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- Iain Martel, Probabilistic Empiricism: In Defence of a Reichenbachian Theory of Causation and the Direction of Time.A probabilistic theory of causation is a theory which holds that the central feature of causation is that causes (usually) raise the probability of their effects. In this dissertation, I defend Hans Reichenbach's original (1953) version of the probabilistic theory of causation, which analyses causal relations in terms of a three place statistical betweenness relation. Unlike most discussions of this theory, I hold that the statistical relation should be taken as a sufficient, but not as necessary, condition for causal betweenness. With this difference in interpretation, Reichenbach's theory is shown to be immune to all of the criticisms which have been raised against it in the last..In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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argues that the success of the backward causation hypothesis in quantum mechanics would provide strong support for a version of Reichenbach's account of the direction of causal processes, which takes the direction of causation to rest on the fork asymmetry. He also criticises my perspectival account of the direction of causation, which takes causal asymmetry to be a projection of our own temporal asymmetry as agents. In this reply I take issue with Dowe's argument at three main points: his claim (...)
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| | Other links: mind.oxfordjournals.org jstor.org | Scholar | More.. Our present concern originates with two uncontroversial observations about causation: the causal relation is asymmetric, so that if A is a cause of B then B is not a cause of A; and effects never (or almost never) occur before their causes. Uncontroversial as they may be, these features of causation are far from unproblematic. A philosophical theory of causation thus has these two non-trivial tasks, among others: to explicate the difference between cause and effect—to reveal the true content of (...)
I advance a new theory of causal relevance, according to which causal claims convey information about conditional probability functions. This theory is motivated by the problem of disjunctive factors, which haunts existing probabilistic theories of causation. After some introductory remarks, I present in Section 3 a sketch of Eells's (1991) probabilistic theory of causation, which provides the framework for much of the discussion. Section 4 explains how the problem of disjunctive factors arises within this framework. After rejecting three proposed solutions, (...)
I argue that the orthodox account of probabilistic causation, on which probabilistic causes determine the probability of their effects, is inconsistent with certain ontological assumptions implicit in scientific practice. In particular, scientists recognize the possibility that properties of populations can cause the behavior of members of the populations. Such emergent population‐level causation is metaphysically impossible on the orthodoxy.
I argue that the orthodox account of probabilistic causation, on which probabilistic causes determine the probability of their effects, is inconsistent with certain ontological assumptions implicit in scientific practice. In particular, scientists recognize the possibility that properties of populations can cause the behavior of members of the populations. Such emergent population level causation is metaphysically impossible on the orthodoxy.
I propose a non-Humean theory of causation with “tendencies” as causal connections. Not, however, as “necessary connexions”: causes are not sufficient, they do not necessitate their effects. The theory is designed to be, not an analysis of the concept of causation, but a description of what is the case in typical cases of causa-tion. I therefore call it a metaphysical theory of causation, as opposed to a semantic one.
Is the common cause principle merely one of a set of useful heuristics for discovering causal relations, or is it rather a piece of heavy duty metaphysics, capable of grounding the direction of causation itself? Since the principle was introduced in Reichenbach’s groundbreaking work The Direction of Time (1956), there have been a series of attempts to pursue the latter program—to take the probabilistic relationships constitutive of the principle of the common cause and use them to ground the direction of (...)
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| | Other links: philsci-archive.pitt.edu springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. Counter factual theories of Causation have had problems with cases of probabilistic causation and preemption. I put forward a counterfactual theory that seems to deal with these problematic cases and also has the virtue of providing an account of the alleged asymmetry between hasteners and delayers: the former usually being counted as causes, the latter not. I go on to consider a new type of problem case that has not received so much attention in the literature, those I dub catalysts (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: mind.oxfordjournals.org jstor.org | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: mind.oxfordjournals.org jstor.org | Scholar | More.. 
