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1
Yin guo guan nian yu Xiumo wen ti. Beijing: Zhongguo ren min da xue chu ban she, 2010.
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2
Liu, Shude. Kong bai zui zhuang: Jie ding, zhui wen, jie du. Beijing: Ren min fa yuan chu ban she, 2002.
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3
Wer ist schuld?: Das Problem der Kausalität in Psychiatrie und Psychoanalyse : eine Untersuchung zu Martin Heideggers Zollikoner Seminaren. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1993.
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4
Yuan yin zi you xing wei yan jiu: Yi zui jiu de ren fan zui wei zhong xin. Beijing Shi: Fa lü chu ban she, 2014.
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5
Bu chun zheng bu zuo wei fan yan jiu: Buchunzheng buzuoweifan yanjiu. Beijing: Ren min chu ban she, 2008.
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7
Qinming, Wang, ed. Cong "Shang han lun" kan Zhong yi bian zheng luo ji de si wei fang fa. Beijing: Zhong yi gu ji chu ban she, 2013.
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8
Laureno, Robert. Causation. Edited by Robert Laureno. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190607166.003.0011.
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This chapter on “Causation” examines the determination of the causes of neurologic disease. Considered are Koch-Henle postuates and Bradford Hill criteria. When we talk about “cause,” we make a distinction between necessary and sufficient causes, as well as those causes of disease that are neither necessary nor sufficient, that contribute to the development of a disease but cannot by themselves cause the disease. Probabilistic causes show their effects in combination with other probabilistic causes, known and unknown. In the absence of experimental evidence for cause, we rely on observational information. Observational study may be prospective or retrospective (case-control study). The criteria for medicolegal causation in the courtroom and in the clinic differ, and the neurologist asked to determine cause in a court of law must rely on experience, good judgment, and common sense.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Evidence of Causation Is Not Causation. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0003.
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Philosophers draw a distinction between ontology and epistemology: a distinction between what is and what we know. What counts as evidence of causation will be fixed by our choice of methods of discovery, and our choice of methods will be fixed by what we take causation to be. Nevertheless, causation cannot be identified with its methods of discovery. Hume argued that causation was not directly observable. If this is the case, we need methods that can reliably latch on to the signs of causation. But we cannot automatically judge there to be no causation if we find no sign of it.
10
Hitchcock, Christopher. Actual Causation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198746911.003.0007.
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This chapter connects two themes in the work of Peter Menzies: (1) the agency theory of causation; and (2) the analysis of actual causation in terms of structural equation models together with considerations of normality. According to the latter type of analysis, actual causation involves certain kinds of path-specific effects. What is the practical benefit of knowing about such effects? The chapter argues that such knowledge is not necessary for one-shot decisions, but is crucial for plans that involve multiple steps. Such plans require that we know how our interventions will work in conjunction with future interventions that are feasible, expected, and desirable. This explains both the focus on path-specific effects, and the sensitivity of actual causation to considerations of normality.
11
Healey, Richard. Causation and Locality. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198714057.003.0010.
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By moving to the context of relativistic space-time structure, this chapter completes the argument of Chapter 4 that we can use quantum theory locally to explain correlations that violate Bell inequalities with no instantaneous action at a distance. Chance here must be relativized not just to time but to a space-time point, so that an event may have more than one chance at the same time—it may even be certain relative to one space-time point but ‘at the same time’ completely uncertain relative to another. This renders Bell’s principle of Local Causality either inapplicable or intuitively unmotivated. Counterfactual dependence between the outcomes of measurements on systems assigned an entangled state is not causal since neither outcome is subject to intervention: but it may still be appealed to in a non-causal explanation of one in terms of the other.
12
Glennan, Stuart. Mechanisms and Causation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198779711.003.0006.
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This chapter motivates a theory of causation according to which causal claims are existential claims about mechanisms. The chapter begins with a review of the variety of causal claims, emphasizing the differences between singular and general claims, and between claims about causal production and claims about causal relevance. I then argue for singularism—the view that the truth-makers of general causal claims are facts about collections of singular and intrinsic causal relations, and specifically facts about the existence of particular mechanisms. Applying this account, I explore possible truth conditions for causal generalizations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between mechanistic and manipulability approaches to causation. I argue that Woodward’s manipulability account provides valuable insights into the meaning of causal claims and the methods we use to assess them, but that the underlying truth-makers for the counterfactuals in that account are in fact mechanisms.
