In this paper I offer an analysis of causation based upon a theory of mechanisms-complex systems whose internal parts interact to produce a system's external behavior. I argue that all but the fundamental laws of physics can be explained by reference to mechanisms. Mechanisms provide an epistemologically unproblematic way to explain the necessity which is often taken to distinguish laws from other generalizations. This account of necessity leads to a theory of causation according to which events are causally related when (...) there is a mechanism that connects them. I present reasons why the lack of an account of fundamental physical causation does not undermine the mechanical account. (shrink)

In this paper I present both a critical appraisal of Humphreys' probabilistic theory of causality and a sketch of an alternative view of the relationship between the notions of probability and of cause. Though I do not doubt that determinism is false, I claim that the examples used to motivate Humphreys' theory typically refer to subjective rather than objective chance. Additionally, I argue on a number of grounds that Humphreys' suggestion that linear regression models be used as a canonical form (...) for the description of causal relations is untenable. I conclude by exploring the variety of ways in which probabilistic elements can be embedded into the structure of causal mechanisms. This investigation suggests both that deterministic mechanisms can produce stochastic behavior and stochastic mechanisms can produce deterministic behavior. Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article. (shrink)

A number of developmental psychologists have argued for a theory they call the theory theory - a theory of cognitive development that suggests that infants and small children make sense of their world by constructing cognitive representations that have many of the attributes of scientific theories. In this paper I argue that there are indeed close parallels between the activities of children and scientists, but that these parallels will be better understood if one recognizes that both scientists and children are (...) not so much theorists as model builders. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Searle's claim that the computational properties of a system could never cause a system to be conscious. In the first section of the paper I argue that Searle is correct that, even if a system both behaves in a way that is characteristic of conscious agents (like ourselves) and has a computational structure similar to those agents, one cannot be certain that that system is conscious. On the other hand, I suggest that Searle's intuition that (...) it is “empirically absurd” that such a system could be conscious is unfounded. In the second section I show that Searle's attempt to show that a system's computational states could not possibly cause it to be conscious is based upon an erroneous distinction between computational and physical properties. On the basis of these two arguments, I conclude that, supposing that the behavior of conscious agents can be explained in terms of their computational properties, we have good reason to suppose that a system having computational properties similar to such agents is also conscious. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a criticism of Carnap's inductive logic which also applies to other formal methods of inductive inference. Criticisms of Carnap's views have typically centered upon the justification of his particular choice of inductive method. I argue that the real problem is not that there is an agreed upon method for which no justification can be found, but that different methods are justified in different circumstances.

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain (...) objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification. (shrink)

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain (...) objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of causation take causal relations to obtain between individuals and events in virtue of nomological relations between properties of these individuals and events. Such views fail to take into account the consequences of the fact that in general the properties of individuals and events will depend upon mechanisms that realize those properties. In this paper I attempt to rectify this failure, and in so doing to provide an account of the causal relevance of higher-level properties. I do (...) this by critiquing one prominent model of higher-level properties—Kim’s functional model of reduction—and contrasting it with a mechanistic approach to higher-level properties and causation. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize Cartwright's analysis of capacities and offer an alternative analysis. I argue that Cartwright's attempt to connect capacities to her condition CC fails because individuals can exercise capacities only in certain contexts. My own analysis emphasizes three features of capacities: 1) Capacities belong to individuals; 2) Capacities are typically not metaphysically fundamental properties of individuals, but can be explained by referring to structural properties of individuals; and 3) Laws are best understood as ascriptions of capacities.

An adequate understanding of the ubiquitous practice of mechanistic explanation requires an account of what Craver termed “constitutive relevance.” Entities or activities are constitutively relevant to a phenomenon when they are parts of the mechanism responsible for that phenomenon. Craver’s mutual manipulability account extended Woodward’s account of manipulationist counterfactuals to analyze how interlevel experiments establish constitutive relevance. Critics of MM argue that applying Woodward’s account to this philosophical problem conflates causation and constitution, thus rendering the account incoherent. These criticisms, we (...) argue, arise from failing to distinguish the semantic, epistemic, and metaphysical aspects of the problem of constitutive relevance. In distinguishing these aspects of the problem and responding to these critics accordingly, we amend MM into a refined epistemic criterion, the “matched interlevel experiments” account. Further, we explain how this epistemological thesis is grounded in the plausible metaphysical thesis that constitutive relevance is causal betweenness. (shrink)

