Abstract
Russo and Williamson (Int Stud Philos Sci 21(2):157–170, 2007) put forward the thesis that, at least in the health sciences, to establish the claim that C is a cause of E, one normally needs evidence of an underlying mechanism linking C and E as well as evidence that C makes a difference to E. This epistemological thesis poses a problem for most current analyses of causality which, in virtue of analysing causality in terms of just one of mechanisms or difference making, cannot account for the need for the other kind of evidence. Weber (Int Stud Philos Sci 23(2):277–295, 2009) has suggested to the contrary that Giere’s probabilistic analysis of causality survives this criticism. In this paper, we look in detail at the case of medical imaging technology, which, we argue, supports the thesis of Russo and Williamson, and we respond to Weber’s suggestion, arguing that Giere’s account does not survive the criticism.
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Notes
Of course, the more of the mechanism that is known, the better the explanation that can be offered. But the existence of the mechanism is sufficient for the causal claim to play an explanatory role.
The details of the mechanism between C and E and those of surrounding mechanisms can be very useful in other ways in establishing a causal claim, e.g. they can shed light on the nature of possible confounders and on whether a causal claim can be extrapolated from animals to humans or from one time to another (see Section 5). Although these considerations are important, they are orthogonal to the particular role of mechanisms under consideration here.
As Illari (unpublished manuscript) notes, RWT points to a distinction between the objects of evidence (a difference-making relation, a mechanism) rather than between items of evidence: It is possible that the same item of evidence could be evidence both of a difference-making relation and of an underlying mechanism, in which case a single item of evidence could be sufficient to establish a causal claim.
See Webb (op. cit.) for the origin and development of this idea.
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Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Sarah Heathfield, Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo, Erik Weber and two anonymous referees for helpful discussion and comments, to the Leverhulme Trust for supporting George Darby’s research and to the British Academy for supporting Jon Williamson’s research.
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Darby, G., Williamson, J. Imaging Technology and the Philosophy of Causality. Philos. Technol. 24, 115–136 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-010-0010-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-010-0010-7