, war, and new diseases. Although many of these problems were caused by our scientific and technological advances, starting with the industrial revolution, it does not seem realistic to solve them without contributions from science and technology. For this, causal knowledge is vital. Finding good solutions often depends on us identifying the causes of the problem correctly and get a better understanding of the causal mechanisms leading up to the unwanted effects.

We have introduced the idea of philosophical bias in science. While other biases can and should be avoided, we said, a philosophical bias can only be replaced with another bias or be explicitly stated as a premise for research. There is, however, a view that even to talk about bias in science, and to promote an ideal of bias-free research, suggests that one is already committed to a specific philosophical bias. If so, it seems that talk about ‘bias’ is itself a sign of a philosophical bias. The concept of bias suggests that science could, in principle, be entirely neutral and free from systematic errors, but also from methodological and philosophical assumptions, values, and other presuppositions. The aim of research could then be to uncover truths about reality, as they are, independently of us. If the results are influenced or contaminated by the researcher, that would amount to bad science.

Ancient Greek philosophers, also before Socrates, were concerned with ontology. Before the natural sciences developed, there was philosophy of nature, or ‘physis’, where philosophers speculated about the origin, constituents, and first principles of the physical reality. What is the most foundational principle of all things? What unites everything that exists? When we talk about ontology, therefore, we usually think of the universal, eternal, and unchanging principles of reality: that which never changes across time and space. There is, however, a contemporary debate in philosophy that can be traced back to the pre-Socratics: Could the most universal and unchanging principle of reality be that everything is in constant change? Perhaps change is the only constant?

We all care about risk, but it’s not always clear what we are talking about. Some might think of risk as a technical notion for calculating odds and guiding betting behaviour and investments. Or we might think of risk as the likelihood of some negative outcome, such as being involved in a plane crash or getting ill. When making an important life choice, we often think about how our future will look as a result of it. But how much can we know about the future? According to Hume and his empiricist criteria of knowledge, we can know nothing at all about the future.

In September 2019, when 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the US Congress on climate change, she brought the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on global warming as her testimony. ‘I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists’, she said, referring to the broad scientific consensus behind the report. If the vast majority of scientists agree about the causes and effects of climate change, then why would anyone rationally distrust them?

We saw in part II that different philosophical biases can motivate different and sometimes conflicting scientific practices and norms. In this final part of the book, ‘What then when experts disagree? Applying philosophy to scientific controversies’, the aim is to put the theory to work in practice and see how a philosophical analysis of controversy could be done. Most scientific controversies will involve more than one basic implicit assumption, since philosophical biases of ontological, epistemological, and ethical types are intertwined. Our main purpose here is mainly to show the principle, so we concentrate on one or two biases for each case. We provide ideas for further analysis of each case in the sample essay questions. We have chosen a selection of real-life cases of expert disagreement and philosophical biases, and each case is based on one or more published articles.

Analytic philosophers have in recent decades rediscovered powers as the basis for an all-encompassing metaphysics and philosophy of nature. What recommends the powers view is its explanatory utility, including a putative explanation of potentiality. Powers can be understood as the elementsElement in the world that provide the grounding for potentiality in actuality. They can be productive of their manifestations but typically do so only in certain circumstances. This will explain why there can be some potentialities that are not actualised and also why there are some constraints on what can be. The powers account also makes potentialities a possible subject of scientific investigation as powers are to a degree empirically accessible. It is important, however, that we provide a plausible account of how powers are able to bring things about: how they able to make some of the potentialities actualities. A mutual manifestation model is preferred to the stimulus-response model of productionProduction. It was C. B. Martin who introduced the mutualMutualmanifestationManifestation model but it is argued that his account needs to be amended so that it resembles less mereological compositionComposition and more causationCausation.

We explore an unsolved challenge in the era of evidence-based medicine (EBM): the recognition of the patient as an epistemic agent or ‘knower’. While patients are increasingly acknowledged as carriers of values and preferences, it seems more challenging to acknowledge them as carriers of important causal information. In contrast, the science of pharmacovigilance depends on patient testimonies as valuable sources of causal evidence. This incompatibility can give rise to cases of what has been called participatory epistemic injustice. We analyse the testimony of a chronic pain patient and co-author of this article, Christine. Christine gives an auto-ethnographic account of her interactions with healthcare professionals trying to find the right pharmacological treatment for her condition. Through the analysis of her own story, she identifies some relevant themes for the epistemic interaction between healthcare professionals and chronic pain patients. We argue that such epistemic interactions are increasingly shaped by EBM and its conception of causality, which devalues patient subjective testimonies and emphasises statistical evidence. We conclude that outlier patients face an inherent risk of being left vulnerable to participatory epistemic injustice, particularly regarding the discovery of novel, rare adverse effects of medicines.

This textbook is a comprehensive, engaging, and user-friendly introduction to philosophy of science written by a philosopher and a scientist. By exploring traditional debates within philosophy of science, as well as analysing contemporary scientific controversies for philosophical bias, the reader is invited to reflect upon how philosophical assumptions influence scientific theory, methods, and practice. Key features: - Is an accessible introduction to philosophy of science written by a philosopher and a scientist. - Includes some of the many important contributions from women philosophers and scientists. - Demonstrates the philosophical influences on scientific thinking, practice, and expert disagreement. - Applies philosophy of science to analyse some specific real-life cases of scientific controversy. This book is an essential resource for students and teachers in philosophy of science. It is also ideal for anyone interested in the philosophical influences on contemporary science.

Omissions are sometimes linked to responsibility. A harm can counterfactually depend on an omission to prevent it. If someone had the ability to prevent a harm but didn’t, this could suffice to ground their responsibility for the harm. Michael S. Moore’s claim is illustrated by the tragic case of Peter Parker, shortly after he became Spider-Man. Sick of being pushed around as a weakling kid, Peter became drunk on the power he acquired from the freak bite of a radioactive spider. When a police officer called to Spider-Man to stop an escaping burglar, which he could have done easily, he failed to act. He was through taking orders. The omission was followed by a crime. That very same burglar later robbed Peter’s own house and when challenged he shot dead Peter’s Uncle Ben. Later, Spider-Man tracked down the killer and, when seeing his face close up, the possibility of prevention dawned on him. He could have stopped this crook and had he done so Uncle Ben would still be alive. Stan Lee’s tale of power finished with a Shakespearean twist. Young Peter realised the truth of the WGPCGR-thesis: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. We too will endorse the WGPCGR-thesis. There is a close connection between our notions of moral and legal responsibility and the powers we have as causal agents. This will be particularly important when it comes to the case of omissions: where we had the power to act but failed to do so. We hope to show the connections between the notions of power, cause, act, omission and responsibility but also some of the nuances. We will do so with particular reference to Moore’s account in Causation and Responsibility.

Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. Without causation, there would be no scientific understanding, explanation, prediction, nor application in new technologies. How we discover causal connections is no easy matter, however. Causation often lies hiddenfrom view and it is vital that we adopt the right methods for uncovering it. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter. This enquiry informs the correct norms for an empirical study of the world. In Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery, Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford propose nine new norms of scientific discovery. A number of existing methodological and philosophical orthodoxies are challenged as they argue that progress in science is being held back by an overlysimplistic philosophy of causation.

Most theories of causation assume that it must involve some kind of necessity, or that the cause must be entirely sufficient for the effect. Others have already suggested that it should be possible to get a theory of causation from a theory of powers or dispositions. Such a project is far from complete but even here we find that the key point in a dispositional theory of causation has been lacking. This paper attempts to establish some of the most important principles of such a theory and in so doing turn the existing discussion in a new direction.