Sober and Lewontin's critique of genic selectionism is based upon the principle that a unit of selection should make a context‐independent contribution to fitness. Critics have effectively shown that this principle is flawed. In this paper I show that the context independence principle is an instance of a more general principle for characterizing causes,called the contextual unanimity principle. I argue that this latter principle, while widely accepted, is erroneous. What is needed is to replace the approach to causality characterized by (...) the contextual unanimity criterion with an approach based on the concept of causal mechanism. After sketching such an approach, I show how it can be used to shed light on the units of selection problem. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Searle's claim that the computational properties of a system could never cause a system to be conscious. In the first section of the paper I argue that Searle is correct that, even if a system both behaves in a way that is characteristic of conscious agents and has a computational structure similar to those agents, one cannot be certain that that system is conscious. On the other hand, I suggest that Searle's intuition that it is (...) “empirically absurd” that such a system could be conscious is unfounded. In the second section I show that Searle's attempt to show that a system's computational states could not possibly cause it to be conscious is based upon an erroneous distinction between computational and physical properties. On the basis of these two arguments, I conclude that, supposing that the behavior of conscious agents can be explained in terms of their computational properties, we have good reason to suppose that a system having computational properties similar to such agents is also conscious. (shrink)

Most philosophical debate over mental causation has been concerned with reconciling commonsense intuitions that there are causal interactions between the mental and the physical with philosophical theories of the nature of the mental that seem to suggest otherwise. My concern is with a different and more practical problem. We often confront some cognitive, affective, or bodily phenomenon, and wonder about its source – its etiology or its underlying causal basis. For instance, you might wonder whether your queasiness due to something (...) you ate, or whether it is just nervousness, or whether your aunt’s memory loss is a neurological problem or a psychological response to trauma. Such questions attempt to localize the causes of a phenomenon at some level in the complex multi-level systems that we human animals are. In this paper I will attempt to tease out the sense of level implicit in such questions, and to show how it is related to current mechanistic accounts of levels. I will argue that the explanation of our practices of level attribution is deeply pragmatic. Such attributions are often attempts to locate the causes of problems, and to identify interventions that could solve those problems. (shrink)

The process of technological change in obstetrics must be understood as contingent on the exigencies of the professional project, rather than in terms simply of improvement or dehumanization of care. Transformation in the procedures by which the female pelvis and the fetal head have been measured illustrate this point. The development of new measurement techniques was profoundly influenced by the shifting locus of obstetric care and by changing professional concerns, including the initial demarcation of a professional practice and subsequent debates (...) about preferred modes of intervention. (shrink)

Development of the cochlear implant, discussed in this article, depended vitally on deaf people being persuaded to undergo implantation. Media "reconstruction" of the device as the "bionic ear" was typically encouraged by implant pioneers. Unexpectedly, however, a "counter-rhetoric" based on a very different understanding of deafness emerged. With it, deaf people are slowly succeeding in gaining influence over the further deployment of the technology. The analysis suggests modifications to existing theoretical models of technological change in medicine.

This volume of the Sociology of the Sciences Yearbooks stems from our experience that collaborations between non-scientists and scientists, often initiated by scientists seeking greater social relevance for science, can be of major importance for cognitive development. It seemed to us that it would be useful to explore the conditions under which such collaborations affect scientific change and the nature of the processes involved. This book therefore focuses on a number of instances in which scientists and non-scientists were jointly involved (...) in the genera tion of scientific results at the "interface" of science and society. Despite the considerable variety of cases reported here, a number of questions are central. Under what conditions do such cooperative processes occur? What perceptions of social relevance and what sorts of col laborations with non-scientific groups are involved? How is this collaboration achieved, and through what forums? How can insights into its conditions and mechanisms stabilize such cooperations over a longer period of time? If they are stabilized, do they really affect science, or do they mainly function to shield the rest of the science system against external influences? These questions are pertinent both to intellectual problems in the sociology of science and to the practical concerns of modern science policies. The significance of relations between knowledge producers and knowledge consumers and interest in how these relations affect science and society have changed considerably in recent decades. (shrink)

Decision‐aiding software is probably the most important technological innovation from the perspective of lawyer decision‐making, as contrasted to efficient office management. That kind of technological breakthrough can be helpful to lawyers in negotiating settlements favorable to their clients without expensive litigation. The technology makes use of benefit‐cost analysis, multi‐criteria decision analysis, spreadsheet software, and especially super‐optimizing analysis whereby plaintiffs, defendants, and other parties can all come out ahead of their best initial expectations simultaneously. Decision‐aiding software can also be helpful to (...) lawyers in evaluating alternative precedents, statutes, regulations, and other legal policies to arrive at versions favorable to their clients without an expensive adoption campaign. (shrink)

Context: Neurophenomenology is a relatively new field, with scope for novel and informative approaches to empirical questions about what structural parallels there are between neural activity and phenomenal experience. Problem: The overall aim is to present a method for examining possible correlations of neurodynamic and phenodynamic structures within the structurally-coupled work of Alexander Technique practitioners with their pupils. Method: This paper includes the development of an enkinaesthetic explanatory framework, an overview of the salient aspects of the Alexander Technique, and the (...) presentation of an elicitation interview technique as part of a neurophenomenological method. It will propose a way of testing the hypothesis that if, in the effective practice of Alexander Technique, there is a union between the nervous systems of teacher and pupil, it should be visible neurologically and affective phenomenologically, and thus it should be possible to investigate both its neural and phenomenal signatures. Results: The proposed means of testing the hypothesis is to use the elicitation interview technique alongside neural monitoring during the teaching of the Alexander Technique in four paired sets of subjects. Constructivist content: At the heart of this paper is the claim that all activity is co-activity. I make no assumption of an ontological primacy of mental or physical, or explanatory primacy of any methodology. Implications: This has important ramifications for somatic education and therapies, for establishing frameworks of co-engagement and care in health-care situations, and for understanding empathy. (shrink)

Legal scholarship emphasizes generalizing across places, time periods, and sources of law. Microcomputers can facilitate well-organized information retrieval systems, inductive statistical analysis, and prescriptive analysis working with goals to be achieved and available alternatives. Super-optimizing can help resolve legal disputes, dilemmas, and policy controversies whereby all sides, viewpoints, and ideological positions can come out ahead of their best initial expectations simultaneously. This book discusses these three important subjects by generating relevant principles based on developmental law, legal policy analysis, law teaching, (...) and the judicial process. (shrink)

Choice architecture describes the environment in which choices are presented to decision-makers. In recent years, public and private actors have looked at choice architecture with great interest as they seek to influence human behaviour. These actors are typically called choice architects. Increasingly, however, this role of architecting choice is not performed by a human choice architect, but an algorithm or artificial intelligence, powered by a stream of Big Data and infused with an objective it has been programmed to maximise. We (...) call this entity the autonomous choice architect. In this paper, we present an account of why artificial intelligence can fulfil the role of a choice architect and why this creates problems of transparency, responsibility and accountability for nudges. We argue that choice architects, be them autonomous computational systems or human-beings, at a most basic level select, from a range of designs, the design which is most likely to maximise a pre-determined objective. We then proceed to argue that, given the growing demand for targeted, personalised choice architecture and for faster, dynamic reconfigurations of choice architecture, as well as the ever-expanding pool of data from which feedback can be drawn, the role of the human choice architect is increasingly obscured behind algorithmic, artificially intelligent systems. We provide a discussion of the implications of autonomous choice architects, focusing on the importance of the humans who programme these systems, ultimately arguing that despite technological advances, the responsibility of choice architecture and influence remains firmly one human beings must bear. (shrink)

This paper reports the introduction of electronic handsets, like those used on the television show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' into the teaching of philosophical logic. Logic lectures can provide quite a formidable challenge for many students, occasionally to the point of making them ill. Our rationale for introducing handsets was threefold: to get the students thinking and talking about the subject in a public environment; to make them feel secure enough to answer questions in the lectures because the (...) system enabled them to do this anonymously; and to build their confidence about their learning by their being able to see how they were progressing in relation to the rest of the students in the class. We have achieved all of these and more. Our experience has revealed that the use of handsets encourages a more dynamic form of student interaction in an environment - the lecture - that can, in the wrong hands, be utterly enervating, but they also provide an opportunity for the lecturer to respond to students' difficulties at the time when they really matter. In this paper, we discuss our case of rapid adoption, our grounds for judging it a success, and what that success seems to have depended on. (shrink)

Stuart, SN The notorious Yasukuni shrine does not look particularly unusual to the foreign eye. Situated in metropolitan Tokyo, not far from the Ministry of Defence, it is busy with people soberly paying their brief respects, as they will do at any Shinto shrine. Several buildings are distributed over an area comparable to that of the Shrine of Remembrance reserve in Melbourne. There is a statue of a military gentleman and some bronze bas-reliefs of battle scenes, including one depicting (...) a ship's captain heroically calming his terrified men, even as the sea pours in upon them all, through a hole in the hull. Created in the nineteenth century as an imperial memorial to war dead whose names are not apparent today, the shrine authority announced in 1979 it was also accommodating the souls of fourteen executed war criminals - a provocation to pacifists ever since. But facile objection to the piety of others can obscure the historic plight of a whole people. (shrink)

Stuart, SN Review of: Agnosticism: A very short introduction, by Robin Le Poidevin Oxford University Press, 2010,.

