Results for 'Causation. '

993 found
Order:
  1.  54
    to Psychological Causation.Physical Causation - 2008 - In Kenneth S. Kendler & Josef Parnas (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry: Explanation, Phenomenology, and Nosology. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 71--184.
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Metaphysical Causation.Alastair Wilson - 2018 - Noûs 52 (4):723-751.
    There is a systematic and suggestive analogy between grounding and causation. In my view, this analogy is no coincidence. Grounding and causation are alike because grounding is a type of causation: metaphysical causation. In this paper I defend the identification of grounding with metaphysical causation, drawing on the causation literature to explore systematic connections between grounding and metaphysical dependence counterfactuals, and I outline a non-reductive counterfactual theory of grounding along interventionist lines.
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   147 citations  
  3.  78
    Causation: A User’s Guide.L. A. Paul & Ned Hall - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Edward J. Hall.
    Causation is at once familiar and mysterious. Neither common sense nor extensive philosophical debate has led us to anything like agreement on the correct analysis of the concept of causation, or an account of the metaphysical nature of the causal relation. Causation: A User's Guide cuts a clear path through this confusing but vital landscape. L. A. Paul and Ned Hall guide the reader through the most important philosophical treatments of causation, negotiating the terrain by taking a set of examples (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   101 citations  
  4. Causation: a realist approach.Michael Tooley - 1987 - Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
    Causation: A Realist Approach Traditional empiricist accounts of causation and laws of nature have been reductionist in the sense of entailing that given a complete specification of the non-causal properties of and relations among particulars, it is therefore logically determined both what laws there are and what events are causally related. It is argued here, however, that reductionist accounts of causation and of laws of nature are exposed to decisive objections, and thus that the time has come for empiricists to (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   123 citations  
  5. Mental causation without downward causation.John Gibbons - 2006 - Philosophical Review 115 (1):79-103.
    The problem of downward causation is that an intuitive response to an intuitive picture leads to counterintuitive results. Suppose a mental event, m1, causes another mental event, m2. Unless the mental and the physical are completely independent, there will be a physical event in your brain or your body or the physical world as a whole that underlies this event. The mental event occurs at least partly in virtue of the physical event’s occurring. And the same goes for m2 [2] (...)
    Direct download (11 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  6. Graded Causation and Defaults.Joseph Y. Halpern & Christopher Hitchcock - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (2):413-457.
    Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also suggested that an appeal to such factors can help deal with problems facing existing accounts of actual causation. This article develops a flexible formal framework for incorporating defaults, typicality, and normality into an account of actual causation. The resulting account takes actual causation to be both graded and (...)
    Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   100 citations  
  7. Causation and Responsibility: An Essay in Law, Morals, and Metaphysics.Michael S. Moore - 2009 - Oxford University Press.
    The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the precise relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. This book clarifies that relationship through an analysis of the best accounts of causation in metaphysics, and a critique of the confusion in legal doctrine.
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   79 citations  
  8.  36
    Rational causation.Eric Marcus - 2012 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
  9. Causation comes in degrees.Huzeyfe Demirtas - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-17.
    Which country, politician, or policy is more of a cause of the Covid-19 pandemic death toll? Which of the two factories causally contributed more to the pollution of the nearby river? A wide-ranging portion of our everyday thought and talk, and attitudes rely on a graded notion of causation. However, it is sometimes highlighted that on most contemporary accounts, causation is on-off. Some philosophers further question the legitimacy of talk of degrees of causation and suggest that we avoid it. Some (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  10.  65
    Downward Causation.P. B. Andersen, Claus Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann & P. V. Christiansen (eds.) - 2000 - Aarhus, Denmark: University of Aarhus Press.
    The book deals with the notion of Downward Causation from a wide array of perspectives, including physics, biology, psychology, social science, communication studies, text theory, and philosophy. The book includes proponents as well as opponents discussing the validity of the notion.
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   53 citations  
  11. Causation, Norm violation, and culpable control.Mark D. Alicke, David Rose & Dori Bloom - 2011 - Journal of Philosophy 108 (12):670-696.
    Causation is one of philosophy's most venerable and thoroughly-analyzed concepts. However, the study of how ordinary people make causal judgments is a much more recent addition to the philosophical arsenal. One of the most prominent views of causal explanation, especially in the realm of harmful or potentially harmful behavior, is that unusual or counternormative events are accorded privileged status in ordinary causal explanations. This is a fundamental assumption in psychological theories of counterfactual reasoning, and has been transported to philosophy by (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   72 citations  
  12.  1
    Mental Causation: Investigating the Mind's Powers in a Natural World.Jens Harbecke - 2008 - De Gruyter.
    This work is a systematic investigation of a range of solutions offered today for the philosophical problem of mental causation. The premises constituting the problem are analyzed before a survey is developed of the most popular theories on mental causation. It is demonstrated in detail why most of these canonical solutions must be considered deficient. In a third part, the 'new compatibilist's' approach to mental causation is explored, which is characterized by assertion of a non-identity-but-non-distinctness principle. The last part aims (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  13. Causation and the flow of energy.David Fair - 1979 - Erkenntnis 14 (3):219 - 250.
    Causation has traditionally been analyzed either as a relation of nomic dependence or as a relation of counterfactual dependence. I argue for a third program, a physicalistic reduction of the causal relation to one of energy-momentum transference in the technical sense of physics. This physicalistic analysis is argued to have the virtues of easily handling the standard counterexamples to the nomic and counterfactual analyses, offering a plausible epistemology for our knowledge of causes, and elucidating the nature of the relation between (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   154 citations  
  14. Causation and Universals.Evan Fales - 1990 - New York: Routledge.
    The world contains objective causal relations and universals, both of which are intimately connected. If these claims are true, they must have far-reaching consequences, breathing new life into the theory of empirical knowledge and reinforcing epistemological realism. Without causes and universals, Professor Fales argues, realism is defeated, and idealism or scepticism wins. Fales begins with a detailed analysis of David Hume's argument that we have no direct experience of necessary connections between events, concluding that Hume was mistaken on this fundamental (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   146 citations  
  15.  45
    Causation and Free Will.Carolina Sartorio - 2016 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press UK.
    Carolina Sartorio argues that only the actual causes of our behaviour matter to our freedom. The key, she claims, lies in a correct understanding of the role played by causation in a view of that kind. Causation has some important features that make it a responsibility-grounding relation, and this contributes to the success of the view. Also, when agents act freely, the actual causes are richer than they appear to be at first sight; in particular, they reflect the agents' sensitivity (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   68 citations  
  16. Causation and the Silly Norm Effect.Levin Güver & Markus Kneer - 2023 - In Stefan Magen & Karolina Prochownik (eds.), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Law. Bloomsbury Press. pp. 133–168.
    In many spheres, the law takes the legal concept of causation to correspond to the folk concept (the correspondence assumption). Courts, including the US Supreme Court, tend to insist on the "common understanding" and that which is "natural to say" (Burrage v. United States) when it comes to expressions relating to causation, and frequently refuse to clarify the expression to juries. As recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has uncovered, lay attributions of causation are susceptible to a great number (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  17.  14
    Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery.Rani Lill Anjum & Stephen Mumford - 2018 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests. Without causation, there would be no scientific understanding, explanation, prediction, nor application in new technologies. How we discover causal connections is no easy matter, however. Causation often lies hiddenfrom view and it is vital that we adopt the right methods for uncovering it. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter. This enquiry (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  18. Causation: One word, many things.Nancy Cartwright - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):805-819.
    We currently have on offer a variety of different theories of causation. Many are strikingly good, providing detailed and plausible treatments of exemplary cases; and all suffer from clear counterexamples. I argue that, contra Hume and Kant, this is because causation is not a single, monolithic concept. There are different kinds of causal relations imbedded in different kinds of systems, readily described using thick causal concepts. Our causal theories pick out important and useful structures that fit some familiar cases—cases we (...)
    Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   83 citations  
  19. Causation is macroscopic but not irreducible.David Papineau - 2013 - In Sophie C. Gibb & Rögnvaldur Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology. Oxford University Press. pp. 126.
    In this paper I argue that causation is an essentially macroscopic phenomenon, and that mental causes are therefore capable of outcompeting their more specific physical realizers as causes of physical effects. But I also argue that any causes must be type-identical with physical properties, on pain of positing inexplicable physical conspiracies. I therefore allow macroscopic mental causation, but only when it is physically reducible.
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   35 citations  
  20. Causation and contrast classes.Robert Northcott - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 139 (1):111 - 123.
    I argue that causation is a contrastive relation: c-rather-than-C* causes e-rather-than-E*, where C* and E* are contrast classes associated respectively with actual events c and e. I explain why this is an improvement on the traditional binary view, and develop a detailed definition. It turns out that causation is only well defined in ‘uniform’ cases, where either all or none of the members of C* are related appropriately to members of E*.
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   50 citations  
  21.  42
    Causation in the Law.Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart & Tony Honoré - 1959 - Oxford University Press UK.
    An updated and extended second edition supporting the findings of its well-known predecessor which claimed that courts employ common-sense notions of causation in determining legal responsibility.
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   100 citations  
  22. Mental Causation: A Counterfactual Theory.Thomas Kroedel - 2020 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Our minds have physical effects. This happens, for instance, when we move our bodies when we act. How is this possible? Thomas Kroedel defends an account of mental causation in terms of difference-making: if our minds had been different, the physical world would have been different; therefore, the mind causes events in the physical world. His account not only explains how the mind has physical effects at all, but solves the exclusion problem - the problem of how those effects can (...)
  23. Mental Causation and Mental Reality.Tim Crane - 1992 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 92:185-202.
    The Problems of Mental Causation. Functionalism in the philosophy of mind identifies mental states with their dispositional connections with other mental states, perceptions and actions. Many theories of the mind have sailed under the Functionalist flag. But what I take to be essential to Functionalism is that mental states are individuated causally: the reality of mental states depends essentially on their causal efficacy.
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  24. Demoralizing causation.David Danks, David Rose & Edouard Machery - 2013 - Philosophical Studies (2):1-27.
    There have recently been a number of strong claims that normative considerations, broadly construed, influence many philosophically important folk concepts and perhaps are even a constitutive component of various cognitive processes. Many such claims have been made about the influence of such factors on our folk notion of causation. In this paper, we argue that the strong claims found in the recent literature on causal cognition are overstated, as they are based on one narrow type of data about a particular (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  25. Actual Causation and the Challenge of Purpose.Enno Fischer - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-21.
    This paper explores the prospects of employing a functional approach in order to improve our concept of actual causation. Claims of actual causation play an important role for a variety of purposes. In particular, they are relevant for identifying suitable targets for intervention, and they are relevant for our practices of ascribing responsibility. I argue that this gives rise to the challenge of purpose. The challenge of purpose arises when different goals demand adjustments of the concept that pull in opposing (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  26. Mental Causation.David Robb & John Heil - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Worries about mental causation are prominent in contemporary discussions of the mind and human agency. Originally, the problem of mental causation was that of understanding how a mental substance (thought to be immaterial) could interact with a material substance, a body. Most philosophers nowadays repudiate immaterial minds, but the problem of mental causation has not gone away. Instead, focus has shifted to mental properties. How could mental properties be causally relevant to bodily behavior? How could something mental qua mental cause (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  27. Causation and Time Reversal.Matt Farr - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (1):177-204.
    What would it be for a process to happen backwards in time? Would such a process involve different causal relations? It is common to understand the time-reversal invariance of a physical theory in causal terms, such that whatever can happen forwards in time can also happen backwards in time. This has led many to hold that time-reversal symmetry is incompatible with the asymmetry of cause and effect. This article critiques the causal reading of time reversal. First, I argue that the (...)
    Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  28. Causation and persistence: a theory of causation.Douglas Ehring - 1997 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Ehring shows the inadequacy of received theories of causation, and, introducing conceptual devices of his own, provides a wholly new account of causation as the persistence over time of individual properties, or "tropes.".
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   75 citations  
  29.  49
    Fundamental Causation: Physics, Metaphysics, and the Deep Structure of the World.Christopher Gregory Weaver - 2019 - New York: Routledge.
    Fundamental Causation addresses issues in the metaphysics of deterministic singular causation, the metaphysics of events, property instances, facts, preventions, and omissions, as well as the debate between causal reductionists and causal anti-reductionists. The book also pays special attention to causation and causal structure in physics. Weaver argues that causation is a multigrade obtaining relation that is transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetric. When causation is singular, deterministic and such that it relates purely contingent events, the relation is also universal, intrinsic, and well-founded. (...)
  30. Causation and Its Basis in Fundamental Physics.Douglas Kutach - 2013 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    I provide a comprehensive metaphysics of causation based on the idea that fundamentally things are governed by the laws of physics, and that derivatively difference-making can be assessed in terms of what fundamental laws of physics imply for hypothesized events. Highlights include a general philosophical methodology, the fundamental/derivative distinction, and my mature account of causal asymmetry.
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  31.  47
    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.
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  32. Causation, norms, and omissions: A study of causal judgments.Randolph Clarke, Joshua Shepherd, John Stigall, Robyn Repko Waller & Chris Zarpentine - 2015 - Philosophical Psychology 28 (2):279-293.
    Many philosophical theories of causation are egalitarian, rejecting a distinction between causes and mere causal conditions. We sought to determine the extent to which people's causal judgments discriminate, selecting as causes counternormal events—those that violate norms of some kind—while rejecting non-violators. We found significant selectivity of this sort. Moreover, priming that encouraged more egalitarian judgments had little effect on subjects. We also found that omissions are as likely as actions to be judged as causes, and that counternormative selectivity appears to (...)
    Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  33. Causation in the social sciences: Evidence, inference, and purpose.Julian Reiss - 2009 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (1):20-40.
    All univocal analyses of causation face counterexamples. An attractive response to this situation is to become a pluralist about causal relationships. "Causal pluralism" is itself, however, a pluralistic notion. In this article, I argue in favor of pluralism about concepts of cause in the social sciences. The article will show that evidence for, inference from, and the purpose of causal claims are very closely linked. Key Words: causation • pluralism • evidence • methodology.
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  34. Agent causation as the solution to all the compatibilist’s problems.Ned Markosian - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 157 (3):383-398.
    In a recent paper I argued that agent causation theorists should be compatibilists. In this paper, I argue that compatibilists should be agent causation theorists. I consider six of the main problems facing compatibilism: (i) the powerful intuition that one can't be responsible for actions that were somehow determined before one was born; (ii) Peter van Inwagen's modal argument, involving the inference rule (β); (iii) the objection to compatibilism that is based on claiming that the ability to do otherwise is (...)
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  35. Running Causation Aground.Holly Andersen - 2023 - The Monist 106 (3):255-269.
    The reduction of grounding to causation, or each to a more general relation of which they are species, has sometimes been justified by the impressive inferential capacity of structural equation modelling, causal Bayes nets, and interventionist causal modelling. Many criticisms of this assimilation focus on how causation is inadequate for grounding. Here, I examine the other direction: how treating grounding in the image of causation makes the resulting view worse for causation. The distinctive features of causal modelling that make this (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  36. Mental Causation for Standard Dualists.Bram Vaassen - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of causation, it is (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. Causation, Chance, and the Rational Significance of Supernatural Evidence.Huw Price - 2012 - Philosophical Review 121 (4):483-538.
    In “A Subjectivist’s Guide to Objective Chance,” David Lewis says that he is “led to wonder whether anyone but a subjectivist is in a position to understand objective chance.” The present essay aims to motivate this same Lewisean attitude, and a similar degree of modest subjectivism, with respect to objective causation. The essay begins with Newcomb problems, which turn on an apparent tension between two principles of choice: roughly, a principle sensitive to the causal features of the relevant situation, and (...)
    Direct download (11 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  38. Causation as influence.David Lewis - 2000 - Journal of Philosophy 97 (4):182-197.
  39. Mental causation.Stephen Yablo - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):245-280.
  40. Mental Causation, Autonomy and Action Theory.Dwayne Moore - 2022 - Erkenntnis 87 (1):53-73.
    Nonreductive physicalism states that actions have sufficient physical causes and distinct mental causes. Nonreductive physicalism has recently faced the exclusion problem, according to which the single sufficient physical cause excludes the mental causes from causal efficacy. Autonomists respond by stating that while mental-to-physical causation fails, mental-to-mental causation persists. Several recent philosophers establish this autonomy result via similar models of causation :1031–1049, 2016; Zhong, J Philos 111:341–360, 2014). In this paper I argue that both of these autonomist models fail on account (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  41. Causation by disconnection.Jonathan Schaffer - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (2):285-300.
    The physical and/or intrinsic connection approach to causation has become prominent in the recent literature, with Salmon, Dowe, Menzies, and Armstrong among its leading proponents. I show that there is a type of causation, causation by disconnection, with no physical or intrinsic connection between cause and effect. Only Hume-style conditions approaches and hybrid conditions-connections approaches appear to be able to handle causation by disconnection. Some Hume-style, extrinsic, absence-relating, necessary and/or sufficient condition component of the causal relation proves to be needed.
    Direct download (9 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   107 citations  
  42. Causation and Counterfactuals.John Collins, Ned Hall & Laurie Paul (eds.) - 2004 - MIT Press.
    Thirty years after Lewis's paper, this book brings together some of the most important recent work connecting—or, in some cases, disputing the connection ...
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   154 citations  
  43.  82
    Physical Causation.Phil Dowe - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This book, published in 2000, is a clear account of causation based firmly in contemporary science. Dowe discusses in a systematic way, a positive account of causation: the conserved quantities account of causal processes which he has been developing over the last ten years. The book describes causal processes and interactions in terms of conserved quantities: a causal process is the worldline of an object which possesses a conserved quantity, and a causal interaction involves the exchange of conserved quantities. Further, (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   229 citations  
  44. Causation as simultaneous and continuous.Michael Huemer & Ben Kovitz - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213):556–565.
    We propose that all actual causes are simultaneous with their direct effects, as illustrated by both everyday examples and the laws of physics. We contrast this view with the sequential conception of causation, according to which causes must occur prior to their effects. The key difference between the two views of causation lies in differing assumptions about the mathematical structure of time.
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   48 citations  
  45. Actual causation: a stone soup essay.Clark Glymour, David Danks, Bruce Glymour, Frederick Eberhardt, Joseph Ramsey & Richard Scheines - 2010 - Synthese 175 (2):169-192.
    We argue that current discussions of criteria for actual causation are ill-posed in several respects. (1) The methodology of current discussions is by induction from intuitions about an infinitesimal fraction of the possible examples and counterexamples; (2) cases with larger numbers of causes generate novel puzzles; (3) "neuron" and causal Bayes net diagrams are, as deployed in discussions of actual causation, almost always ambiguous; (4) actual causation is (intuitively) relative to an initial system state since state changes are relevant, but (...)
    Direct download (10 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   32 citations  
  46. Causation and laws of nature.Max Kistler - 2006 - London: Routledge. Edited by Michael Beaney.
    Causation is important. It is, as Hume said, the cement of the universe, and lies at the heart of our conceptual structure. Causation is one of the most fundamental tools we have for organizing our apprehension of the external world and ourselves. But philosophers' disagreement about the correct interpretation of causation is as limitless as their agreement about its importance. The history of attempts to elucidate the nature of this concept and to situate it with respect to other fundamental concepts (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  47. Mental Causation.Sophie Gibb - 2014 - Analysis 74 (2):327-338.
  48. Mental causation: Compulsion by reason.Bill Brewer - 1995 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 69:237-253.
    The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens - she intentionally φ’s - the occurrence of which we explain by citing a relevant belief or desire. In the present context, I simply take for granted the following two conditions on the appropriateness of this explanation. First, the agent φ’s _because_ she believes/desires what we say she does, where this is expressive of a _causal_ dependence.1 Second, her believing/desiring this gives her a _reason_ for (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  49. Redundant causation.Michael McDermott - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):523-544.
    I propose an amendment of Lewis's counterfactual analysis of causation, designed to overcome some difficulties concerning redundant causation.
    Direct download (13 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   121 citations  
  50. Causation and Explanation.Stathis Psillos - 2003 - McGill-Queen's University Press.
    In the section on laws of nature, Psillos considers both the regularity view of laws and laws as relations among universals as well as alternative approaches to laws. In the final section on explanation he examines in detail the issues arising from deductive-nomological explanation and statistical explanation before considering the explanation of laws and the metaphysics of explanation. Accessible to students of all levels the author provides an excellent introduction to one of the most enduring problems of philosophy.
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   84 citations  
1 — 50 / 993