Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-15T20:12:21.625Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Causes and Laws: The Asymmetry Puzzle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Henry Byerly
Henry Byerly*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

How are causes and laws related? Some attempt to analyze causal relations in terms of laws, others view causal explanation as quite distinct from explanation using laws. My analysis of the relations between causes and laws focuses on cases such as the simple pendulum law where asymmetries in causal relations between quantities are not reflected in the functional dependencies in the law equations. The asymmetry puzzle has elicited a variety of accounts which reflect quite different views on the relation between causes and laws and their roles in scientific explanation. Finding none of the usual accounts satisfying, I offer an explication based on some distinctions in the analysis of the relevant causes that are not commonly heeded. I criticize the very notion of causal law and examine some implications of my account for ceteris paribus problems which arise in attempts to give realist interpretations of scientific theories.

Type
Part IX. Belief, Cause and Induction
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 545 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bromberger, S. (1966), “Why-Questions”, in Mind and Cosmos, Colodny, R. (ed.), Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 86–111.Google Scholar
Byerly, H. (1969), “Model-Structures and Model-Objects”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 20: 135–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byerly, H. (1979), “Substantial Causes and Nomic Determination” Philosophy of Science 46: 57–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. (1928), Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. Berlin: Im Weltkreis Verlag.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1983), How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1989), “A Case Study in Realism: Why Econometrics Is Committed to Capacities”, in PSA 1988, Volume 2, Fine, A. and Leplin, J. (eds.). East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 190–97.Google Scholar
Cummins, R. (1983), The Nature of Psychological Explanation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. (1967), “Causal Relations”, Journal of Philosophy 64: 691–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ducasse, C. (1969), “Causation: Perceivable? or Only Inferred?”, in Causation and the Types of Necessity. New York: Dover Publications, pp. 147–53.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (1983), Representing and Intervening. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511814563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugeland, J. (1983), “Phenomenal Causes”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Supplement: 63-70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. (1989), “Ceteris Paribus Clauses and Causality in Economics”, in PSA 1988, Volume 2, Fine, A. and Leplin, J. (eds.). East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 308–16.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Lindsay, R. and Margenau, H. (1936), Foundations of Physics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Longair, M. (1984), Theoretical Concepts in Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Margenau, H. (1950), The Nature of Physical Reality. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1917), Mysticism and Logic. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. (1984), Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. (1966), “Fatalism and Determinism”, in Freedom and Determinism, Lehrer, K. (ed.). New York: Random House, pp. 141–74.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar