17 found
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  1. Bread prices and sea levels: why probabilistic causal models need to be monotonic.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2024 - Philosophical Studies (9):1-16.
    A key challenge for probabilistic causal models is to distinguish non-causal probabilistic dependencies from true causal relations. To accomplish this task, causal models are usually required to satisfy several constraints. Two prominent constraints are the causal Markov condition and the faithfulness condition. However, other constraints are also needed. One of these additional constraints is the causal sufficiency condition, which states that models must not omit any direct common causes of the variables they contain. In this paper, I argue that the (...)
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  2. The Metaphysics of Extrinsic Properties.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2010 - Ontos-Verlag.
    This book aims to develop a philosophical theory of extrinsic properties – of properties whose instantiation by an object does not only depend on what the object itself is like, but also on features of its environment. Various accounts of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction are analysed in detail, and it is argued that the most promising approach to defining this distinction is to consider extrinsic properties as a particular type of relational property. Moreover, it is shown that two key notions in (...)
  3. Defining Qualitative Properties.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (5):995-1010.
    The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic account of the metaphysically important distinction between haecceitistic properties, such as being David Lewis or being acquainted with David Lewis, and qualitative properties, such as being red or being acquainted with a famous philosopher. I first argue that this distinction is hyperintensional, that is, that cointensional properties can differ in whether they are qualitative. Then I develop an analysis of the qualitative/haecceitistic distinction according to which haecceitistic properties are relational in (...)
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  4.  73
    Interventionism and Non-Causal Dependence Relations: New Work for a Theory of Supervenience.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (4):679-694.
    ABSTRACT Causes must be distinct from their effects. If the temperature in a room is 15°F, this can cause water pipes to freeze. However, the temperature’s being 15°F is not a cause of the temperature’s being below the freezing point. In general, conceptual, logical, mathematical, and other non-causal dependence relations should not be misclassified as causal. In this paper, I discuss how interventionist theories of causation can meet the challenge of distinguishing between (direct or indirect) causal relations and dependence relations (...)
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  5. Interventionism and Higher-level Causation.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2014 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 28 (1):49-64.
    Several authors have recently claimed that the notorious causal exclusion problem, according to which higher-level causes are threatened with causal pre-emption by lower-level causes, can be avoided if causal relevance is understood in terms of Woodward's interventionist account of causation. They argue that if causal relevance is defined in interventionist terms, there are cases where only higher-level properties, but not the lower-level properties underlying them, qualify as causes of a certain effect. In this article, I show that the line of (...)
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  6. Graded Causation and Moral Responsibility.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss & Matthias Rolffs - 2024 - Erkenntnis:1-19.
    Theories of graded causation attract growing attention in the philosophical debate on causation. An important field of application is the controversial relationship between causation and moral responsibility. However, it is still unclear how exactly the notion of graded causation should be understood in the context of moral responsibility. One question is whether we should endorse a proportionality principle, according to which the degree of an agent’s moral responsibility is proportionate to their degree of causal contribution. A second question is whether (...)
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  7. Three Kinds of Causal Indeterminacy.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    The goal of this paper is to argue that there is indeterminacy in causation. I present three types of cases in which it is indeterminate whether an event c caused another event e: (1) cases of absence causation recently discussed by Bernstein and by Swanson, (2) cases leading to Sorites paradoxes for causation, and (3) cases where c and e occur in certain indeterministic causal structures and it is therefore indeterminate whether there is a causal relation between them. These cases, (...)
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  8. On a sufficient condition for hyperintensionality.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260):336-354.
    Let an X/Y distinction be a distinction between kinds of properties, such as the distinctions between qualitative and non-qualitative, intrinsic and extrinsic, perfectly natural and less-than-perfectly natural or dispositional and categorical properties. An X/Y distinction is hyperintensional iff there are cointensional properties P and Q, such that P is an X-property, whereas Q is a Y-property. Many accounts of metaphysical distinctions among properties presuppose that such distinctions are non-hyperintensional. In this paper, I call this presupposition into question. I develop a (...)
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  9.  87
    Is the Intrinsic/Extrinsic Distinction Hyperintensional?Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2014 - In Robert M. Francescotti (ed.), Companion to Intrinsic Properties. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 157-173.