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Reutlinger, Alexander, and Juha Saatsi, eds. Explanation Beyond Causation. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198777946.001.0001.
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Explanations are very important to us in many contexts: in science, mathematics, philosophy, and also in everyday and juridical contexts. But what is an explanation? In the philosophical study of explanation, there is long-standing, influential tradition that links explanation intimately to causation: we often explain by providing accurate information about the causes of the phenomenon to be explained. Such causal accounts have been the received view of the nature of explanation, particularly in philosophy of science, since the 1980s. However, philosophers have recently begun to break with this causal tradition by shifting their focus to kinds of explanation that do not turn on causal information. The increasing recognition of the importance of such non-causal explanations in the sciences and elsewhere raises pressing questions for philosophers of explanation. What is the nature of non-causal explanations—and which theory best captures it? How do non-causal explanations relate to causal ones? How are non-causal explanations in the sciences related to those in mathematics and metaphysics? This volume of new essays explores answers to these and other questions at the heart of contemporary philosophy of explanation. The essays address these questions from a variety of perspectives, including general accounts of non-causal and causal explanations, as well as a wide range of detailed case studies of non-causal explanations from the sciences, mathematics and metaphysics.
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Jackson, Frank. Causation and Semantic Content. Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies. Oxford University Press, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0029.
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How does causation enter the picture? Belief is a state shaped by the world, a state that seeks to fit the world; desire is a state that shapes the world, that seeks to make the world fit it. Both metaphors are compelling and are loaded with causality. We often use ‘reference’ for the relation between thought and world. We often use ‘content’ for how things have to be for, for example, a belief with that content to be true and a desire with that content satisfied. In these terms, the tradition of seeking to understand aboutness in causal terms is the tradition of seeking causal accounts of reference and content.
15
Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Plural Methods, One Causation. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0027.
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No single method is perfect for identifying causation. One response is to adopt causal pluralism: the view that causation is many things. But this is problematic. A simpler response is to take such pluralism as epistemic or methodological only. If we cannot rely on one method alone, we instead have the option of approaching causation via a number of different methods. A method is useful if it attaches to one or more of the symptoms of causation, where those symptoms are also plural. Such symptoms are the more or less reliable indicators of the presence of causation. Evidence hierarchies could be based on how reliable each such method is but hierarchies can themselves be understood in a dispositional rather than strict way.
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Witting, Christian. 7. Causation and remoteness. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/he/9780198811169.003.0007.
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This chapter examines the issues of causation and remoteness in negligence. It considers causation in fact, causation in law, and remoteness of damage. We find that courts have developed several important exceptions to the ordinary but-for test of causation, including the Fairchild principle. Legal causation is tested by looking for unexpected events called novi actus intervenientes. Remoteness is an issue of foreseeability of damage.
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Mele, Alfred R. Living Without Agent Causation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190659974.003.0011.
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This chapter explores a question about agent causation: If we were to learn that agent causation is impossible, what effect might that have on some philosophers’ reasoning about event-causal libertarianism? It is argued that, with agent causation off the table, event-causal libertarianism’s appeal would grow stronger for some philosophers. The stage for this argument is set partly by means of a review of issues about luck, control, and settling that surround some arguments subjected to critical scrutiny earlier in the book: namely, the same-control argument, the more-control argument, and Derk Pereboom’s disappearing agent argument. Special attention is paid to direct control. Two different accounts of direct control are offered.
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Stapleton, Jane. Causation in the Law. Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies. Oxford University Press, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0038.
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Previous accounts of ‘causation’ in the law are flawed by their failure to appreciate that causal language is used to express different information about the world. Because causal terms have been used to communicate answers to different questions, any philosophical search for a free-standing account of causation is doomed. Lawyers require precision of terminology, so they should explicitly choose just one interrogation to underlie causal usage in law. It is argued that this interrogation should be chosen to serve the wide projects of the law. In these projects the law is interested to identify when a specified factor was ‘involved’ in the existence of a particular phenomenon, where the notion of ‘involvement’ identifies a contrast between the actual world and some specified hypothetical world from which we exclude (at least) that specified factor: this contrast being that, while in the former world the phenomenon exists, in the latter it does not. (Such contrasts of necessity can be generated in three ways, all of importance to the law.)