Stuart, SN Review of: Atheism for dummies, by Dale McGowan, John Wiley, 2013,.

Stuart, SN A review of sociological studies comparing outcomes of schooling across the three educational sectors in Australia has been published by Save Our Schools.

Stuart, SN An extraordinary concentration of intellectual effort in Vienna during 1924 to 1936 produced a new standard of philosophy which remains an important touchstone today, despite some shortcomings which have become apparent. The contributors were animated to regain clarity of collective thought, felt to be lost in the convulsion of the Great War. As its topics were quickly taken up in Prague and Berlin, Cambridge and Harvard, the Vienna Circle came to exert an important, international influence on the (...) intellectual and scientific history of the twentieth century. In particular, its program for separating knowledge from nonsense informed the emerging international Humanist movement. (shrink)

This volume argues for a new image of science that understands both natural and social phenomena to be the product of mechanisms, casting the work of science as an effort to understand those mechanisms. Glennan offers an account of the nature of mechanisms and of the models used to represent them in physical, life, and social sciences.

Context: Seventeen years ago Francisco Varela introduced neurophenomenology. He proposed the integration of phenomenological approaches to first-person experience – in the tradition of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty – with a neuro-dynamical, scientific approach to the study of the situated brain and body. Problem: It is time for a re-appraisal of this field. Has neurophenomenology already contributed to the sciences of the mind? If so, how? How should it best do so in future? Additionally, can neurophenomenology really help to resolve or (...) dissolve the “hard problem” of the relation between mind and body, as Varela claimed? Method: The papers in this special issue arose out of a conference organised by the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society in Bristol, UK, in September 2012. We have invited a representative sample of the speakers at that conference to present their work here. Results: Various papers argue that the first-person methods of phenomenology are distinct from, and more robust than, the failed “introspectionist” methods of early modern psychology. The “elicitation interview” emerges as a successful and widely adopted method to have emerged from this field. Phenomenological techniques are already being successfully applied to neuroscientific problems. Various specific proposals for new techniques and applications are made. Implications: It is time to take neurophenomenology seriously. It has proven its worth, and it is ripe with the potential for further immediate, successful applications. Constructivist content: Varela’s key aim was to develop a non-dualising approach to the science of consciousness. The papers in this special issue look at the philosophical and practical details of successfully putting such an approach into practice. (shrink)

From the operation of the universe to DNA, the brain and the economy, natural and social frequently describe their activity as being concerned with discovering mechanisms. Despite this fact, for much of the twentieth century philosophical discussions of the nature of mechanisms remained outside philosophy of science. The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over (...) thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the _Handbook_ is divided into four parts: Historical Perspectives on Mechanisms The Nature of Mechanisms Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Science Disciplinary Perspectives. Within these sections central topics and problems are examined, including the rise of mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century; mechanisms as parts and wholes and their interactive powers; mechanisms and laws and regularities; how mechanisms are discovered and explained; dynamical systems theory; and disciplinary perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, biomedicine, ecology, neuroscience and the social and political sciences. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science and philosophy the _Handbook _will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as metaphysics, philosophy of psychology and history of science. (shrink)

Philosophers of science increasingly believe that much of science is concerned with understanding the mechanisms responsible for the production of natural phenomena. An adequate understanding of scientific research requires an account of how scientists develop and test models of mechanisms. This paper offers a general account of the nature of mechanical models, discussing the representational relationship that holds between mechanisms and their models as well as the techniques that can be used to test and refine such models. The analysis is (...) supported by study of two competing models of a mechanism of speech perception. (shrink)

