Causation and Intelligibility
Philosophy 69 (267):55- (1994)
| Abstract | Hume, in "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", holds (1) that all causal reasoning is based on experience and (2) that causal reasoning is based on nothing but experience. (1) does not imply (2), and Hume's good reasons for (1) are not good reasons for (2). This essay accepts (1) and argues against (2). A priori reasoning plays a role in causal inference. Familiar examples from Hume and from classroom examples of sudden disappearances and radical changes do not show otherwise. A priori causal reasoning is closely related to understanding causal mechanisms. One uncovers the intelligibility of a causal process by understanding its mechanism. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,875 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMarc Lange & Alexander Rosenberg (2011). Can There Be A Priori Causal Models of Natural Selection? Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (4):591 - 599.
Ralph Wedgwood (2006). The Normative Force of Reasoning. Noûs 40 (4):660–686.
Alison Gopnik & Laura Schulz (eds.) (2007). Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation. Oxford University Press.
Christoph Hoerl (2011). Perception, Causal Understanding, and Locality. In Johannes Roessler, Hemdat Lerman & Naomi Eilan (eds.), Perception, Causation, and Objectivity. Oxford University Press.
Christoph Hoerl (2011). Causal Reasoning. Philosophical Studies 152 (2):167-179.
Peter Millican (2009). Hume, Causal Realism, and Causal Science. Mind 118 (471):647-712.
Dominick A. Rizzi (1994). Causal Reasoning and the Diagnostic Process. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 15 (3).
Sieghard Beller & Gregory Kuhnm (2007). What Causal Conditional Reasoning Tells Us About People's Understanding of Causality. Thinking and Reasoning 13 (4):426 – 460.
Paul Thagard (1998). Explaining Disease: Correlations, Causes, and Mechanisms. Minds and Machines 8 (1):61-78.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-08-10Total downloads10 ( #107,734 of 556,896 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #64,931 of 556,896 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