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Pruss, Alexander R. Infinity, Causation, and Paradox. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198810339.001.0001.
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Infinity is paradoxical in many ways. A particular large family of paradoxes is examined that on its face iswidely varied. Some involve deterministic supertasks, such as Thomson’s Lamp where a switch is toggled an infinite number of times over a finite period of time, or the Grim Reaper, where it seems that infinitely many reapers can produce a result without doing anything. Others involve infinite lotteries. Yet others involve paradoxical results in decision theory, such as the surprising observation that if you perform a sequence of fair coin-flips that goes infinitely far back into the past but only finitely into the future, you can leverage information about past coin-flips to predict future ones with only finitely many mistakes. It turns out that these, and a number of other paradoxes have a common structure: their most natural embodiment involves an infinite number of items causally impinging on a single output. These paradoxes can all be solved with a single move: embrace causal finitism, the view that it is impossible for a single output to have an infinite causal history. The book exposits such paradoxes, defends causal finitism at length, and ends up considering connections with the philosophy of physics, where causal finitism favors, but does not require, discretist theories of space and time, and the philosophy of religion, where we get a cosmological argument reminiscent of the Kalām argument for the existence of God.
20
Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. What Probabilistic Causation Should Be. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0020.
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Irrespective of degrees of belief, there are cases where the world itself seems to work in a probabilistic way. But there are different accounts of what this means. One view is that the facts of probability are fixed ultimately by the relative frequency of an occurrence. A propensity theory, however, says that real-world probabilistic facts are what generate any such frequencies. The latter is associated with epistemic humility: because there is no guarantee that the generated frequencies match the real facts of probability, we cannot know for sure what those probabilities are even if we know all the facts of frequency. Furthermore, the strength of a propensity cannot be probabilistically defined since the former might be doubled indefinitely while probabilities are measured on a bounded scale.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Do We Need Causation in Science? Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0002.
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Some claim that there is no causation to be found in the mature sciences, as Russell did in a famous and often quoted paper. Physics deals with equations, for example, which are symmetric rather than directed. Causal talk gets dismissed as primitive ‘folk’ science. However, it cannot be concluded that there is no asymmetric causation simply because a science does not represent it. We often will read an equation directionally as we know we can intervene on one variable to change another. This shows that scientific notions of experiment, intervention, and even observation presuppose the reality of causation. All three of these would be impossible if there were no causation.
22
Beebee, Helen. Hume and the Problem of Causation. Edited by Paul Russell. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199742844.013.8.
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This chapter traces Hume’s search for the impression-source of the idea of necessary connection through Book 1 of the Treatise. It then sketches and evaluates the main interpretative positions concerning Hume’s account of causation. These positions characterize Hume either as a regularity theorist who thinks that causation is merely a matter of temporal priority, contiguity, and constant conjunction, a projectivist who takes causal talk to have an essential non-representational element, or a skeptical realist who believes in, and believes that we genuinely refer to, real causal powers. Finally, it briefly discusses rival interpretations of Hume’s famous “two definitions” of causation.
24
Zhang, Shaoqian. Xing fa yin guo guan xi yan jiu (Xing fa jing pin wen ku). Zhongguo jian cha chu ban she, 1998.
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25
Maslen, Cei. Pragmatic Explanations of the Proportionality Constraint on Causation. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198746911.003.0004.
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This chapter examines the case for a proportionality constraint on causation. A range of examples seem to show that we prefer causes to be proportional to their effects. To use Yablo and Williamson’s example, when investigating causes of an injury we tend to judge ‘being hit by a red bus’ to be too specific, ‘being hit’ to be too general, and ‘being hit by a bus’ to be about right. In this chapter, some pragmatic explanations of this preference are presented and compared to each other. It is then argued that a version of a contrastivist approach to causation gives the best explanation. Some consequences for mental causation and causal claims at different levels are also discussed.
26
Chen, Kejian. Shang di zen yang zhi shai zi: Yin guo xing, gai lu yu gui na (Zou xiang wei lai cong shu). Sichuan sheng xin hua shu dian fa xing, 1987.
