•  12
    Kenneth Silver has recently argued that backwards causation is common in the context of social institutions. I consider this claim in detail and conclude that backwards causation is not the most plausible interpretation of what is going on in the cases Silver considers. Nonetheless, I show that these cases can teach us some interesting lessons about institutional facts. In particular, I argue that in order to avoid contradiction due to conflicting declarations in these cases, we must conclude th…Read more
  •  41
    Did Climate Change Cause That?
    In Kasper Lippert Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy, Wiley. 2016.
    Can we attribute individual extreme weather events to human‐induced climate change? In this chapter I will be turning a philosophical eye on this question, asking what concept (or concepts) of causation are being employed by scientists and asking which concept of causation is most appropriate. I will show that scientists, politicians, and journalists have made a number of mistakes in their thinking about the causal links between individual extreme events and climate change, and argue that scient…Read more
  •  94
    The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In Power and Influence, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation—the method whereby we deal with complexity by studying the components of a complex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built …Read more
  •  298
    Causal realism and the laws of nature
    Philosophy of Science 73 (3): 261-276. 2006.
    This paper proposes a revision of our understanding of causation that is designed to address what Hartry Field has suggested is the central problem in the metaphysics of causation today: reconciling Bertrand Russell’s arguments that the concept of causation can play no role in the advanced sciences with Nancy Cartwright’s arguments that causal concepts are essential to a scientific understanding of the world. The paper shows that Russell’s main argument is, ironically, very similar to an argumen…Read more
  •  23
    A Dilemma of Consumer Responsibility
    Philosophy Now 102 9-11. 2014.
    Are consumers of meat morally responsible for harms caused to animals in the produciton of that meat? One common argument for the negative states that in a global market, the decisions of an individual consumer makes little or no difference to whether and how a product is produced, hence the individual consumer cannot be held morally responsible. I argue that this same reasoning would imply that consumers of child-pornography cannot be held morally responsible for the harms done to children in i…Read more
  •  51
    In this chapter, I aim to clarify the concept of ESP so that we can ask whether it is even logically possible for anything to satisfy this concept. If ESP is not logically possible, then it would be pointless to conduct experiments trying to discover whether it exists. If, on the other hand, it is logically possible, then its existence or otherwise is an empirical question, a question that can be decided only by looking at the empirical evidence for and against. Questions concerning the logical …Read more
  •  77
    Retrocausal Models for EPR
    Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 49 1-9. 2015.
    This paper takes up Huw Price׳s challenge to develop a retrocausal toy model of the Bell-EPR experiment. I develop three such models which show that a consistent, local, hidden-variables interpretation of the EPR experiment is indeed possible, and which give a feel for the kind of retrocausation involved. The first of the models also makes clear a problematic feature of retrocausation: it seems that we cannot interpret the hidden elements of reality in a retrocausal model as possessing determina…Read more
  •  200
    The difference between cause and effect seems obvious and crucial in ordinary life, yet missing from modern physics. Almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell called the law of causality 'a relic of a bygone age'. In this important collection 13 leading scholars revisit Russell's revolutionary conclusion, discussing one of the most significant and puzzling issues in contemporary thought
  •  936
    Can Dispositional Essences Ground the Laws of Nature?
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (2): 263-275. 2011.
    A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms…Read more
  •  703
    Emerging from the causal drain
    Philosophical Studies 165 (1): 29-47. 2013.
    For over 20 years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination Objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untou…Read more
  •  247
    Suppose you are presented with three red objects. You are then asked to take a careful look at each possible pair of objects, and to decide whether or not their members look chromatically the same. You carry out the instructions thoroughly, and the following propositions sum up the results of your empirical investigation: <blockquote> i. red object #1 looks the same in colour as red object #2. </blockquote> ii. red object #2 looks the same in colour as red object #3.
  •  171
    Causal Realism and the Laws of Nature
    with Robert N. Brandon, H. Frederik Nijhout, Richard Dawid, Ron Mallon, Jonathan M. Weinberg, and Hong Yu Wong
    In Borchert (ed.), Philosophy of Science, Macmillan. pp. 261-276. 2006.
    This paper proposes a revision of our understanding of causation that is designed to address what Hartry Field has suggested is the central problem in the metaphysics of causation today: reconciling Bertrand Russell’s arguments that the concept of causation can play no role in the advanced sciences with Nancy Cartwright’s arguments that causal concepts are essential to a scientific understanding of the world. The paper shows that Russell’s main argument is, ironically, very similar to an argumen…Read more
  •  1
    How is scientific analysis possible?
    In Toby Handfield (ed.), Dispositions and Causes, Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press ;. 2009.
    One of the most powerful tools in science is the analytic method, whereby we seek to understand complex systems by studying simpler sub-systems from which the complex is composed. If this method is to be successful, something about the sub-systems must remain invariant as we move from the relatively isolated conditions in which we study them, to the complex conditions in which we want to put our knowledge to use. This paper asks what this invariant could be. The paper shows that the kinds of …Read more
  •  120
    Two kinds of philosophical questions are raised by the current public debate about climate change; epistemic questions (Whom should I believe? Is climate science a genuine science?), and ethical questions (Who should bear the burden? Must I sacrifice if others do not?). Although the former have been central to this debate, professional philosophers have dealt almost exclusively with the latter. This book is the first to address both the epistemic and ethical questions raised by the climate chang…Read more