While much of the recent literature on mechanisms has emphasized the superiority of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation over laws and nomological explanation, paradigmatic mechanisms—e.g., clocks or synapses—actually exhibit a great deal of stability in their behavior. And while mechanisms of this kind are certainly of great importance, there are many events that do not occur as a consequence of the operation of stable mechanisms. Events of natural and human history are often the consequence of causal processes that are ephemeral and (...) capricious. In this paper I shall argue that, notwithstanding their ephemeral nature, these processes deserve to be called mechanisms. Ephemeral mechanisms share important characteristics with their more stable cousins, and these shared characteristics will help us to understand connections between scientific and historical explanation. (shrink)

In this paper we identify six theses that constitute core results of philosophical investigation into the nature of mechanisms, and of the role that the search for and identification of mechanisms play in the sciences. These theses represent the fruits of the body of research that is now often called New Mechanism. We concisely present the main arguments for these theses. In the literature, these arguments are scattered and often implicit. Our analysis can guide future research in many ways: it (...) provides critics of New Mechanism with clear targets, it can reduce misunderstandings, it can clarify differences of opinion among New Mechanists and it helps to define a research agenda for New Mechanists. (shrink)

Recent papers by a number of philosophers have been concerned with the question of whether natural selection is a causal process, and if it is, whether the causes of selection are properties of individuals or properties of populations. I shall argue that much confusion in this debate arises because of a failure to distinguish between causal productivity and causal relevance. Causal productivity is a relation that holds between events connected via continuous causal processes, while causal relevance is a relationship that (...) can hold between a variety of different kinds of facts and the events that counterfactually depend upon them. I shall argue that the productive character of natural selection derives from the aggregation of individual processes in which organisms live, reproduce and die. At the same time, a causal explanation of the distribution of traits will necessarily appeal both to causally relevant properties of individuals and to causally relevant properties that exist only at the level of the population. (shrink)

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold (...) standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis of causation that appeals to mechanisms. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to make a case for the singularist view from the perspective of a mechanical theory of causation, and to explain what, from this perspective, causal generalizations mean, and what role they play within the mechanical theory.

Advocates of the New Mechanicism in philosophy of science argue that scientific explanation often consists in describing mechanisms responsible for natural phenomena. Despite its successes, one might think that this approach does not square with the ontological strictures of quantum mechanics. New Mechanists suppose that mechanisms are composed of objects with definite properties, which are interconnected via local causal interactions. Quantum mechanics calls these suppositions into question. Since mechanisms are hierarchical it appears that even macroscopic mechanisms must supervene on a (...) set of “objects” that behave non-classically. In this paper we argue, in part by appeal to the theory of quantum decoherence, that the universal validity of quantum mechanics does not undermine neo-mechanistic ontological and explanatory claims as they occur within in classical domains. Additionally, we argue that by relaxation of certain classical assumptions, mechanistic explanatory strategies can sometimes be carried over into the quantum domain. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Brian Alters argued that, given the many ways in which the nature of science is described and poor student responses to NOS instruments such as Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale, Nature of Science Scale, Test on Understanding Science, and others, it is time for science educators to reconsider the standard lists of tenets for the NOS. Alters suggested that philosophers of science are authorities on the NOS and that consequently, it would be wise (...) to investigate their views of current NOS tenets. To that end, he conducted a survey of members of the Philosophy of Science Association, and, via various statistical techniques, made claims about the nature and extent of variation among philosophers of science regarding basic beliefs about the NOS. As three philosophers of science, we laud Alters’ attempt to understand philosophers of science’ view on the NOS. We believe, however, that his techniques for investigating this question are inappropriate and that consequently, several of his conclusions are unwarranted. In this comment, we will substantiate these criticisms. In addition, we will address some of the important questions that motivate Alters’ research and attempt to unravel the “byzantine complexity” of philosophical views about the NOS. We begin with our concerns regarding Alters’ research. We then provide a taxonomy of philosophic issues; and finally, we suggest some roles for philosophy of science in science teaching and the education of science teachers. (shrink)

Events are things like explosions, floods, weddings or births. Both in common-sense and scientific usage, events are spatially and temporally bounded doings or happenings that involve activity and change. Philosophical theories of events have not, generally speaking, honored this feature of events. Probably the most widely discussed account, due to Jaegwon Kim, holds that events are exemplifications of properties at times. But properties are things like temperature, shape, color, solidity or fragility; they are not doings or happenings, but havings. In (...) this paper I defend an account which takes seriously the distinction between doings and havings, which I call the object-activity theory of events. I argue that an event is not an object or objects exemplifying a property or relation, but instead an object or objects engaged in an activity or interaction. (shrink)