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Generic versus single-case causality: the case of autopsy

  • Original Paper in Philosophy of Science
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Abstract

This paper addresses questions about how the levels of causality (generic and single-case causality) are related. One question is epistemological: can relationships at one level be evidence for relationships at the other level? We present three kinds of answer to this question, categorised according to whether inference is top-down, bottom-up, or the levels are independent. A second question is metaphysical: can relationships at one level be reduced to relationships at the other level? We present three kinds of answer to this second question, categorised according to whether single-case relations are reduced to generic, generic relations are reduced to single-case, or the levels are independent. We then explore causal inference in autopsy. This is an interesting case study, we argue, because it refutes all three epistemologies and all three metaphysics. We close by sketching an account of causality that survives autopsy—the epistemic theory.

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Notes

  1. Note the change from population-level variables—literacy rate and proportion of immigrants—to individual-level variables—being literate, being an immigrant.

  2. This fact—that frequency is at root a generic relation—also motivates some accounts where levels are metaphysically independent, a position discussed below. In fact, it is not difficult to find cases where at the generic level the causal relatum is, say, a negative causal factor, and yet there exist single cases where an instantiation of the same causal relatum is instead a positive causal factor. This situation has led some authors to argue that the probabilistic account is not undermined by such cases, provided that distinct concepts of cause at work at distinct levels be defined. A stock example in the philosophical literature is the golf ball example mentioned in Section 2. See, for instance, Sober (1984, 1986), Salmon (1980, 1984), Eells (1991), and (Russo 2009, ch. 2 and 6) for a discussion.

  3. It is worth noting that in the account of Lewis (1973), truth conditions of counterfactuals are given in terms of similarity of worlds, and although similarity is not fully explicated in Lewis but taken as a primitive notion, it remains possible that the single-case causal relation depends on generic facts.

  4. Cartwright’s capacity view of causality is close to the complex-systems mechanism view in important respects: complex-systems mechanisms and nomological machines are both conceived of as the underlying physical structures that are responsible for regularities, and they are responsible for those regularities in virtue of the way their components are organised and the behaviour that these components can engage in (Glennan 1996; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005; Machamer et al. 2000; Cartwright 1999). But there are differences—for example, the behaviour of the components is variously underwritten by capacities (which are a special sort of dispositional property), activities (which differ from capacities in that they can be relational rather than monadic, and are manifestations rather than dispositions), or laws. The capacity theory maintains that an effect can only be regularly produced by a cause in the context of a nomological machine, so the theory may be classed as a mechanistic theory of causality. It cannot be classed as a difference-making theory because an entity can have a capacity to make no difference: a homeostatic mechanism has the capacity to maintain the status quo; a teenager has the capacity to do nothing. To discover a causal regularity we need to establish the underlying mechanism rather than establish that the cause makes a difference to its effects: ‘we have to establish the arrangement and capacities of mechanical elements and the right shielding conditions that keep the machine running properly’ (Cartwright 1999, p. 50).

  5. There are exceptions such as Glennan (2002), discussed below. Note however that several accounts that apparently appeal to both aspects simultaneously do not on closer inspection. While apparently appealing to both mechanisms and counterfactuals, Glennan (2010) is in fact pluralist, while for Craver counterfactuals are used as tests. Glennan (2010) distinguishes two concepts: (i) causal relevance and (ii) causal production. On the one hand, a property, in his account, is causally relevant to an event if the event counterfactually depends on the property; on the other hand, an event causally produces another if they are connected by a chain of causal processes. (In fact for Glennan, mechanisms are truthmakers for both kinds of causal claim.) In Craver’s account, counterfactuals do not enter the definition of ‘mechanism’ but are rather used to evaluate causal claims. Indeed, Craver (2007, ch. 4) does not mention any counterfactual element in the features of mechanisms; on the contrary, he stresses—e.g., Craver (2007, p. 64, 65, 86)—that counterfactuals and manipulations serve to evaluate causal mechanisms; that is to say, counterfactuals are tests, not definers.

  6. The proponent of the mechanistic analysis might argue that difference-making evidence can help establish the existence of a mechanism. But it still remains the case that according to this sort of position, once the mechanism is established no further difference-making evidence is required. It is this last point that we contest (Russo and Williamson 2007).

  7. It is worth noting that Hill never considered his points as ‘criteria’ but just as guidelines. However, this is not relevant to our argument, which is just to point out what ‘elements’ are required to establish causal claims.

  8. Of course, as to how to characterise the ideal causal epistemology is open to some speculation. In Williamson (2005) a hybrid of hypothetico-deductive and inductive epistemology is proposed and in Russo (2009) it is argued that the epistemic theory is compatible with a variational epistemology. A variational epistemology says, simply put, that reasoning underlying the discovery and confirmation of causal relations hinges on the notion of variation. A variational epistemology is not confined to either level—generic or single-case. Quite to the contrary, it can be shown that the concept of variation plays a role in causal discovery and confirmation at the generic level as well as in the single-case (Russo 2009, ch. 7). This means that a ‘level-monism’ does not enter from the back door—the epistemic theory does not require an epistemology that is ‘single-level’, so to speak.

  9. Note that, in the light of the epistemic theory, the standard classification of theories of causality into difference-making and mechanistic theories is in fact somewhat blurred. The epistemic theory is neither classifiable as purely mechanistic nor as purely difference-making. Hence the two categories are not mutually exclusive and exhaustive.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by funds from the British Academy and the Fonds Nationale de Recherche Scientifique (Belgium). We are grateful to Alan Bates, Nancy Cartwright, Brendan Clarke, Carl Hoefer and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments.

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  1. Philosophy–SECL, University of Kent, CT2 7NF, Canterbury, UK

    Federica Russo & Jon Williamson

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Correspondence to Federica Russo.

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Russo, F., Williamson, J. Generic versus single-case causality: the case of autopsy. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 1, 47–69 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-010-0012-4

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