Online research in philosophy

It is widely held that, as Morgenbesser’s case is usually taken to show, considerations of causal or probabilistic dependence should enter into the evaluation of counterfactuals. This paper challenges that idea. I present a modified version of Morgenbesser’s case and show how probabilistic approaches to counterfactuals are in serious trouble. Specifically, I show how probabilistic approaches run into a dilemma in characterizing probabilistic independence. The modified case also illustrates a difficulty in defining causal independence. I close with a suggestion for a strategy to handle this difficulty.

Causal processes that are technically called deviant or wayward causal chains must be ruled out when analyzing various phenomena, including intentional action, perception, and the operation of causal mechanisms involved in the manifesting of causal powers. Irving Thalberg is incorrect in arguing that this problem does not arise when analyzing intentional action. After criticizing solutions proposed by Christopher Peacocke and David Lewis, I provide a general analysis of non-deviance. In application to intentional action, the account is seen to be preferable to that of Michael H. Robins, and proves to be adequate to rule out what Alfred R. Mele calls cases of tertiary waywardness.

There is a widely accepted ancient principle which holds that effects must occur as soon as possible after their causes. This paper takes this principle seriously and shows that if one believes there are causal chains then one is forced to accept the view that the temporal order is discrete or that some causally related events form a dense sequence.

The paper defends Humean approaches to autonomous mental causation against recent attacks in the literature. One important criticism launched at Humean approaches says that the truth-makers of the counterfactuals in question include laws of nature, and there are laws that support physical-to-physical counterfactuals, but no laws in the same sense that support mental-to-physical counterfactuals. This paper argues that special science causal laws and physical causal laws cannot be distinguished in terms of degrees of strictness. It follows that mental-to-physical counterfactuals are supported—or not supported—by laws in just the same way as are physical-to-physical counterfactuals.

The first part of this paper shows that Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)--also in its most recent forms as presented in Ragin (2000, 2008)--, does not correctly analyze data generated by causal chains, which, after all, are very common among causal processes in the social sciences. The incorrect modeling of data originating from chains essentially stems from QCA’s reliance on Quine-McCluskey optimization to eliminate redundancies from sufficient and necessary conditions. Baumgartner (2009a,b) has introduced a Boolean methodology, termed Coincidence Analysis (CNA), that is related to QCA, yet, contrary to the latter, does not eliminate redundancies by means of Quine-McCluskey optimization. The second part of the paper applies CNA to chain-generated data. It will turn out that CNA successfully detects causal chains in small-N data.

In the artificial intelligence literature a promising approach to counterfactual reasoning is to interpret counterfactual conditionals based on causal models. Different logics of such causal counterfactuals have been developed with respect to different classes of causal models. In this paper I characterize the class of causal models that are Lewisian in the sense that they validate the principles in Lewis’s well-known logic of counterfactuals. I then develop a system sound and complete with respect to this class. The resulting logic is the weakest logic of causal counterfactuals that respects Lewis’s principles, sits in between the logic developed by Galles and Pearl and the logic developed by Halpern, and stands to Galles and Pearl’s logic in the same fashion as Lewis’s stands to Stalnaker’s.

When employing causal terminology in analyzing intentional action, and sometimes in analyzing additional phenomena, philosophers have required that relevant causal chains be free of what they call causal deviance or waywardness. But there is a wider type of deviance that needs to be excluded, of which causal deviance is only a species. Carl Ginet’s On Action considers examples of both types of deviance. A criticism of his treatment of such examples leads to a more satisfactory general analysis of nondeviant chains in terms of the manifestations of powers and the occasions for such manifestations.

Like all causal theories in philosophy, the causal theory of action is plagued by the problem of deviant causal chains. I have proposed a solution on the basis of the assumption that mental states and events are causally efficacious in virtue of their contents. This solution has been questioned by Torbjörn Tännsjö (2009). First, I will reply to the objection, and then I will discuss Tännsjö’s alternative.

This article defends the use of interventionist counterfactuals to elucidate causal and explanatory claims against criticisms advanced by James Bogen and Peter Machamer. Against Bogen, I argue that counterfactual claims concerning what would happen under interventions are meaningful and have determinate truth values, even in a deterministic world. I also argue, against both Machamer and Bogen, that we need to appeal to counterfactuals to capture the notions like causal relevance and causal mechanism. Contrary to what both authors suppose, counterfactuals are not "unscientific" - a substantial tradition within statistics and the causal modelling literature makes heavy use of them.

On a causal theory of rational behavior, behavior is just a causal consequence of the reasons an actor has. One of the difficulties with this theory has been the possibility of the "wayward causal chains," according to which reasons can cause the expected output, but in such an unusual way that the output is clearly not intentional. The inability to find a general way of excluding these wayward chains without implicitly appealing to elements incompatible with a pure causal account (like brute acts of will) has been a problem for the causal theory. This essay attempts to find a general solution to the problem. The solution rests on the premise that behavior-producing systems are goal-directed, and that on a purely causal analysis of goal-directedness it can be shown that the wayward chains' resulting in the goal is purely fortuitous because these chains do not subserve the function of the system.