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  1. Resemblance-based resources for reductive singularism (or: How to be a Humean singularist about causation).Jessica Wilson - 2009 - The Monist 92 (1):153-190.
    Hume argued that experience could not justify commonly held beliefs in singular causal effcacy, according to which individual or singular causes produce their effects or make their effects happen. Hume's discussion has been influential, as motivating the view that Causal reductionism (denying that causal efficacy is an irreducible feature of natural reality) requires Causal generalism (according to which causal relations are metaphysically constituted by patterns of events). Here I argue that causal reductionists---indeed, Hume himself---have previously unappreciated resources for making sense (...)
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  • Rigidity, instability and dimensionality.Jon Pérez Laraudogoitia - 2018 - Synthese 195 (9):4047-4062.
    The paper takes a detailed look at a surprising new aspect of the dynamics of rigid bodies. Far from the usual consideration of rigid body theory as a merely technical chapter of classical physics, I demonstrate here that there are solutions to the conservation equations of mechanics that imply the spontaneous, unpredictable splitting of a rigid body in free rotation, something that has direct implications for the problem of causality. The paper also shows that the instability revealed in indeterminist splitting (...)
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  • A theory of causality: Causality=interaction (as defined by a suitable quantum field theory). [REVIEW]Adrian Heathcote - 1989 - Erkenntnis 31 (1):77 - 108.
    In this paper I put forward a suggestion for identifying causality in micro-systems with the specific quantum field theoretic interactions that occur in such systems. I first argue — along the lines of general transference theories — that such a physicalistic account is essential to an understanding of causation; I then proceed to sketch the concept of interaction as it occurs in quantum field theory and I do so from both a formal and an informal point of view. Finally, I (...)
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  • Sparse Causation and Mere Abundant Causation.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (11):3259-3280.
    Setting off from a familiar distinction in the philosophy of properties, this paper introduces a tripartite distinction between sparse causation, abundant causation and mere abundant causation. It is argued that the contrast between sparse and mere abundant causation allows us to resolve notorious philosophical issues having to do with negative causation, causation involving institutional properties and physical macro-causation in a way that is unified, intuitive and in line with scientific doctrines and practices.
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  • Meso-level Objects, Powers, and Simultaneous Causation.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2017 - Metaphysica 18 (1):107-125.
    I argue that Mumford and Anjum’s recent theory of simultaneous causation among powerful meso-level objects is problematic in several respects: it is based on a false dichotomy, it is incompatible with standard meso-level physics, it is explanatory deficient, and it threatens to render the powers metaphysics incoherent. Powers theorists are advised, therefore, to adopt a purely sequential conception of causation.
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  • The measurement of consciousness: a framework for the scientific study of consciousness.David Gamez - 2014 - Frontiers in Psychology 5.
  • What's right and what's wrong with transference theories.Phil Dowe - 1995 - Erkenntnis 42 (3):363 - 374.
    This paper examines the Transference Theory of causation, developed originally by Aronson (1971) and Fair (1979). Three difficulties for that theory are presented: firstly, problems associated with the direction of transference and causal asymmetry; secondly, the case of persistence as causation, for example where a body's own inertia is the cause of its motion; and thirdly the problematic notion of identity through time of physical quantities such as energy or momentum. Finally, the theory is compared with the Conserved Quantity Theory (...)
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  • Physics and the direction of causation.D. Dieks - 1986 - Erkenntnis 25 (1):85 - 110.
    Two proposals for a physicalistic analysis of causation — the so-called transference model and an account given by J. L. Mackie — are examined and found wanting on the score of physical objectivity. This shortcoming can be remedied, but it is further argued that both proposals embody a too restricted conception of what a physicalistic analysis of causation should be. A more general program is proposed.
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  • What is an Empirical Analysis of Causation?Thomas D. Bontly - 2006 - Synthese 151 (2):177-200.
    Philosophical accounts of causation have traditionally been framed as attempts to analyze the concept of a cause. In recent years, however, a number of philosophers have proposed instead that causation be empirically reduced to some relation uncovered by the natural sciences: e.g., a relation of energy transfer. This paper argues that the project of empirical analysis lacks a clearly defined methodology, leaving it uncertain how such views are to be evaluated. It proposes several possible accounts of empirical analysis and argues (...)
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  • Why is the transference theory of causation insuffcient? The challenge of the Aharonov-Bohm effect.Vincent Ardourel & Alexandre Guay - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 63:12-23.
    The transference theory reduces causation to the transmission of physical conserved quantities, like energy or momenta. Although this theory aims at applying to all felds of physics, we claim that it fails to account for a quantum electrodynamic effect, viz. the Aharonov-Bohm effect. After having argued that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is a genuine counter-example for the transference theory, we offer a new physicalist approach of causation, ontic and modal, in which this effect is embedded.
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  • How Neurons Mean: A Neurocomputational Theory of Representational Content.Chris Eliasmith - 2000 - Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis
    Questions concerning the nature of representation and what representations are about have been a staple of Western philosophy since Aristotle. Recently, these same questions have begun to concern neuroscientists, who have developed new techniques and theories for understanding how the locus of neurobiological representation, the brain, operates. My dissertation draws on philosophy and neuroscience to develop a novel theory of representational content.
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