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27
Roger, Mccormick, and Stears Chris. Part VII Characteristics of Legal Risk, 25 Causation. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/law/9780198749271.003.0026.
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This chapter first considers the relationship between the sources of legal risk considered in Chapter 24 and the causes of loss attributable to legal risk identified in the International Bar Association definition. Whereas the sources describe the social circumstances that cause legal risk to arise, the definition is concerned with how an institution, when faced with a legal risk-originated problem, should answer the question: how did this happen (or how can we prevent this happening)? Consideration of the sources helps us to understand why legal risks arise in the broader social context but it is the definition that provides the pointer to the more immediate causes of risk and loss in any specific context. The remainder of the chapter turns to relevant case law.
28
Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.001.0001.
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Some of the chief goals of science are understanding, explanation, prediction, and application in new technologies. Only if the world has some significant degree of constancy in what follows from what can these activities be conducted with any purpose. But what is the source of such predictability and how does it operate? This is a question that goes beyond science itself and inevitably requires a philosophical approach. It is argued in such terms that causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. But what methods should we adopt in order to identify causes in science? The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter. The enquiry concerns the correct norms for the empirical study of the world. This matters a lot. Some of the greatest challenges that we face will only be solved if we understand what has caused the problem and what, if anything, could then cause its alleviation.
29
Jansson, Lina. When are Structural Equation Models Apt? Causation versus Grounding. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198777946.003.0013.
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While much about the notion of ground in contemporary metaphysics is contested, there is large agreement that ground is closely connected to a certain kind of explanation. Recently, Jonathan Schaffer and Alastair Wilson have argued that ground is a relation that is very closely related to causation and that grounding explanations should be given an account in broadly interventionist terms through the use of structural equations and directed graphs. Such an approach offers the potential benefit of a largely unified framework for explanations with different relations, or different species of the same relation, backing different types of explanation. However, this chapter argues that this benefit cannot be realized since there are crucial differences between causal explanations and grounding explanations in how we can evaluate the aptness of the models in question.
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Martin, Fabienne, and Florian Schäfer. Sublexical modality in defeasible causative verbs. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718208.003.0006.
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This chapter is dedicated to an ambiguity characteristic of what we call defeasible causative verbs (of which ‘teach’ is an example). With agentive subjects, the change of state (CoS) encoded by these verbs (e.g. a learning process) can be entirely denied, giving rise to what we call the “zero-CoS” non-culminating reading of these verbs. With causer subjects, however, the same verbs seem to entail the occurrence of (a part of) the CoS (including in imperfective sentences). We argue that this ambiguity cannot be handled by positing different event structures under the agentive and non-agentive uses. Under the analysis proposed, the semantics of these verbs involve a sublexical modal component à la Koenig and Davis (2001), both with agent and causer subjects. In favor of positing a sublexical modality with all types of subject, we investigate the conditions under which the zero-CoS reading is available even with a subset of inanimate subjects and “non-intentional” agents.
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Godfrey‐Smith, Peter. Causal Pluralism. Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies. Oxford University Press, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0017.
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Causal pluralism is the view that causation is not a single kind of relation or connection between things in the world. Instead, the apparently simple and univocal term ‘cause’ is seen as masking an underlying diversity. Assessing such a claim requires making sense of a difficult counting operation. How do we tell whether a theory of causation is identifying causation with a ‘single’ kind of connection? In practice, there tends not to be much disagreement about how to do the counting, because most philosophical work on causation has sought a view with an obvious kind of unity. The literature often works with a standard range of candidate connections that seem to have an important link to the idea of causation.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Making Nothing Happen. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0016.
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Not all causation is causation of change. Stability can be just as important in the sciences, such as when two variables are kept in equilibrium. This can be called causation of absence, where the effect is a non-event or non-change. The challenge it presents is that it indicates a productive mechanism that might not be manifest in the traditional sense, in which events are the relata of causal relations. Instead, we have a model of stability-through-change in which contrary powers are evenly counterbalanced. Even more problematic is causation by absence, for this depends on nothingness having its own causal power.
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Beebee, Helen, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies. Introduction. Edited by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies. Oxford University Press, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0001.
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Philosophers have been interested in the nature of causation for as long as there has been philosophy. They have been interested in what we say about the world when we say that one thing caused another, and in whether there is anything in the world that answers to the causal claims we make about it. Despite the attention, there is still very little agreement on the most central question concerning causation: what is it? Is it a matter of the instantiation of regularities or laws, or counterfactual dependence, or manipulability, or transfer of energy, for example? One reason for the lack of a consensus view is the sheer difficulty of the task; anyone familiar with the causation debate as it has been conducted in recent years will be familiar with a vast range of theories and counterexamples, which collectively can lead one to suspect that no univocal analysis of the concept of causation is possible.
34
Fulford, K. W. M., Martin Davies, Richard G. T. Gipps, George Graham, John Z. Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Tim Thornton, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.001.0001.
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This book presents a lively cross section of recent cross-disciplinary research in the rapidly expanding field of philosophy and psychiatry. Co-branded between theOxford Philosophy Handbookand IPPP (International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry) book series, the volume includes a number of features designed to reflect the dynamic two-way interplay between theory and practice that has emerged as such a key feature of the new field. Thus, 1) the topics covered include many of the standard problems of philosophy (such as consciousness, other minds, freedom, and personal identity) but these are organised into sections reflecting the stages of the clinical encounter (from first contact, through psychopathology and diagnosis to causation and thence to care and cure); 2) although predominantly philosophical in focus each chapter draws in different ways on practice-informed expertise (including clinical, scientific and service user perspectives); 3) the development of the book was supported by an international advisory board including a mental health NGO as well as academic organisations; and 4) the book is further supported by a unique web-site resource of first-hand narratives of mental disorder and other practice-based materials. In incorporating these features,The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatryaims not merely to reflect the current state of the field but also to drive its further development as a distinctively philosophical contribution to twenty-first century mental health.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Getting Involved. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0024.
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Science is an activity and this creates some tension with one of its perceived norms, namely its objectivity. We do not simply record data in a detached way. We perform experimental interventions, which is a matter of choice, informed by our interests. There are interventionist accounts of causation that clearly cannot be used to define causation, since intervention is already a causal notion. However, the idea shows what is important about causal knowledge: it allows us to manipulate the world to our own ends, or at least to have good fallible reasons for what would happen if a certain sort of intervention were to occur. We are causally involved in the world that we study; indeed, our study of it depends on that.
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Wald, Benjamin, and Sergio Tenenbaum. Reasons and Action Explanation. Edited by Daniel Star. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199657889.013.10.
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The problem of deviant causation has been a serious obstacle for causal theories of action. We suggest that attending to the problem of deviant causation reveals two related problems for causal theories. First, it threatens the reductive ambitions of causal theories of intentional action. Second, it suggests that such a theory fails to account for how the agent herself is guided by her reasons. Focusing on the second of these, we argue that the problem of guidance turns out to be related to a number of other issues in the literature on action explanation, and that it is much more general: it threatens not only causal theories but any theory of action. Finally, we suggest that a certain version of the view that acting has a constitutive or formal aim can overcome this problem.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. It All Started with a Big Bang. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0017.
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There can be causal chains that are extended through time, where A causes B, B causes C, and so on. There is a further question as to whether causation admits transitivity, such that A causes C, in this example. Causal chains could be depicted as the vehicle of determinism but not necessarily so. There are other ways in which determinism might work and causes cannot provide determinism unless causes somehow necessitate their effects. Indeterminism should be taken as the default starting assumption of our enquiries since it is so much easier for it to be true than determinism. We can see that causation should then be classed as non-transitive.
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Beebee, Helen. Epiphenomenalism for Functionalists. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198746911.003.0015.
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This chapter focuses on an assumption implicitly made by most recent attempts to solve the exclusion problem for mental causation, that mental (and so multiply realized) properties are ‘distinct existences’ from their alleged effects. Without that assumption, no such solution can work, since we have excellent grounds for thinking that there is no causation between entities that are not distinct from one another. But, assuming functionalism—which, after all, constitutes the grounds for thinking that mental properties are multiply realized in the first place—mental properties are not distinct from the effects to which they are alleged to bear causal relevance, since functional properties are defined in terms of the causal roles of their realizers. The chapter argues, however, that the natural consequence—epiphenomenalism with respect to mental properties—is not as problematic as many philosophers tend to assume.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Same Cause, Same Effect. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0005.
