Synthese (10):4101-4131 (2017)
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Abstract |
Path-dependence offers a promising way of understanding the role historicity plays in explanation, namely, how the past states of a process can matter in the explanation of a given outcome. The two main existing accounts of path-dependence have sought to present it either in terms of dynamic landscapes or branching trees. However, the notions of landscape and tree both have serious limitations and have been criticized. The framework of causal networks is both more fundamental and more general that that of landscapes and trees. Within this framework, I propose that historicity in networks should be understood as symmetry breaking. History matters when an asymmetric bias towards an outcome emerges in a causal network. This permits a quantitative measure for how path-dependence can occur in degrees, and offers suggestive insights into how historicity is intertwined both with causal structure and complexity.
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Keywords | Path-dependence Explanation Historicity Symmetry Causal networks Mutual information |
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Reprint years | 2017 |
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DOI | 10.1007/s11229-016-1130-0 |
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References found in this work BETA
Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference.Judea Pearl - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):201-202.
Wonderful Life; The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History.Stephen Jay Gould - 1992 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 23 (2):359-360.
Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Theory.Massimo Pigliucci & Jonathan Kaplan - 2006 - University of Chicago Press.
View all 30 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Shades of Grey: Granularity, Pragmatics, and Non-Causal Explanation.Hugh Desmond - 2019 - Perspectives on Science 27 (1):68-87.
Path-Bound Normativity and a Confucian Case of Historical Holism.Yujian Zheng - 2022 - Asian Philosophy 32 (2):215-235.
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