    Several authors have recently claimed that the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties is hyperintensional, i.e., that there are cointensional properties P and Q, such that P is intrinsic, while Q is extrinsic. In this paper, I aim to defend the classical view that whenever P and Q are cointensional properties, then P and Q are either both intrinsic or both extrinsic. I first argue that the standard characterization of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction involves dependence claims: intrinsic properties are those properties (...)
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  10. What Can Causal Powers Do for Interventionism? The Problem of Logically Complex Causes.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2023 - In Christopher J. Austin, Anna Marmodoro & Andrea Roselli (eds.), Powers, Parts and Wholes: Essays on the Mereology of Powers. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 130-141.
    Analyzing causation in terms of Woodward's interventionist theory and describing the structure of the world in terms of causal powers are usually regarded as quite different projects in contemporary philosophy. Interventionists aim to give an account of how causal relations can be empirically discovered and described, without committing themselves to views about what causation really is. Causal powers theorists engage in precisely the latter project, aiming to describe the metaphysical structure of the world. In this paper, I argue that interventionism (...)
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  11. Of brains and planets: on a causal criterion for mind-brain identities.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2016 - Synthese 193 (4):1177-1189.
    Whether mental properties are identical with neural properties is one of the central questions of contemporary philosophy of mind. Many philosophers agree that even if mental properties are identical with neural properties, the mind-brain identity thesis cannot be established on empirical grounds, but only be vindicated by theoretical philosophical considerations. In his paper ‘When Is a Brain Like the Planet?’, Clark Glymour proposes a causal criterion for local property identifications and claims that this criterion can be used to empirically establish (...)
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  12. Why Intrinsicness Should Be Defined in a Non-reductive Way.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2018 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 95:1-14.
    Defining the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties has turned out to be one of the most difficult and controversial tasks in contemporary metaphysics. It is generally assumed that a definition of intrinsicness should aim to avoid as many counterexamples as possible and reduce the notion to less controversial philosophical notions. In this paper, the author argues for a new methodological approach to defining intrinsicness. Rather than trying to cover as many intuitive examples as possible, a definition of intrinsicness should (...)
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  13. Wie viele Arten von Möglichkeit gibt es? Ein Kommentar zu Barbara Vetters "Möglichkeit ohne mögliche Welten".Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2022 - Philosophisches Jahrbuch 129 (2):298-306.
    One implication of Vetter's theory of modality is that necessity and possibility are regarded as unitary natural kinds. In this paper, I argue that from the perspective of the philosophy of causation, there are good reasons to distinguish between different kinds of necessity: causal necessity, which is nomologically necessary, and non-causal necessity, which is metaphysically necessary. One challenge for Vetter's approach is to explain this distinction.
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  14.  34
    Handbuch Philosophie des Geistes.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss & Nicole Rathgeb (eds.) - 2019 - J.B. Metzler.
    Welchen Status haben mentale Zustände, wie bewusste Empfindungen, Wünsche, Überzeugungen oder Emotionen, in einer physikalischen Welt? Lassen sich alle derartigen Zustände auf Hirnzustände reduzieren? Was genau zeichnet mentale Zustände aus, und was können wir über die mentalen Zustände unserer Mitmenschen wissen? Dieses Handbuch liefert einen systematischen Überblick über Positionen und Fragestellungen in der Philosophie des Geistes. Ein zentrales Themengebiet ist dabei das Verhältnis zwischen mentalen Zuständen und Hirnzuständen: physikalistische und nicht-physikalistische Ansätze sowie das Problem der mentalen Verursachung. Darüber hinaus werden (...)
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  15. (1 other version)Intrinsic/extrinsic.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2024 - In A. R. J. Fisher & Anna-Sofia Maurin (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Properties. London: Routledge.
    A property is intrinsic iff individuals have it in virtue of how they themselves are, not in virtue of their relations to other individuals; a property is extrinsic iff it is not intrinsic. Being a cube and being an electron are intrinsic properties; being next to a cube, and being repelled by an electron are extrinsic properties. The debate about the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties revolves around the following two questions: (1) Can the distinction be analysed in terms (...)
     
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  16. Intrinsische und extrinsische Eigenschaften.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2017 - In Markus Andreas Schrenk (ed.), Handbuch Metaphysik (German). Stuttgart: Metzler. pp. 103-109.
     
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  17. Logik.Vera Hoffmann-Kolss - 2013 - In A. Stephan & S. Walter (eds.), Handbuch Kognitionswissenschaft. J.B. Metzler. pp. 145-151.