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Hume gave the classic formulation of the regularity theory. The causal laws are fixed by the pattern of regularity in events. We have a conceptual constraint on the notion of causal law: the effects that laws describe must be repeatable and robust, applying at every time and place. From the same cause, therefore, we can infer the same effect. And by modus tollens, from a different effect, we infer a different cause. Apparent counterexamples can be marginalized, treated as exceptions, outliers, non-respondents, or effects of background noise or interference. This suggests that scientists accept the broadly Humean notion of causation as regularity.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. One Effect, One Cause? Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0007.
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We saw the notion of regularity-posited causation as a one–one relation: a cause was ‘one object, followed by another’, etc. But, as well as the same cause being able to produce different effects, one effect can have several causes. The ceteris paribus approach treated background conditions as incidental, taking them out of the regularity and making them supplementary. Instead, we accept the complexity of causes as essential to them, as allowed by Mackie, Martin, and Mill’s total cause. In this way, context is not an inconvenience to be explained away; it is what allows a cause to do its work.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. Mutual Manifestation and Martin’s Two Triangles. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796572.003.0006.
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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.
42
Heil, John. Real Modalities. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796572.003.0007.
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Sometimes we take ourselves to be saying some-thing about what really is possible (even if not actual), what is not possible, what is inevitable, what would or would not happen were certain conditions to obtain; we take ourselves to be saying something about how matters stand modally. When this is our aim, what features of the universe are responsible for the truth or falsity of what we say? I shall offer reasons for thinking that an ontology of interrelated powers or dispositionalities provides the resources requisite for an accounting of real modalities, truth makers for important modal truths. Consideration of these reasons will, in addition, disclose surprising connections between dispositionality, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, causation and causal laws as these are commonly understood in philosophy.
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Lombrozo, Tania, and Nadya Vasilyeva. Causal Explanation. Edited by Michael R. Waldmann. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199399550.013.22.
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Explanation and causation are intimately related. Explanations often appeal to causes, and causal claims are often answers to implicit or explicit questions about why or how something occurred. This chapter considers what we can learn about causal reasoning from research on explanation. In particular, it reviews an emerging body of work suggesting that explanatory considerations—such as the simplicity or scope of a causal hypothesis—can systematically influence causal inference and learning. It also discusses proposed distinctions among types of explanations and reviews the effects of each explanation type on causal reasoning and representation. Finally, it considers the relationship between explanations and causal mechanisms and raises important questions for future research.
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Pruss, Alexander R., and Joshua L. Rasmussen. Arguments against a Necessary Being. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198746898.003.0009.
Full textAbstract:
The chapter surveys the main arguments people give for thinking there is no necessary being. In particular, the following are considered: Hume's argument from conceivability, Swinburne's neo‐Humean argument, the subtraction argument, the problem of causation, and parsimony concerns. Weaknesses are exposed in all these arguments. For many of the arguments, it is shown that there is an equally strong parity argument for an opposite conclusion. It is further shown why the arguments we gave for a necessary being do not suffer similar weaknesses. The concluding assessment suggests that the weightiest of the objections may be no weightier than the parsimony concerns, which the arguments for a necessary being far outweigh.
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Healey, Richard. The Quantum Revolution in Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198714057.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Quantum theory launched a revolution in twentieth-century physics. But we have yet to appreciate the revolution’s significance for philosophy. Most studies of the conceptual foundations of quantum theory first try to interpret the theory—to say how the world could possibly be the way the theory says it is. But, though fundamental, quantum theory is enormously successful without describing the world in its own terms. When properly applied, models of quantum theory offer good advice on the significance and credibility of claims about the world expressed in other terms. This first of several philosophical lessons of the quantum revolution dissolves the quantum measurement problem. Pragmatist treatments of probability and causation show how quantum theory may be used to explain the non-localized correlations that have been thought to involve ‘spooky’ instantaneous action at a distance. Given environmental decoherence, a pragmatist inferentialist approach to content shows when talk of quantum probabilities is licensed, resolves any residual worries about whether a quantum measurement has a determinate outcome, and solves a dilemma about the ontology of a quantum field theory. This approach to meaning and reference also reveals the nature and limits of objective description in the light of quantum theory. While these pragmatist approaches to probability, causation, explanation, and content may be independently motivated by philosophical argument, their successful application here illustrates their practical importance in helping philosophers come to terms with the quantum revolution.
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Anjum, Rani Lill, and Stephen Mumford. From Regularities to Tendencies. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198733669.003.0009.
Full textAbstract:
It ought to be conceded, as an empirical fact, that there are seldom, if ever, perfect regularities in nature. Generalizations, instead, have to be made ceteris paribus. If there is no perfect regularity, however, this still does not mean that there is no causation. Causal claims can instead rest on recognizable tendencies. Tendencies can come in various degrees of strength, some very strong and some very weak. Ceteris paribus laws could be understood in terms of tendencies, which involve less than necessity but more than pure contingency. A tendency cannot be identified with a statistical incidence, however. Instead, we can think of any such incidences as being produced by the underlying tendencies.
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Button, Tim, and Sean Walsh. Permutations and referential indeterminacy. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198790396.003.0002.
Full textAbstract:
This chapter begins with a definition of isomorphism, and then introduces the Push-Through Construction, which allows us to generate many distinct isomorphic copies of a model. Benacerraf and Putnam have used this construction to raise certain problems for realism and the determinacy of reference. These problems seem most threatening in the case of mathematics, where nothing like causation could help pin down reference. In this connection, we introduce Putnam’s famous just-more-theory manoeuvre for the first time, and a position which is vulnerable to it, namely moderate objects-platonism. We then evaluate various attempts to salvage determinacy of reference, including Shapiro’s ante rem structuralism, before outlining a supervaluationist semantics which allows for referential indeterminacy. The appendices to this chapter contain a proof that isomorphism implies elementary equivalence, and a discussion of recent work on eligibility.
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Burns, Tom, and Mike Firn. Bipolar affective disorder. Edited by Tom Burns and Mike Firn. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198754237.003.0016.
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This chapter deals with the other major psychotic illness, bipolar affective disorder. Bipolar disorder poses a difficult question for outreach workers, as patients are often well recovered between episodes—so should persisting outreach be provided? We report very good results in severe bipolar disorder where continuity of care has paid off. The chapter also deals with theories of causation and classification. The section on treatment identifies the importance of early admission in hypomania, the use of mood stabilizers, and the value of identifying and agreeing on relapse signatures. It also confirms the value of working hard to strengthen the therapeutic relationship and of psychosocial interventions such as psycho-education. Long-term work with these patients brings home just how persistent and disabling the depressive phases can be.
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Plutynski, Anya. Evidence and Environmental Epidemiology. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199967452.003.0005.
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In this chapter, I consider two case studies in environmental epidemiology of cancer, in service of several aims. First, I argue that while identification of mechanisms is useful, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to justify claims about causal regularities in epidemiology. Second, I argue that Hill’s list of considerations are not “criteria” for judging that X is a cause, but rather a set of guidelines and an argument for consideration of total evidence in conditions of uncertainty. Third, I argue that standards of evidence for establishing causation ought in part to hinge upon what we intend to use the evidence for. Since epidemiological data is so important for law and policy, the practical matter of what the causal information is for must be taken into account in setting standards of assessments of evidence.
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Bliwise, Donald L., and Michael K. Scullin. Sleep and cognition. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198778240.003.0004.
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Possible associations between sleep and cognition are provocative across different domains and hold the promise of prevention or reversibility. A vast array of studies has been reported. Evidence is suggestive but hardly definitive. We provide an overview of this literature, adopting the framework of Hill’s perspective on epidemiological causation. With rare exception, formal meta-analyses have yet to appear. Apparent consistency of findings suggests relationships, but the diversity of findings involving specific components of cognitive function raises interpretative caution. Large effect sizes have been noted, but small-to-moderate effects predominate. Natural history data are similarly enticing, and studies of biological plausibility and gradient indicate likely neurobiological substrates. Perhaps the ultimate population-health criterion, demonstration of reversibility of impairment, remains elusive at best. This area offers an exciting topic for future work.